Windows – Page 2 – The knack

Windows 10–1607–LinkedConnections

Posted by nickekallen on March 19, 2017 in Windows 0 Comment

So, lots of things have to fall into place for this to take effect, but here we go….

If you have UAC enabled (in some form or another) and have users that are able to run in two different contexts (elevated and non-elevated) with the same user account – it means that they are local administrators on the device. It also means…

.. that if they map a network drive in one context it will not be visible in the other context by default.

Microsoft created the great Linked Connection which will automatically allow the mapping of a network drive to be visible in both contexts.

Well, since roughly October 2016 this stopped working if you were running Windows 10 – 1607 with the October 2016 patch, and the user was local administrator on the device and mapped a drive in one context and also expected the EnableLinkedConnections to provide a smooth user experience – it simply stopped working.

To add insult to injury – if you map a drive within a login-script; the default context is elevated so the non-elevated process (such as explorer.exe) will not show the mapped drive.

As far as I can tell this is not listed as a known defect. Therefore its not listed as a fixed defect in the March 2017 patch for Windows (so, october.. november… december.. 6 months in total in a non-working state). According to Google (oh, what a reliable source for anything named Microsoft) Windows 10 – 1607 was noted as Business Ready (Current Business Branch) since 29 November 2016.

Ready for business, eh? Well – at least one step further….

Group Policy Preference and Scheduled Tasks

Posted by nickekallen on February 23, 2017 in Windows 1 Comment

For some reason it’s always the details in the basics that are the longest hurdle to get over. This particular topic is something that always needs to be re-googled before the last details are sorted out.

Purpose

To create a schedule task to either run as the system-account or the interactive user via Group Policy Preference.

The detail:

When resolving SYSTEM the normally resolved identity is BUILTIN\SYSTEM. Interactive is normally not able to resolve at all. This normally results in the following error client side when attempting to apply the Group Policy

‘0x80070534 No mapping between account names and security IDs was done.’

What should be done?

Click the Change User or Group and select the domain of your environment, and proceed to select the Builtin-container. This will resolve both Interactive (running in the user context of the logged on user) and system to NT Authority.

End-result;

MSI EXIT CODE 1935

Posted by nickekallen on February 12, 2015 in Windows 0 Comment

If the Windows Installer engine fails with a generic exit code of 1935 – I usually spent a few hours troubleshooting the machine in pure nerdy interest. Here are a few tips gathered to save myself and hopefully someone else time.

Quite often the issue lies that you are chasing a red-herring. The error code you may get back is either a generic access denied or a file not found. Reviewing all the activity with Process Monitor quite seldom gives any direct hints as there are numerous red herrings that will lead one astray.

After 1h tracking this particular issue – gathering ones thoughts for the future seemed the easiest.

ERROR:Error 1935.An error occurred during the installation of assembly 'Microsoft.VC80.ATL,type="win32",version="8.0.50727.42",publicKeyToken="1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b",processorArchitecture="amd64"'

In order of preference – try the following

Ensure that the folder C:\WINDOWS\WINSXS\TEMP and C:\WINDOWS\WINSXS\INSTALLTEMP exist and that the administrative group aswell as the system account has full access to it.

Run SFC /SCANNOW

Similiar posts;

One of possible solutions to: Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable installation error 1935 with HRESULT 0x8007005

Error 1935 when you try to install Microsoft Office 2010 or 2007

Troubleshooting 1935 and 2908 errors during installation

WMI Hotfixes for Windows 7 x64

Posted by nickekallen on September 21, 2014 in Windows 0 Comment

##################################################
WMI
##################################################
You cannot overwrite an exported event log file by using the Wevtutil.exe tool in Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 8, and Windows Server 2012
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2797789/en-us
Files Updated:
Wevtsvc.dll
6.1.7601.22213
1,650,176
09-Jan-2013

Profile loading takes a long time due to full DFS namespace sync with PDC
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2915094/en-us

