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Exchange 2010: Installation screenshots
Jul 5th
The following screenshots explain the GUI steps needed to install Exchange 2010 server on a Windows Server 2008 R2 virtual machine.
Before you can install Exchange 2010 IIS and features needs to be installed and enabled first.
The following steps will perform these:
- Start Windows Powershell
- Import-Module ServerManager
- Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework,RSAT-ADDS,Web-Server,Web-Basic-Auth,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-Metabase,Web-Net-Ext,Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console,WAS-Process-Model,RSAT-Web-Server,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-Digest-Auth,Web-Dyn-Compression,NET-HTTP-Activation,RPC-Over-HTTP-Proxy
- Reboot
- After reboot start Windows PowerShell again and run Set-Service NetTcpPortSharing -StartupType Automatic
Run Setup
Windows 7: Use Bitlocker to Go as replacement for TrueCrypt
Jul 5th
For several years I used TrueCrypt based encryption to secure my data. Since the release of Windows 7 and enhancements in the disk management I now see the possibility to replace TrueCrypt. How? Well I would create a VHD fixed disk and encrypt this virtual volume with Bitlocker to Go.
Note: before you start please make sure you are running Windows 7 Enterprise or Windows 7 Ultimate version
- Start Computer Management
- Click Disk Management and right click
- Click Create VHD
- Enter the VHD filename and location; the Virtual disk size and set the format to fixed size. The disk will be encrypted so you need to set it fixed. Click OK.
- New volume is created now. Please initialize the disk, create new SIMPLE volume, choose drive letter and format it as NTFS.
- After following the steps new disk should appear in Windows Explorer.
- Go to Windows Explorer and right click on the new created drive. Choose Turn on Bitlocker…
- Check Use a password to unlock the drive and type your password. Click Next
- Save the recovery key to a secure location. I would recommend to print it out and keep this somewhere offsite! Click Next
- Click Start Encryption to encrypt the VHD disk.
- Depending on the selected size the VHD disk will be encrypted.
If you running on a installation of Windows 7 Enterprise of Windows 7 Ultimate than Bitlocker to Go is available for you and you can secure your DATA with the proposed solution. I am not going to share this VHD with other operating systems like OSX or Linux, but If I would need to access the secured volume with non windows 7 based system I would always use a virtual machine based on Win7.
Software Deployment: Re-arm Office 2010
Jun 21st
If you are working on a Office 2010 deployment and no KMS server has been setup you may run out of the grace period. Office 2010 now requires product activation similar to Windows Vista/7.
The following Microsoft Office Activation Wizard may appear.
This copy of Microsoft Office is not activated.
As I don’t want to activate the installation at this moment I will use the Office 2010 rearm feature available.
- Start a elevated command prompt (cmd.exe).
- Go to C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\OfficeSoftwareProtectionPlatform
- Run OSPPREARM.EXE
After the OSPPREARM.EXE has run you will get the “Microsoft Office rearm successful” message.
AppV Sequencing: Microsoft Project 2010
May 26th
If you are using Microsoft AppV technology and planning to sequence Office 2010, Visio 2010 or Project 2010 please make sure you install the Microsoft Office 2010 Deployment Kit for App-V binaries.
Today with a co-worker we were working on sequencing Project 2010 and at some point during the installation we’ve got the following error message.
Error 1920. Service Office Software Protection Platform (osppsvc) failed to start. Verify that you have sufficient privileges to start system services.
Microsoft Project 2010 uses the Office Software Protection Platform (SPP) service that basically is the same activation technology that is used to activate volume editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7. This service in contained in the Microsoft Office 2010 Deployment Kit for App-V. Before you sequence Project 2010, this service must be installed and configured on the sequencing server. It must also be installed on any client computers that you want to stream Project 2010. For more information please read Prescriptive guidance for sequencing Office 2010 in Microsoft App-V.
To download Microsoft Office 2010 Deployment Kit for App-V click here.
Windows Virtual PC : Attach a floppy drive (VFD)
Mar 13th
Windows Virtual PC by default does not support to add a Virtual Floppy drive. This feature has been removed from the GUI and hidden from general public. Windows Virtual PC still allows you to attach and work with VFD files but now you need to complete some steps from Command Prompt before your can work with them.
Example of the my “Windows XP Mode” virtual machine settings. As you can see no floppy.
Microsoft guys created a script which still allows you to attach a VFD file, but you still need to create a VFD file from scratch before you can continue. Download the Floppy Drive Scripts.zip.
C:\Scripts\vm>cscript FloppyDrive.vbs
Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.8
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Missing command-line argument
Usage: FloppyDrive.vbs /vm:”Name of virtual machine to be started”
/action:info – to display information about the current floppy configuration
disconnect – to disconnect any attached floppy disk or floppy disk image
vfd – to attach a virtual floppy disk image
physical – to attach a physical floppy disk
/floppy:name – where name is either the full name and path for a virtual
floppy disk or the letter of a physical disk to attach
After running FloppyDrive.vbs you see that there a action to attach a vfd file. After providing right parameters I got the following message:
cscript FloppyDrive.vbs /vm:"Windows XP Mode" /action:vfd /floppy:"C:\mklinks\floppy.vfd"
Attaching C:\mklinks\floppy.vfd to the floppy drive.
C:\Scripts\vm\FloppyDrive.vbs(113, 3) (null): The system cannot find the file specified
The script does not create my floppy drive and therefore I installed the WinImage tool.
Create new file and save the file as floppy.vfd.
Now I re-run my FloppyDirve.vbs script and the file was attached.
If I open the VMC file now I can see my virtual floppy has been added to the configuration. Without the VB script this can be added manually and will perform same actions as the script.
<floppy id=”0″>
<pathname>
<absolute type=”string”>C:\mklinks\floppy.vfd</absolute>
<relative type=”string”>..\..\..\..\..\..\..\mklinks\floppy.vfd</relative>
</pathname>
</floppy>
Windows 7: Create a directory symbolic link to a network share
Mar 13th
Mklink allows you to create symbolic link to a directory or a file. This was a long-waited feature for Windows and available on unix/linux based systems.
Windows Vista introduced this new feature and with Windows 7 we can utilize this now in more depth with the libraries.
Make sure you started a evaluated command prompt otherwise you will get the following message:
You do not have sufficient privilege to perform this operation.
How to start evaluated command prompt (cmd.exe)?
- Click the Start button
- In the search box, type cmd
- Hold CRTL and SHIFT; in the list of results, click cmd
- UAC will kick and click Yes
The preparation is done now.
I want to create a directory symbolic link to a network share located on \\IP\Share.
How to create a directory symbolic link to a network share?
- mklink local_dir \\ip or servername\sharename /d
Before we can continue we need to connect to the IPC$ share otherwise the action will fail. The share is located on the NAS without guest permissions.
