Installing Telnet Client from PowerShell

If you need to install the Telnet Client, you can either install it from using the Server Manager GUI or you can install it directly from PowerShell!

I, personally prefer PowerShell since it is much quicker than going through the wizards in Server Manager.

If you want to install Telnet Client from ANY client OS or server OS, you can run the following command:


However, if you wish to install PowerShell on a server OS, you can run the following command:

Run Visual Studio as Administrator by default

If you work with Visual Studio and your local IIS instance, you may soon discover that you are unable to load any projects in your solution that are bound to your local IIS instance!

This is because Visual Studio is set to default to using IIS Express which requires lower privileges than projects bound to your local IIS instance.

In order to resolve this problem, you simply need to right-click on your Visual Studio icon and select "Run as administrator" each time before you launch the application.

However, if you use Visual Studio every day, you can see how performing this operation over and over again can be tedious and annoying.

But if you know this handy tip, you can launch Visual Studio with Administrative privileges by default each time!

For this example, I am using Visual Studio 2015, but this can be equally applied to any older version of Visual Studio such as Visual Studio 2013 as well:

1. Since this operation cannot be performed from the Metro Windows Start menu in Windows 8.1, I would suggest that you pin your Visual Studio icon to the Taskbar.
2. Now, right click on the pinned Visual Studio icon to launch the popup context menu.
3. From the popup context menu, select "Visual Studio 2015" (or the name of any earlier instance of Visual Studio)
4. Right-click once again on the name of "Visual Studio 2015" to get yet another popup context menu
5. Now, select "Properties" from that subsequent popup context menu
6. From the new dialog that displays, make sure the "Shortcut" tab is selected and click on the "Advanced..." button
7. On that screen, you will see an option to select a checkbox for "Run as administrator"
8. Select that checkbox and click OK
9. Click OK one more time to close out of the Shortcut dialog
10. Now when you launch Visual Studio, it will launch under Administrative privileges by default!

Where is gacutil.exe?

If you are looking for gacutil.exe, you may have noticed that it no longer ships natively with the .NET Framework and instead ships separately with the Microsoft Windows SDK.

Depending on what OS you are running will determine what version of the Microsoft Windows SDK you will want to install, but for this example, I will use the Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 4: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8279

One of the confusing things about this version of the Microsoft Windows SDK is that it ships with 2 versions of gacutil:

• gacutil.exe for .NET Framework v. 3.5
• gacutil.exe for .NET Framework v. 4.0

If you use the default location for gacutil.exe, you will be using the .NET Framework v. 3.5 version:

• C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1\Bin\gacutil.exe
• C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1\Bin\x64\gacutil.exe 

However, the location of gacutil.exe for .NET Framework v. 4.0 is located here:

• C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1\Bin\NETFX 4.0 Tools\gacutil.exe
• C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1\Bin\NETFX 4.0 Tools\x64\gacutil.exe

Therefore, if you are targeting .NET Assemblies for .NET 3.5 and .NET 2.0, then you will want to use the older version of gacutil.exe, but if you are targeting .NET Assemblies for .NET 4.0 and .NET 4.5, then you will instead want to use the newer version of gacutil.exe to target these assemblies.

If you accidentally use an older version of gacutil.exe against a newer .NET assembly (ex. gacutil.exe for .NET 3.5 against a .NET 4.0/4.5 assembly), you will encounter the following error message:

"Failure adding assembly to the cache:  This assembly is built by a runtime newer than the currently loaded runtime and cannot be loaded."

If you are interested in the other Windows SDKs, you can check them out here:

• https://dev.windows.com/en-us/downloads/windows-8-1-sdk
• https://dev.windows.com/en-us/downloads/windows-10-sdk

Keeping your Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 Installation images fully patched

If you have recently upgraded to Windows 8.1 or Windows Server 2012 R2 (or later), you may now require some tooling to ensure you can keep your Windows images fully patched as you build out new OS systems and images.

You may have read my earlier post regarding Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 here: http://samirvaidya.blogspot.com/2012/05/keeping-your-windows-7-and-windows.html

Unfortunately, many of the tools listed in that article are no longer viable solutions for Windows 8.1 and later OSes.

Thankfully, though, there are a few suitable replacements to these earlier outdated tools!

While Windows Updates Downloader has not kept up with the Windows 10 updates, it still has a relatively recent list of updates for Windows 8.1: http://www.windowsupdatesdownloader.com/UpdateLists.aspx

A newer alternative to Windows Updates Downloader is now called WHDownloader and can be downloaded from here which also uses Update Lists: http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/windows_hotfix_downloader.html

Another recent and well-maintained tool is WSUS Offline Update: http://download.wsusoffline.net/

The updates on the WSUS Offline Update site seem to be much more regularly and frequently updated than the Update Lists provided on Windows Updates Downloader (which has not had its last update since March 2015).