Files Updated:
Profprov.dll
6.1.7601.22575
33,792
18-Jan-2014

Profsvc.dll
6.1.7601.22575
225,280
18-Jan-2014

Profsvc.ptxml
Not applicable
648
13-Jul-2009

Userprofilewmiprovider.mof
Not applicable
10,708
13-Jul-2009

High memory usage by the Svchost.exe process after you install Windows Management Framework 3.0 on a Windows-based computer
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2889748
Files Updated:
Wmidcprv.dll
6.2.9200.16398
180,736
04-Jul-2013

Wmiprvsd.dll
6.2.9200.16706
724,992
26-Sep-2013

Wmiprvse.exe
6.2.9200.16398
432,128
04-Jul-2013

Wmidcprv.dll
6.2.9200.16398
180,736
09-Jul-2013

Wmiprvsd.dll
6.2.9200.20813
724,992
26-Sep-2013

Wmiprvse.exe
6.2.9200.16398
432,128
09-Jul-2013

Wmidcprv.dll
6.2.9200.16398
129,536
26-Sep-2013

Wmiprvse.exe
6.2.9200.16398
328,704
26-Sep-2013

Wmidcprv.dll
6.2.9200.16398
129,536
26-Sep-2013

Wmiprvse.exe
6.2.9200.16398
328,704

An update that prevents a “0xC0000034” error message when you try to install Windows 7 SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, or Windows Embedded Standard 7 SP1 is available
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2533552/en-us
Alot of files are updated

Forwarded events cannot be displayed in Event Viewer on a Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2-based computer
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2794427/en-us
Files Updated:
Wevtsvc.dll
6.1.7601.22213
1,650,176
09-Jan-2013

Wmiprvse.exe process crashes when you run a WMI script on a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2833001/en-us
Files Updated:
Cimwin32.dll
6.1.7601.22296
2,059,264
10-Apr-2013

Unexpectedly slow startup or logon process in Windows Server 2008 R2 or in Windows 7
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2617858
Files Updated:
Repdrvfs.dll
6.1.7601.21824
453,632
21-Sep-2011

An application or service that queries information about a failover cluster by using the WMI provider may experience low performance or a time-out exception
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/974930
Files Updated:
Clussvc.exe
6.1.7600.20517
4,579,840
28-Aug-2009

Cluswmi.dll
6.1.7600.20517
540,160
28-Aug-2009

Cluswmi.mof
Not Applicable
76,540
28-Aug-2009

Cluswmiuninstall.mof
Not Applicable
176
13-Jul-2009

Office 2013 and unique AppV PKG Id

Posted by nickekallen on July 22, 2014 in App-V, Office 0 Comment

Want to generate an Office 2013 package with a unique App-V package id? Use the property PACKAGEGUID!

Sample XML

See more at the reference documentation!

Office 365 / 2013 and App-V – Exclude apps

Posted by nickekallen on July 14, 2014 in App-V, Deployment, Office 4 Comments

With the latest release (June 5) of Office Deployment Tool there is the ability to exclude applications when creating a package. For example, if you don’t want to deploy – say Lync? – even though you are technically licensed for it.

How does it work?

Create your XML-file

The XML defines what product you want to deploy / create an App-V package for.

A reference can be found on Technet, with the entire list of all applications that can be excluded. Do note that each application you want to exclude is a new line within the XML-file

<Configuration>

<Add SourcePath="c:\media\" OfficeClientEdition="32" >
<Product ID="O365ProPlusRetail">
<Language ID="en-us" />
<ExcludeApp ID="Access" />
<ExcludeApp ID="InfoPath" />
<ExcludeApp ID="Lync" />
</Product>
</Add>
<Display Level="None" AcceptEULA="TRUE" />
<Property Name="AUTOACTIVATE" Value="1" />
</Configuration>

Run the command-line

Download source media;

 setup.exe /download c:\media\configuration.xml

Create the App-V package;

setup.exe /packager c:\media\configuration.xml c:\media\package

Now you have a package!

