Andy M

Have an issue you can't solve? I offer consulting engagements and can be reached here: consulting[а 𝐭 ]amorales[․]org This is an extension of my FSLogix Office 365 container guide . All of the steps in that guide should be followed before continuing onto this one. Overview FSLogix profile containers allow you to easily roam user files and settings across multiple machines. A VHDX file will be created and it will store all user settings. This is similar to roaming profiles, but you do not have to deal with any login delays while files copy. Instead, the VHDX file is attached to the RDS server and the user's profile loads immediately. FSL Profiles vs UPDs Windows has a native solution called User Profile Disks, but it has some big limitations. With UPDs some applications will detect that data is being stored in a UNC path and malfunction. The best example of this is the inability to install Google Chrome extensions on UPDs. FSLogix drivers trick the OS into thinking that t...

Just had an issue where new Outlook profile creation would fail on a machine. Autodiscover was configured correctly and working, but new profile creations would fail. The error below would show up every time. Something went wrong. Something went wrong and Outlook couldn't setup your account. Please try again. If the problem continues, contact your email administrator. Eventually I noticed that the login prompt window was appearing for a fraction of a second and then disappearing. I set the registry key below, restarted Outlook and I was able to get the auth prompt which allowed the profile to get created. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\Identity DisableADALatopWAMOverride = dword:00000001 One the profile is created you can delete the reg key since the account is already authenticated. I have also used this reg key to activate office when it shows similar symptoms (login prompt appears for a split second then disappears). Enabling t...

I'm creating this guide because the instructions on the Dell website did not work for me. Download Files Got to https://www.dell.com/support Download the iDRAC service Module files that apply to the ESX host (should look like the item below) Copy Files to ESX Extract the ZIP you just downloaded and copy the .VIB and metadata.zip (not sure if this one is actually required) file to anywhere on the datastore Installation Shutdown all VMs and put the ESX host in maintenance mode SSH into the ESX host Run the commands below cd /vmfs/volumes/%datastoreName% we do this to easily get the GUID of the datastore esxcli software vib install -v /vmfs/volumes/%DataStoreGUID%/ISO/iDRAC/%iDRACFile%.vib -f Mine looked like this: esxcli software vib install -v /vmfs/volumes/54311fd8-70c2redc-78546-44398f869345/ISO/iDRAC/cross_oem-dell-dcism-esxi_3.4.0.1.ESX6i-live.vib -f If the install completes correctly you should see:  VIBs Installed: Dell_bootbank_dcism_3.4.0.1.ESXi...

One of the hurdles of UPDs and FSLogix is that they cause issues if they run out of space, and they don't alert users when they are out of space. In some cases you will waste time troubleshooting when you could have resolved it in a minute by just cleaning up the disk. I created the script below to address this issue. You can run it against your RDS servers and gateway, and you will not need to modify anything beyond the SMTP settings, thresholds, and exclusions. The script will do the following: Exit if it is not run on a server (you can comment this out if you use UPDs on Desktops) Query all collections on the RDG and scan all UPD paths *Must be run on the Gateway for this to work Query FSL Profile and ODFC paths *Must be run on computers with FSL enabled If low space disks are found the script will send you an email with a table of all the paths If nothing is found the script will exit. Known limitations: The script might report false positives/negatives if...

Multiple vendors have recommended logging out all users before restarting our RDS servers. Sadly I was never able to find a script that could do everything I wanted. I created the script below for Server 2012 + servers. The script will do the following: Logout all active users (even console users) Write errors and information into the Application event log You can find the script here:  https://github.com/andy2002a/PowerShell/blob/master/RDS/Disconnect-LoggedOnUsers.ps1 The script will not reboot the server, but you can always add a shutdown -r -t 0 at the end, or schedule your reboot script to run right after this one.

This guide will show you how to force add-ins to load in Office every single time. We will also prevent users and office from disabling/enabling add-ins*. *Outlook 2016* will sometimes disable add-ins any way, but we will apply a workaround for this. At the end of the guide, the add-ins you configure will look like this: Getting the ClassID of an add-in Find the ClassID of the Add-in. This is found in: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Office\application name\Addins HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Office\application name\Addins It is usually in a format similar to Application.OutAddin Enforcing add-ins  We will now create a GPO that will enable or disable the add-ins that we configure. Create a GPO called Office Enforced Add-ins *Depending on the importance(compliance, auditing, etc) of this Add-in it migh...

Symptoms: You have synced the AD users, but you have duplicates or two of a similar user (reception@ and receptionist@). You try to edit the UPN of either user and you receive an error saying that the attribute must be unique. On the sync service you get an error saying the attribute(usually the UPN) must be unique. Background: UPN = username (and usually email address) ImmutableID (anchor) = used to link an AD user to an Office 365 user (after UPN matching) In AD there exists an account with a UPN: mailbox1@example.com In Office 365 there exists an account with a UPN: mail1@example.com These two accounts are the same user, but their O365 email address does not match up with their UPN (not usually a problem, but during the initial sync it is) The problem: The AD sync service is started and AD users are synced with Office 365 users. You log into Office 365 and see two users now: mailbox1@example.com(unlicensed) and mail1@example.com(licensed) You try to un-sync mai...