When you are ready to finally integrate these Windows Updates into your Windows media, you can grab a tool such as NTLite to easily help you integrate these patches/updates directly into your Windows media!  https://www.ntlite.com/download/

Unable to install .NET Framework 3.5 on Windows Server 2012 R2

I was recently attempting to install .NET Framework v. 3.5 on my Windows Server 2012 R2 virtual machine, when I suddenly discovered that the feature was never being installed!

Well, a quick search of the problem revealed this article: http://blogs.technet.com/b/askpfeplat/archive/2014/09/29/attempting-to-install-net-framework-3-5-on-windows-server-2012-r2-fails-with-error-code-0x800f0906-or-the-source-files-could-not-be-downloaded-even-when-supplying-source.aspx

This also led me to the following subsequent articles:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3002547

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3005628

After installing the required update on my virtual machine, I was finally able to install .NET Framework v. 3.5 once again!

Importing Certificates using PowerShell

If you would like to be able to import certificates into the Certificate store using PowerShell, there are now a built-in set of PowerShell cmdlets that allow you to do this!

Starting with Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2, you can use either of the following PowerShell cmdlets:

• Import-Certificate
• Import-PfxCertificate

You can read more about these PowerShell Cmdlets here:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/%5Clibrary/hh848630%28v=wps.630%29.aspx

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh848625%28v=wps.630%29.aspx

Unfortunately, if you are using an older version of Windows (such as Windows Server 2008 R2 or even Windows Server 2012), you will need to implement your own custom PowerShell script to accomplish this similar to what is implemented here:

http://www.orcsweb.com/blog/james/powershell-ing-on-windows-server-how-to-import-certificates-using-powershell/

Discontinuing support for browsers older than Internet Explorer 11

Based on this Microsoft post, browsers older than IE 11 on Windows 7 and later OSes will be discontinued after January 12, 2016: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2014/08/07/stay-up-to-date-with-internet-explorer.aspx?utm_medium=email&utm_source=eloqua&utm_campaign=dt-ajax-lightweight&elq_n=DT_Ajax%20Lightweight-Email_Q3.Email%201

Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 already ship with Microsoft Internet Explorer 11, so there will be no need to upgrade.

Slipstreaming updates into Windows 8 and Windows 10

If you have used tools such as nLite, vLite or RT7Lite to slipstream updates in the past, you may be looking for newer releases of these products to support Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.

Fortunately, there are several such tools available to accomplish this now!

1. DISM: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh824838.aspx
2. WinReducer: http://www.winreducer.net/
3. Win Toolkit: http://www.wincert.net/forum/files/file/5-win-toolkit/
4. NTLite: https://www.ntlite.com/

 As you can probably guess, using Microsoft's DISM tool is by far the most tedious and time consuming, thereby making alternatives such as WinReducer and NTLite more appealing.

WinReducer is commonly used and reviewed throughout the web, and, so far, is the only tool which now supports Windows 10!

NTLite, surprisingly enough, is created by the original creator of nLite and vLite, so the User Interface should be very familiar to those who have used these tools in the past.  NTLite offers both a free version as well as a commercial paid version.

Managing Windows Activations using the Volume Activation Management Tool

If you want to manage your Windows Activation Licenses, you have to use the Volume Activation Management Tool.

For older versions of Windows such as Windows 7, you can download VAMT 2.0 from here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=11936

However, with newer versions of Windows such as Windows 8 and Windows 8.1, VAMT ships with the Windows ADK respectively.

For Windows 8, you can get the Windows ADK here:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30652

For Windows 8.1, you can get the Windows ADK here:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39982

However, whereas VAMT 2.0 did not require a SQL Server database to store all of the Windows Activations and could simply store them in an XML file with an extension of .cil, the newer versions of the VAMT tool for Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 require an instance of SQL Server Express or higher to be installed in order to store all of the Windows Activations and License Keys.

Once it is all set up, it provides an excellent view into your Windows and Office License Keys (both Volume License and Retail):

If your "Remaining Activation Count" column displays as "Not available", you can right click on the Product Key and select "Refresh product key data online"

This should then show updated numbers in the "Remaining Activation Count" column:

Unable to perform a Sysprep and Capture on Windows 8.1

I was recently working on creating a reference Windows 8.1 Enterprise image to be used by MDT (Microsoft Deployment Toolkit) when I repeatedly encountered the following error message when attempting to perform a Sysprep and Capture Task Sequence:

Fortunately, there appears to be a Microsoft support article directly addressing this issue: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2797676

As it turns out, there appears to be some defect in the original LTIApply.wsf script that causes the Sysprep and Capture sequence to fail out.