Just to deploy!

Remember, Office is only supported to be deployed as a global package when using App-V

Office and its poor handling of slow-links

Posted by nickekallen on September 30, 2013 in Office 0 Comment

Office is and has been a core application for a quite a while within most Windows environments. This is a small list of things that have been adopted to make the user experience better for users not located close to the file-servers, or articles that allow you to understand why things happens.

Slow network performance when you open a file that is located in a shared folder on a remote network computer
Known issues with Office if Desktop or My Documents is redirected
An Office program is slow or may appear to stop responding (hang) when you open a file from a network location
Excel workbooks may open slowly over the network
Slow performance when you browse the My Documents folder in the document library in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2

and for the PST / OST-files;

Limits to using personal folders (.pst) files over LAN and WAN links
Network Stored PST files … don’t do it!

Access

Using a wan with ms-access? How fast, how far?

Office 2010 and App-V 5

Posted by nickekallen on May 14, 2013 in App-V, Office 0 Comment

Sequencing Office 2010 with App-V 5 is quite simple and actually less of a hassle compared to the instructions for the previous version of App-V (4.6). The instruction still requires full attention of the person executing them, but there are less steps to mix-up things with. Most likely – this is due to the new Virtual Extensions in App-V 5 that can more easily integrate any product into the operating system.

There is a known issue list posted by Microsoft that details some topics that are quite interesting and will present a few gotchas to any one deploying this.

And, as always; Read Aaron Parkers whitepaper regarding the virtualization of Office 2010 with App-V. It is a long document, but then again – if you fail to deliver office properly the negative spiral from end-users will drown you in work.

However, its quite a big task to virtualize Office and even with the simplified and more enabled virtual extensions – there are a few gotchas. Like this;

There are two Mail Control Panel applets published with the App-V 5.0 integration kit. The 64-bit version doesn’t work out of the box, most likely because its not supposed to be used at all if you are deploying a 32-bit version of Outlook. I can’t say that the same is true for the 32-bit applet if deploying 64-bit version of Outlook – that you may test on your own.

You can manually correct this by locating the following registry key;

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{005CB1F2-224F-4738-B051-91A96758F50C}\shell\open\command

Set the default value to REG_EXPAND_SZ to;

C:\ProgramData\App-V\CAA7FF95-824E-461C-8DBB-0FCB2431415D\F7ABB870-0634-445A-867A-5AB1D09C7BE5\Root\Client\AppVLP.exe" rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL "C:\ProgramData\App-V\CAA7FF95-824E-461C-8DBB-0FCB2431415D\F7ABB870-0634-445A-867A-5AB1D09C7BE5\Root\Office14\MLCFG32.CPL

Well – actually don’t. The above reference is the specific path to the unique guid of my personal package. Pick up _your_ specific path from the 32-bit key;

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{72F3C31D-95DE-4d79-9979-FB899BB89427}\shell\open\command

Keyboard Layouts–cleanup the languagebar

Posted by nickekallen on February 11, 2013 in Deployment, Windows 0 Comment

Want to get rid of excess language settings? In an European environment it can be quite nasty and if your organization truly spans across the globe – multiple settings can conflict. Here is to set the record straight and cleanup things properly from a default / mandatory profile along with some major HKLM cleanup to smoothly offer the right keyboard layout for users.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{0000897b-83df-4b96-be07-0fb58b01c4a4}\LanguageProfile\0x00000000\{0001bea3-ed56-483d-a2e2-aeae25577436}]
“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{03B5835F-F03C-411B-9CE2-AA23E1171E36}\LanguageProfile\0x00000411\{A76C93D9-5523-4E90-AAFA-4DB112F9AC76}]
“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{241A9AFE-5045-43a8-9F86-1B5E3814095C}\LanguageProfile\0x00000404\{0AEC109C-7E96-11D4-B2EF-0080C882687E}]
“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{241A9AFE-5045-43a8-9F86-1B5E3814095C}\LanguageProfile\0x00000404\{0B883BA0-C1C7-11D4-87F9-0080C882687E}]

