My Windows 10 Printer Deployment Nightmare!

Remember when adding Printers to domain computers was nice, simple and easy to do? No, me neither. But it was never as difficult as it now seems to be with Windows 10. Specifically speaking build 1511. Don’t get me wrong, I am sold on Windows 10. It’s fast, efficient and I use it on all my computers. That doesn’t change the fact that there are many issues when using it on large networks.

I help to administer two large domains over three sites within an educational establishment. One for Admin Staff and one for Students. We have thousands of clients and a couple of hundred printers. Over the summer after months of testing we made the move from Windows 7 to Windows 10 (1511) on the Student network. We have always added our printers by Group Policy. This makes it easier to add printers to every PC without having to go around each one individually. Up until then we had used a batch file in GP to copy a VBS script to the start-up folder on the client which subsequently added the printer via command line. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked. Most of the time…

Use Adobe Flash Player on Android Devices

Is anyone else annoyed that Android has followed the Apple trend of trying to "kill off" Flash? That Adobe Flash Player is no longer available in the Play Store?

"Flash is Dead." We are told by Google. "HTML 5 is the way to go."

HTML 5 may be the way forward, and looks great, but many are very slow on the uptake in upgrading their websites. So, if you are like me, and still use websites on a regular basis that use Flash, when you view them on your Android device you can be bitterly disappointed.

Add Custom Screensavers to Amazon Kindle 4

THIS HACK IS FOR THE AMAZON KINDLE 4 (Non-Touch, Non-Ads).

I have a well known love of all things fiction, and books have always been a passion of mine. It was with more than a little apprehension that I finally laid my hands on the latest Amazon Kindle.

I have to confess, it is amazing. Armed with a crisp screen, and over 300 books I am in my element wherever I go. Although it will never replace my paperbacks, it will  always have a special place in my heart.

Of course being a Techie, it didn't take long before I began to explore the device a little more. I have never been one for rooting/jail-breaking devices, but I did find a hack that allowed me to add my own custom screensavers. This hack is well known all over the web. I will be laying it out here step by step, but I will also be pointing out some issues I found along the way.

How to Increase a Virtual Disk in VSphere 4

Recently we have had a couple of incidents where we had run out of disk space on our Windows servers. Sometimes we were able to rectify this just with simple housekeeping: Removing programs no longer needed, or deleting profiles, and temp files etc.

There have been times though when this just isn't enough, and nothing short of a bigger disk will do. With  vmware it is possible to increase the size of a non system volume quite easily with a few simple steps. It can also be performed without shutting the server down and zero downtime.

Note: Before attempting this you need to check 3 things.

How to create a selfcontained Wireless Network

This was a challenging project, put upon me by a friend and colleague who needed a web server that they could carry around with them. The goal was to have it accessible by wireless devices such as mobile smart phones (Android, Blackberry and iPhone etc), iPods, Playstation portables, and Nintendo DS'; without the requirement for either the server or the devices to be connected to the Internet.

For the purpose of a presentation and demo, the web server would contain a small mobile website that the devices could view at any location that the demo was taking place, and interact with, without having to worry about having Internet or even local network connectivity.

Clear ReadOnly Disk in Windows Server 2008 R2

We recently had an issue with a hard disk on one of our servers reporting that it was set to read only. It occurred after an unknown error with the system. Windows refused to allow us to write to the disk and stated that the "Media was Right-Protected."

We also found that the read only attribute was nowhere to be found on the properties of the disk, so that we could remove it. To cut a long story short, it can only be removed using the Diskpart Utility with the following commands.

Diskpart is run from the command prompt and launched by typing "diskpart" and hitting enter.

Save Sent Items in folder of a shared mailbox in Outlook 2007

We have a lot of users that access multiple mailboxes from within their own exchange account in Outlook. Attached as "additional mailboxes".

Mail can be sent and received from these mailboxes as long as the user has send of behalf of permissions. This is set in Exchange.

However, when a user sends an email on behalf of the additional mailbox, the sent email goes into the sent items of the person who has the additional mailbox attached (their own mailbox). And NOT the sent items of the additional mailbox.

Use a Proxy Server on Android 2.3

Like many other HTC Users, I am thoroughly enjoying the freedom and flexibility of my Desire HD. With the new Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) update last month, the usability has only made the experience even better.

As with many other Smart phone users, my phone has become an intricate part of my life and I take it everywhere with me. However where I work it is getting increasingly difficult to get a reliable signal. Or more importantly a HSDPA or even a decent 3G signal. Result: I have to opt for Option B; company WiFi.

The problem here is that my company's Internet connection goes through a proxy server and is heavily filtered. I have found dozens of similar complaints all over the Internet, with everyone asking "Can I set proxy settings for WiFi on Android." Every time I find a negative response. In addition the same people complain that no effort has been made by the Android developers to solve this issue.

Windows Server 2008 R2 Update Issues and Role Errors

For sometime now we have been finding that some of our Windows Server 2008 R2 servers were not installing Windows Updates.

Some servers would not even find any updates, and others would simply get to the "Downloading..." screen and never progress any further. In addition we would also get an annoying problem in Server Manager; where the Roles and features are usually displayed, the window would be blank with a message that simply said "Error."

Cannot Open an Anonymous Level Security Token in IE

Recently I had an issue in Internet Explorer 8 on Windows 7 Enterprise 64 Bit, when logging into a web page. Every time I logged in with the correct credentials it would flash and NOT open the secure page. The credentials were correct and the same page opened correctly on another computer.

Upon investigation I found the following error. This was found in the bottom left hand corner of the status bar in Internet Explorer.

"Cannot open an Anonymous Level Security Token"