By adding the necessary VBScript lines to the LTIApply.wsf script, I was finally able to complete a Sysprep and Capture of my Windows 8.1 Enterprise reference image!!

Capturing a reference image for Microsoft Deployment Toolkit

If you want to create a base Windows OS reference image to be used with the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, you will want to follow these steps:

1. Install the base Windows OS as well as all of the software required for the base Windows image
2. From Windows Explorer, connect to the DeploymentShare path for Microsoft Deployment Toolkit
3. Browse to the Scripts directory so that you can run the LiteTouch.vbs script
4. Once you run the LiteTouch.vbs script, you can go through the Wizard prompts to perform a "Sysprep and Capture"
5. This will then provide several other prompts which will Sysprep your target computer and then reboot to begin capturing the Windows image as a .WIM file and storing it in the Captures directory on your MDT DeploymentShare
6. Once the .WIM file has been captured, you can import the .WIM file in MDT to use it as part of your MDT OS deployments!

 

Unable to install Visual Studio 2015 Release Candidate on Windows Server 2012 R2

I was recently attempting to install Visual Studio 2015 Release Candidate on Windows Server 2012 R2 when I was suddenly faced with the following installation error message:

This directed me to this location to download the appropriate April 2014 Update:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2919355/

Which, in turn, directed me here:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=42334

Well, after using Opera to download the various patches available as part of this download, I attempted to install the main executable and received the following error message:

After doing some searching for similar issues on the Internet, I determined that I needed to first install this update first (KB 2919442):

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2919442

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=42162

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=42153

Once I did that, I could then install KB 2919355:

I then went ahead and installed all of the other hotfixes in the KB2919355 Update, rebooted and re-tried the Visual Studio 2015 installation:

Voila!  I could now install Visual Studio 2015 RC on my Windows Server 2012 R2 machine!!

Unable to establish VPN connection on Windows 8

I recently had to set up a VPN connection on Windows 8.1 and I could not successfully establish the VPN connection no matter how many times I tried!

I always received this error when trying to establish the connection:

 "The remote connection was denied because the user name and password combination you provided is not recognized, or the selected authentication protocol is not permitted on the remote access server."

Unsurprisingly, this worked perfectly on Windows 7 without any issues whatsoever, so I knew that it had to be some new settings on the Windows 8/8.1 OS.  (This issue also occurred on Windows 10)

As it turned out, I had to go in and select "Change adapter settings" (under Related settings):

By selecting the "Microsoft CHAP Version 2 (MS-CHAP v2) Protocol, I was able to successfully establish my VPN connection!

Getting started with Microsoft Deployment Toolkit

If you want to deploy system images to multiple computers, then you will definitely want to familiarize yourself with the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit.

To get started, you will need to install the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit as well as the Windows ADK:

• Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2013: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40796 
• Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (Windows ADK) for Windows 8.1 Update: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39982

Once you have these tools installed, the next thing you have to do is run the Deployment Workbench.

Before you can do anything else in Deployment Workbench, you will have to start off by creating a Deployment Share.

 Once you have the Deployment Share created, the next thing you need to do is Import an Operating System. 

Once you have the Operating System imported, you can proceed with adding your various applications:

Finally, you have to go ahead and create a Task Sequence.

Once you have completely configured your Task Sequence, you need to Update your Deployment Share:

Now, you will get a Boot image created in the Boot folder of your Deployment Share.

Using this Boot image, you can now boot your target system to begin loading the OS and then prepping the system for an image capture!

Mounting and Unmounting VHD Files

I recently had to work with Hyper-V for setting up an environment for hosting Virtual Machines.  I have been a long-time user of VMWare products (VMWare Workstation, Player and vSphere) so I was relatively unfamiliar with Hyper-V.

In fact, the last time I worked with Microsoft virtualization was when they had just released Microsoft Virtual PC and Microsoft Virtual Server!

Fortunately, even being unfamiliar with the product, I was able to ramp up and figure out how to set up a VM in just a few minutes.

However, one of the perplexing aspects of Hyper-V was the use of VHD files.  I could mount multiple VHD disks, but I could not get the boot CD to recognize the VHD disks at all.

Well, I discovered that I could mount and unmount VHD files like I can mount VMDK files in VMWare.  However, the mounting of VHD files could occur directly through the Disk Management Console!

After looking over this article: http://www.7tutorials.com/disk-management-how-mount-and-unmount-vhd-images, I was able to mount my VHD files and format them.

I also found these PowerShell commands to mount and unmount the VHD files:

 https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh848551.aspx

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh848562.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

Once I had formatted the VHD files, I detached the VHD files and booted up my Hyper-V virtual machine once more.

As expected, I could now see the VHD Disks in my virtual machine using my boot CD!