“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{241A9AFE-5045-43a8-9F86-1B5E3814095C}\LanguageProfile\0x00000404\{B2F9C502-1742-11D4-9790-0080C882687E}]
“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{241A9AFE-5045-43a8-9F86-1B5E3814095C}\LanguageProfile\0x00000404\{F3BA907A-6C7E-11D4-97FA-0080C882687E}]

“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{3FC47A08-E5C9-4BCA-A2C7-BC9A282AED14}]
“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{3FC47A08-E5C9-4BCA-A2C7-BC9A282AED14}\LanguageProfile\0x00000804\{F3BA9077-6C7E-11D4-97FA-0080C882687E}]

“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{3FC47A08-E5C9-4BCA-A2C7-BC9A282AED14}\LanguageProfile\0x00000804\{FA550B04-5AD7-411f-A5AC-CA038EC515D7}]

“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{4518B9B5-7112-4855-B64F-2EC0DD2831E6}\LanguageProfile\0x00000411\{54EDCC94-1524-4bb1-9FB7-7BABE4F4CA64}]
“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{531FDEBF-9B4C-4A43-A2AA-960E8FCDC732}\LanguageProfile\0x00000404\{0B883BA0-C1C7-11D4-87F9-0080C882687E}]
“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{531FDEBF-9B4C-4A43-A2AA-960E8FCDC732}\LanguageProfile\0x00000404\{4BDF9F03-C7D3-11D4-B2AB-0080C882687E}]
“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{531FDEBF-9B4C-4A43-A2AA-960E8FCDC732}\LanguageProfile\0x00000404\{6024B45F-5C54-11D4-B921-0080C882687E}]
“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{531FDEBF-9B4C-4A43-A2AA-960E8FCDC732}\LanguageProfile\0x00000404\{761309DE-317A-11D4-9B5D-0080C882687E}]
“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{531FDEBF-9B4C-4A43-A2AA-960E8FCDC732}\LanguageProfile\0x00000404\{B2F9C502-1742-11D4-9790-0080C882687E}]
“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{531FDEBF-9B4C-4A43-A2AA-960E8FCDC732}\LanguageProfile\0x00000404\{F3BA907A-6C7E-11D4-97FA-0080C882687E}]
“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{81D4E9C9-1D3B-41BC-9E6C-4B40BF79E35E}\LanguageProfile\0x00000804\{F3BA9077-6C7E-11D4-97FA-0080C882687E}]
“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{81D4E9C9-1D3B-41BC-9E6C-4B40BF79E35E}\LanguageProfile\0x00000804\{FCA121D2-8C6D-41fb-B2DE-A2AD110D4820}]
“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{A028AE76-01B1-46C2-99C4-ACD9858AE02F}\LanguageProfile\0x00000412\{B5FE1F02-D5F2-4445-9C03-C568F23C99A1}]
“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{AE43355F-D71A-4E19-BB94-C23CCBF88F74}\LanguageProfile\0x00000412\{48878C45-93F9-4aaf-A6A1-272CD863C4F5}]
“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{E429B25A-E5D3-4D1F-9BE3-0C608477E3A1}\LanguageProfile\0x00000404\{037B2C25-480C-4D7F-B027-D6CA6B69788A}]
“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{E429B25A-E5D3-4D1F-9BE3-0C608477E3A1}\LanguageProfile\0x00000404\{D38EFF65-AA46-4FD5-91A7-67845FB02F5B}]

