250 Hello - ProTips

0

Quick Tip–Adding Same ISO DVD Image To All Hyper-V Lab VMs

Posted on 18th August 2017 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

When building out a lab, you might need to attach the same ISO to multiple VMs. In this case I was installing multiple Exchange 2016 severs, and wanted to easily add the same ISO file to each of the VMs.

This was on my Windows 10 laptop which makes quick work of the task since we can use PowerShell.

The VMs to target all have the same naming convention. The VMs for the Exchange 2016 lab start with… Read the rest “Quick Tip–Adding Same ISO DVD Image To All Hyper-V Lab VMs”

0

Quick Tip Windows 10 – Unable To Stop Device Notification

Posted on 14th April 2017 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

This is one of those little things that make life much, much easier. Imagine the scenario; you go to eject a USB disk drive or USB flash and Windows tells you that it is still in use. How to track down which application is using the drive?

Eject, Eject, Eject

In the below example, the USB flash drive E: will be ejected. Or at least, we will try...

Alas, no! There is a problem ejecting the USB mas… Read the rest “Quick Tip Windows 10 – Unable To Stop Device Notification”

2

Quick Tip: Is There A Shortcut URL To Download Online Sign In Assistant

Posted on 16th November 2016 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

For those wondering what the download page is for the Microsoft Online Services Sign In Assistant, using your favourite search engine in your favourite browser is one choice.

Alternatively you can use the handy dandy shortcut URL:

https://aka.ms/SIA

This will take you to the latest version of the Sign In Assistant download page.

For reference purposes, the intent of the Sign-In Assis… Read the rest “Quick Tip: Is There A Shortcut URL To Download Online Sign In Assistant”

1

Quick Tip: Is There A Shortcut URL To Download Azure AD PowerShell?

Posted on 19th June 2015 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

Yes Virginia there is! *

For those wondering what the download page is for the Azure Active Directory PowerShell module, using your favourite search engine is one choice.

Another is to memorise the below handy shortcut URL:

https://aka.ms/aadposh

Which is take you directly to the manage Azure AD using PowerShell documentation/download.

Cheers,

Rhoderick

* – For non-US folks, the “Yes Virginia” response co… Read the rest “Quick Tip: Is There A Shortcut URL To Download Azure AD PowerShell?”

0

Quick Tip: What Restarts Has Managed Availability Issued

Posted on 14th February 2015 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

Exchange 2013 introduced the Managed Availability feature to provide a very capable automated monitoring and management framework. Managed Availability allows Exchange to self diagnose and to self correct issues without having to escalate to a carbon life based unit for every issue. Whilst Managed Availability may still have to page humans, the frequency is certainly reduced compared to Exchange… Read the rest “Quick Tip: What Restarts Has Managed Availability Issued”

1

Quick Tip – Event Viewer Filtering

Posted on 6th August 2014 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

I was recently reminded of a simple yet effective Event Viewer filtering tip. If you have thousands of event entries that are pollution/flooding the log it becomes very difficult to see the actual real issues.

For example this tip has proved very useful when the application event log is full of these types of noise:

EventID 1 from MSExchange Autodiscover stating Unhandled Ex

… Read the rest

0

How To Disable Remote Desktop Printer Mapping

Posted on 2nd June 2014 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

After doing Exchange Risk Assessment (ExRAP) and Exchange Risk Assessment As A Service for almost four years, one thing continues to irritate my OCD personality! When I look at the event logs on an Exchange server, the logs should be a sea of blue. That is there should be no errors as that indicates something is not quite right and should be addressed.

Opening up the system event log on numerous c… Read the rest “How To Disable Remote Desktop Printer Mapping”

2

Registry Editor Favourites – Who Knew?

Posted on 21st May 2014 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

When I was in Seattle for some internal training in January, one of the chaps delivering a demo used a feature that I wish I’d known about previously. When he was demonstrating some of the update mechanics for Office Pro Plus he immediately skipped to the correct portion of the registry by using a shortcut feature in Registry Editor.

Yes, there is a favourites bookmark feature!

Update 20-8-2014: Ad… Read the rest “Registry Editor Favourites – Who Knew?”

1

Quick Tip – Sending Multiple Test Emails Using PowerShell (AKA Mailstorm)

Posted on 30th September 2013 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

Mailstorm.exe was a utility to send multiple test emails to validate and test Exchange in the 5.5 timeframe, and was used on some of the Microsoft Official Curriculum (MOC) courses.

The utility is no longer used since relied upon a local Outlook install, and my fuzzy brain recalls issues with moving to "current" versions of Outlook such as Office XP.

This is no great loss as it is easy to send test … Read the rest “Quick Tip – Sending Multiple Test Emails Using PowerShell (AKA Mailstorm)”