SCCM

SCCM 2012 – Change Incremental Update Evaluation

System Center Configuration Manager 2012 brought the possibility for a collection to refresh its members using Incremental Update.  It means that the collection will periodically  evaluate new resources only, and does not execute a Full Update Membership.

SCCM Collection Incremental

SCCM Collection Incremental

By default, the interval is set to every 5 minutes. But if you want to increase or decrease it, you can do it easily with the SCCM Console.

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WindowsServer

WSIM – Cannot create catalog file

I had a issue with Windows System Image Manager (WSIM) when I tried to create a catalog from Windows 8.1 WIM file. Even if it was start with full Administrator rights, I got this error:

“Cannot obtain read/write access for … In order to generate a catalog file, you must have read/write access to the Windows image file and its containing folder.”

WSIM Can not create catalog

WSIM Cannot obtain read/write access

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WindowsServer

Server 2012 – Enable DHCP Failover Cluster

Windows Server 2012 introduced a new feature with the DHCP Service: the built-in DHCP Failover Cluster. This function was requested for a long time.

Before Server 2012, if you want to failover your DHCP, two possibilities:

  • Create a real cluster, and add the DHCP role.
  • Split the scope between two servers. With Server 2008, a Wizard simplifies this task.

In Windows Server 2012, it is really simple to add High Availability for DHCP Service. Each server can release lease to client and the information is synchronised between all failover members.

Let’s see how to implement the Failover Configuration:

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Exchange-1

Exchange 2013 – Restart all services with Powershell

When you want to fully restart Microsoft Exchange Services, you can not do this by restarting a single service. You have to stop and start each Exchange Service :

Exchange All Services

Exchange All Services

Powershell

Fortunately, we can restart each service using Powershell script:

#Get List of Microsoft Exchange Services
$services = Get-Service | ? { $_.name -like "MSExchange*" -and $_.Status -eq "Running"}
 
#Restart each service
foreach ($service in $services)
{
	Restart-Service $service.name -Force
}
Exchange Powershell Restart Services

Exchange Powershell Restart Services

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Active Directory 2012

Active Directory – How to display Bitlocker Recovery Key

When Bitlocker is enabled on workstation/ laptop in your entreprise, you must have a solution to get the recovery key of the hard drive. In some cases, Bitlocker can prompt to the user the Recovery key if it detects a specific behavior like partition changes.

The easiest solution is to use Active Directory Users And Computers console. This can only be possible if you set in the GPO to store Recovery Key into Active Directory.

With Active Directory Users And Computers, we can:

  • Display Bitlocker Recovery key for one computer.
  • Search in all Active Directory for a Password ID.
  • Delegate Rights to display confidential information.

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Exchange-1

Exchange 2013 – VSS backup does not clean logs 800423f3

In Exchange Server 2013, I got one backup issue with Veeam Backup, but the problem occurs with all VSS backup solutions. I was able to reproduce the issue with Windows Server backup role.

In fact, when I checked the mailbox database folder, all transactions logs were not deleted after the backup, even if the backup is reported as successful.

VSS Backup logs not deleted

VSS Backup logs not deleted

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Windows 8.1

Windows 8.1 – Force Start Menu Layout

When you deploy Windows 8.1 in your environnement, you may define a strategy to force all users to have the same Start Menu Layout. This layout was defined by IT Team and will be provide to all computers.

For example, I set a custom layout: I added some tools and application groups:

Windows 8.1 Custom Start Menu

Windows 8.1 Custom Start Menu

If you want to deploy this Start Menu Layout, you can do it with:

  • Powershell cmdlet on the computer
  • ConfigMgr (SCCM)
  • Group Policy

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