Tuesday 12 August 2014

Delete OAB Outlook 2010

Outlook 2010 downloads a copy of the Global Address List (GAL) from the Active Directory/Exchange every 24 hours (it checks to see if 24 hrs have elapsed since the last download).

It stores this download locally in the Offline Address Book (OAB).

If someone's details change, you won't normally see them up to a possible 24 hours. But what if you want to see them more quickly?

Close Outlook. Then go to C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\Offline Address Books\

Delete everything in here.

Then re-open Outlook. It can take a minute or two to download the entire address book again.

Server 2012 Core How To Shut Down

With seemingly so few options in Server Core, how do you easily shut a system down?

If you have the command window open, you can use the shutdown command. I forget the switches though.

My personal preference is to use the Powershell command Stop-Computer.

If you've lost the command window, you can get it back again. Simply press Ctrl-Alt-Esc to launch task manager.

From there, you can run any program, so just run cmd.exe. Voila, you have your command window back.

vCenter Break Out of Console

I checked a server at work and logged onto vSphere/vCenter. I found the server and clicked the console tab.

I clicked on the console screen, it was a Linux OS. I tried to move my mouse but it wouldn't come back to me in Windows.

Only then did I realize I had to break out of the console window somehow.

I pressed Ctrl-Alt-Del, thinking that the Windows 7 OS would lock, I could unlock it and then have control back.

But instead it sent the signal to the OS and immediately rebooted the server!

I learned late that pressing Ctrl and Alt simultaneously will break you out of the console in vCenter.

Notepad++ Silent Install Command Line Switch Not Working

I did a deployed install of Notepad++. Of course, I didn't want any user interaction whatsoever i.e. I wanted a silent install.

I looked it up and the switch was "/s". And yet it kept failing!

In the end, I realized the switch was actually "/S" i.e. capital letter!

A bit silly that the program won't recognise either. I thought that case-sensitivity for program commands disappeared with the dinosaurs!

KACE Batch File Managed Install Script

There are two main ways to deploy software with a K1000 box. There are Managed Installations and Scripts.

The former is for recognised applications (think of popular software). The latter is for batch files and other types of scripts.

You can run an entire batch file or instead you can split it up. For example, if your batch files modifies the registry and stops and start services then you can let KACE do this for you instead of using the full batch file.

Whether you need to use some or more of your batch file, I recommend turning off the OS selection criteria and leaving the other options as open-ended as possible.

Why? Because I started off with quite stringent criteria and I scratched my head like crazy trying to figure it all out! In the end, I left most of the options as the default and suddenly it started to work!

How To Determine Version of Sharepoint

When you troubleshoot a Sharepoint problem, it's often worth knowing what version you are running.

Sharepoint has really changed a lot over the years. The easiest way is to get to know the look and feel, especially the tabs. 2003, 2007 and 2010 have quite a different default look and feel that reflect the current flavor of the month!

Serverfault had a good thread on it where you can see the differences.

Blackberry Activation OpenMsg Store Failed

Someone was trying to activate a Blackberry at work. The device was formerly owned by someone else so the SIM/telecoms account/device were already confirmed working. It was clearly a problem tied only to the user.

Now the user turned out to be new and that was a big clue.

I got this error of openmsg store failed 0x8004011d. I actually forget whether it was on the device or in the log files on the Blackberry server. I think it was the latter.

In any case, the fact this user was new was a big clue. In Exchange 2010 (and possibly other versions), you have to enable Blackberry communication on the store level. This new person was in a newly assigned store where we had forgot to make this critical configuration change.

It was a simple change in the end and after that, the activation worked!

What is "Migrating The Active State of VM"

We had a server at work that was practically locked up. It had very high CPU load.

It was a virtual server so checking vSphere showed the message "Migrating the Active State of VM".

It was doing a vmotion from one host to another.

We actually thought at first that the vmotion was inducing the high cpu load. But, of course, vmotion doesn't do this. The end user should be oblivious to it. There should be no overhead.

It turned out that the VM was being constantly vmotioned around because of it's high cpu load. In the end, we rebooted it, whatever had been the source of the problem was no more and the vmotions stopped.

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