Tips N Tricks

Various Tips and Tricks

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Hyper-V Did Not Find Virtual Machines to Import – Error 32784

Posted on by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

When importing a VM into Windows Server 2012 that was exported from Windows 2012 R2 you will be unable to import the VM.  If you import the VM using PowerShell’s Import-VM cmdlet the error message is not very descriptive – “The operation cannot be performed because the object is not in a valid state”.  You will also find EventID 15040 in the VMMS event log. 

The operation cannot be performed because the object is not in a valid state

The full error message for … Read the rest “Hyper-V Did Not Find Virtual Machines to Import – Error 32784”

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PowerShell Input Output Escapades

Posted on by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

After using various types, architectures and generations of computers over the years there is always the habit of “you go to what you know!”  In other words once you figure out a solution to an issue, you then use that repeatedly in the future as you know the process/steps involved.  This adroitly describes me when it comes to doing certain command line tasks.  If I were being a bit… Read the rest “PowerShell Input Output Escapades”

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Quick Tip – Event Viewer Filtering

Posted on 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 “Quick Tip – Event Viewer Filtering”
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Retrieving Packets Received Discarded Perfmon Counter From Multiple Servers

Posted on by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

Whilst working on a customer’s Exchange 2010 DAG issue, I wrote a quick script to quickly grab some performance monitor counters from all of their Exchange servers.  The issue that we were investigating was related to discarded packets when the VM was running on a certain hypervisor host.  The customer had moved their Exchange VMs to a new host and after doing so they were experiencing cluster iss… Read the rest “Retrieving Packets Received Discarded Perfmon Counter From Multiple Servers”

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Outlook 2013 Distorted Display Issues

Posted on by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

After a recent video driver update, my corporate Outlook client started to do some strange things.  Within Office 2013, the screen output would be distorted.  Menu bars were not painted properly until I mouse-over them again, or moved Office programs around.  Other times the display would look corrupted and the navigation tree would not be properly rendered.

Update 16-7-2014:  Adding link to Office 2… Read the rest “Outlook 2013 Distorted Display Issues”

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Exchange and AntiVirus Exclusions – Still A Critical Conversation

Posted on by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

Security DoohickeyIn a previous post we saw the Microsoft requirements for the exclusions that must be added to file system AV on Exchange servers.  In a recent CritSit, basically an uber urgent support request where the customer is down or as good as down, I also got to examine some of the other causes for file system AV not being correctly configured for Exchange.

In the aforementioned post the majority of the… Read the rest “Exchange and AntiVirus Exclusions – Still A Critical Conversation”

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PowerShell Pipeline Perversion

Posted on by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

Every so often I see folks run into issues with scripts/one-liners that they obtained from a blog or crafted themselves.  One common issue is when they think the command is perfect and then when they go to dump the output to a file, the content is mince.  **

Imagine your surprise when you open up the output file expecting pristine data, and it starts with:

#TYPE Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.Interna

… Read the rest “PowerShell Pipeline Perversion”
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Exchange Scripting Agent – The Power Of Script

Posted on by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]
Exchange Scripting Agent Integration

Exchange 2010 introduced a very interesting feature – the Scripting Agent.  The intent for this component is to provide extensibility to the base management tools and ensure consistency for the execution of cmdlets in the environment.  The feature is not enabled by default and you must manually enable it if you want to leverage the Scripting Agent.

If you are looking for a way to  set default optio… Read the rest “Exchange Scripting Agent – The Power Of Script”

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How To Request Certificate Without Using IIS or Exchange

Posted on by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

The blog post on how to integrate Office 365 with Windows 2012 R2 AD FS raised an interesting question from a reader (Hi Eric!) on how should he request a certificate for the AD FS instance since there is no longer an IIS dependency.  This means that there is no longer an IIS console to generate a certificate request with.  What to do?

You could generate a certificate request, complete it and then e… Read the rest “How To Request Certificate Without Using IIS or Exchange”

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How To Disable Remote Desktop Printer Mapping

Posted on 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”