Stephan Wibier

Introducing Windows Sandbox!

Dec

20

2018

Tweet So this little gem was on the #WindowsInsider Blog (here). And this is a big one, at least for me. I always spin up a VM to test untested and possible malicious software. But I have tested this new and latest addition, and only one word, WOW. It just works, and OK there are ...

Microsoft Certificate Authority (CA) won’t start

Jun

21

2017

Tweet Sometimes strange things can happen in an IT environment. For example, you want to (re)start your CA and you get the message: Or maybe you get: Active Directory Certificate Services did not start: Could not load or verify the current CA certificate: LAB-CA Object was not found. 0x80090011 (-2146893807) Well, what’s next? New CA? ...

Azure Active Directory Connect – High Availability 3

Mar

1

2016

Tweet When working in Enterprise environments the High Availability (HA) question is often raised. (Azure Active Directory Connect – High Availability) Also for the new and shining Azure Active Directory Connect (AADConnect) tool. The tool itself is the successor of DirSync, with a lot of new features. For instance Password Write Back. Get the tool ...

Windows 10 – Group Policy Objects (GPO) not applied

Feb

26

2016

Tweet I was working with Windows 10 (1511 version), fully patched the client and to my surprise on some Windows 10 machines the Group Policy Objects (GPO) were not applied. I did a little search and it seems that Microsoft has pushed 2 updates (MS15-011 and MS15-014) that harden the Group Policy process. Well actually they harden ...

Microsoft Failover Cluster – Requested resource is in use – Disk Manager

Feb

26

2016

Tweet So I made the ‘mistake’ of destroying a Microsoft Failover Cluster and thinking Windows would release my disks. Well I was wrong! I went to Disk Manager and saw my disks as ‘Online’, ‘Primary’ and ‘RAW‘. And off course I could not access the disks from the Explorer, giving me a nice Error. OK ...

WSUS Server 2012 R2 Windows 10 Feature Updates not found

Feb

15

2016

Tweet So you are on Server 2012 R2 and have a WSUS server to serve your updates to your Windows 10 clients. Perfect! But now you need to deploy the upgrade features (i.e. version 1511). Well first you have to deploy a hotfix to your WSUS server (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3095113). About this hotfix: This hotfix enables Windows ...

LayoutModification.xml file not working for customizing StartMenu Windows 10 39

Feb

13

2016

Tweet So you are in the process of developing a Windows 10 image, nice! You want de customize your StartMenu, nice! You have built a reference machine, and exported the StartMenu file. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/mt171092(v=vs.85).aspx We know how to do that with PowerShell: Export-StartLayout – Path C:\Export\MyStartMenu.xml And in your task sequence you import the file again ...

Sysprep was not able to validate your Windows installation 1

Feb

11

2016

Tweet On a machine running Windows 8, 8.1, 10 or even Windows Server 2012, 2012R2 or 2016 you can get a strange error when sysprepping the machine. Sysprep was not able to validate your Windows installation. (Error 0x8007139f) Normally this is true because you can’t sysprep an upgraded machine. But I had this in a ...

Reset Trust Relationship for Domain Computer 1

Feb

11

2016

Tweet When a computer somehow loses the trust relationship with the domain (for instance when longer than 30 days not connecting to the domain, or in a virtual environment returning to a snapshot) the usual steps you have to take are: Get the computer out of the domain to a workgroup (remember the local admin ...

Windows Installer Error Codes

Feb

11

2016

Tweet When working with Windows msi installers you sometimes run into some kind of error or message. Here is an overview of the most common errors or messages. They are most commonly found at the end of your installer log (always install with logging ;-)) usually prefaced by “MainEngineThread is returning”. This is the place ...