“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{E429B25A-E5D3-4D1F-9BE3-0C608477E3A1}\LanguageProfile\0x0000045e]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{E429B25A-E5D3-4D1F-9BE3-0C608477E3A1}\LanguageProfile\0x0000045e\{8F96574E-C86C-4bd6-9666-3F7327D4CBE8}]
“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{E429B25A-E5D3-4D1F-9BE3-0C608477E3A1}\LanguageProfile\0x00000478\{409C8376-007B-4357-AE8E-26316EE3FB0D}]
“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{E429B25A-E5D3-4D1F-9BE3-0C608477E3A1}\LanguageProfile\0x00000804]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{E429B25A-E5D3-4D1F-9BE3-0C608477E3A1}\LanguageProfile\0x00000804\{54FC610E-6ABD-4685-9DDD-A130BDF1B170}]
“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{E429B25A-E5D3-4D1F-9BE3-0C608477E3A1}\LanguageProfile\0x00000804\{733B4D81-3BC3-4132-B91A-E9CDD5E2BFC9}]
“Enable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{E429B25A-E5D3-4D1F-9BE3-0C608477E3A1}\LanguageProfile\0x00000804\{EF63706D-31C4-490E-9DBB-BD150ADC454B}]
“Enable”=dword:00000000

Looking at the user profile there can be several places in which configuration can be found.

Primary key for keyboard settings;

The language bar configuration can be seen under HKCU\Software\Microsoft\CTF and three places below this registry key contains configuration relating to what will be seen in the actual language bar. They are all expanded below.

RemoteFX Performance Counters

Posted by nickekallen on February 4, 2013 in Windows 1 Comment

This is a pure copy-and-paste article from a Spanish blog about Performance Counters regarding the RemoteFX protocol within Windows Server 2012. Took me a long time to google it – so saving it here for use later on.

RemoteFX Graphics

Average Encoding Time: Average frame encoding time
Frame Quality: Quality of the output frame expressed as a percentage of the quality of the source frame
Frames Skipped/second – Insufficient Client Resources: Number of frames skipped per second due to insufficient client resources
Frames Skipped/second – Insufficient Network Resources: Number of frames skipped per second due to insufficient network resources
Frames Skipped/second – Insufficient Server Resources: Number of frames skipped per second due to insufficient server resources
Grphics Compression Ratio: Ratio of the number of bytes encoded to the number of bytes input
Input Frames/second: Number of sources frames provided as input to RemoteFX graphics per second
Output Frames/second: Number of frames sent to the client per second
Source Frames/second: Number of frames composed by the source (DWM) per second

RemoteFX Network

Base TCP RTT: Base TCP round-trip time (RTT) detected in milliseconds
Base UDP RTT: Base UDP round-trip time (RTT) detected in milliseconds
Current TCP Bandwidth: TCP Bandwidth detected in bits per second (bps)
Current TCP RTT: Average TCP round-trip time (RTT) detected in milliseconds
Current UDP Bandwidth: TCP Bandwidth detected in bits per second (bps)
Current UDP RTT: Average TCP round-trip time (RTT) detected in milliseconds
FEC Rate: Forward Error Correction (FEC) percentage
Loss Rate: Loss percentage
Retransmission Rate: Percentage of packets that have been retransmitted
Set Rate P0: Rate in bits per second (bps) at which data is sent with priority 0
Set Rate P1: Rate in bits per second (bps) at which data is sent with priority 1
Set Rate P2: Rate in bits per second (bps) at which data is sent with priority 2
Set Rate P3: Rate in bits per second (bps) at which data is sent with priority 3
TCP Received Rate: Rate in bits per second (bps) at which data is received over TCP
TCP Send Rate: Rate in bits per second (bps) at which data is sent over TCP
Total Received Rate: Rate in bits per second (bps) at which data is received
Total Send Rate: Rate in bits per second (bps) at which data is sent
UDP Packets/Received/sec: Rate in packets per second at which packets are received over UDP
UDP Packets/Send/sec: Rate in packets per second at which packets are sent over UDP
UDP received Rate: Rate in bits per second (bps) at which data is received over UDP
UDP Send Rate: Rate in bits per second (bps) at which data is sent over UDP