Switch between apps slideout does not go away

I just recently bought a Windows 8.1 laptop that worked both as a touchscreen as well as a regular laptop with a touchscreen.

I was using a Metro App from the Metro Start menu and as soon as I opened my Metro application, I ended up with a slideout "Switch between apps" that did not automatically go away when I opened my Metro app!

No matter what I did in the Metro Start menu, I could not make this slideout disappear!! 

Fortunately, after doing a bit of searching for posts on this problem, I discovered, that you have to simply hover your mouse in the upper left hand corner of the screen in order to get this "Switch between apps" slideout to disappear!

I even found a YouTube video which demonstrates how to resolve this annoying problem/issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-x6sQ0WNuo

Backing up Windows and Program Settings

With the Windows platform, you may have found there is a whole host of tools that can provide you with backup capabilities for your system.

Most backup tools will allow you to easily backup your file system or even IMAGE your entire computer!

You can find such tools like Acronis True Image to help you with these types of tasks:  http://www.acronis.com/en-us/personal/pc-backup/

Some backup tools will go even further and allow you to backup SOME Windows and Program settings such as Internet Explorer settings and your Outlook or Windows Mail settings.

You can find programs like Genie Backup Home 9.0 http://www.genie9.com/home/Genie_Backup_Manager_Home/Overview.aspx

OR

Easeus Todo Backup Home/Workstation:  http://www.easeus.com/backup-software/tb-home.html

However, what if you use browsers such as Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome and you want to back up those settings as well?

Well, I have only found one Windows tool thus far that can accomplish that for me and that tool is BackRex Easy Backup: http://backsettings.com/easy-profile-backup.html

BackRex allows you to backup settings from Windows, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Outlook as well as several other programs.

Overall, the cost of the software is very affordable and very useful if you find that your SETTINGS are just as important as your FILES:http://backsettings.com/order.html

As you have obviously guessed by now, this tool is invaluable for me and therefore I keep it as part of the standard software I need for my Windows workstations.  Perhaps you will find this tool just as useful and handy as I do!

Automatic Windows Live Login using Internet Explorer on Windows 8.1

If you have recently upgraded to Windows 8.1, you may have noticed that, by default, Microsoft will attempt to have you sign into your computer using your Windows Live ID.

If you agree to that and set up your Windows Live ID as your primary login into your Windows 8.1 local computer, you end up with a side effect in Internet Explorer.

Many business users are familiar with the concept of NTLM logins which allow you to log into your local computer and then seamlessly log into any number of business Intranet websites that are also secured with your Windows NTLM credentials.

However, with the introduction of Windows Live ID authentication, you now get this experience with your Windows Live ID!

Therefore, when you attempt to log into any Microsoft-based websites that required authentication using a Windows Live ID, once you click on the Login link, you will be seamlessly logged into the system using the credentials from your local machine!

For many users, this may be a positive experience because it avoids having to remember separate logins for various Microsoft-based sites.

However, what if you need to use a separate Windows Live ID to log into a system (for example, you have separate personal and business Windows Live ID accounts)?

So what is the workaround??

One of the workarounds is to simply allow the sign in process to occur and then once you are signed into the site, simply click on the "Sign Out" link and you will then be able to log in with your alternative Windows Live ID.


The other workaround is to use an alternative browser such as Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome to log into these Windows Live ID secured websites.  Since these browsers IGNORE your local computer's Windows Live ID credentials, you will be able to readily log into these Microsoft websites with a separate Windows Live ID.

Excellent alternative to Windows File Copy

You might have read about Microsoft RichCopy in an earlier blog post of mine: http://samirvaidya.blogspot.com/2012/08/microsofts-free-alternative-to-windows.html

Microsoft RichCopy is the Microsoft-based alternative to Windows Explorer copy operations, however, RichCopy has not been updated in several years and while useful, it has its own set of problems in terms of overall usability.

The biggest limitation of Microsoft RichCopy is that it is not integrated with Windows Explorer.  Therefore, you can only copy an ENTIRE directory at a time or just copy 1 file at a time.  Therefore, if you just want to copy over a few files from a directory, you are stuck copying them over individually using Microsoft RichCopy or settling for Windows Explorer to copy.

While Windows 8's Windows Explorer copy operations are significantly improved over predecessors of Windows (including Windows 7), it is still fraught with problems.

Fortunately, there is an excellent 3rd party alternative to Windows Explorer copy and they even offer a free personal edition for home use!

The software I am referring to is TeraCopy by Code Sector.  You can download TeraCopy from here: http://codesector.com/teracopy

TeraCopy directly integrates with Windows Explorer as well as has a separate copy dialog for managing copy operations thereby giving you the best of Windows Explorer-type copy operations as well as Microsoft RichCopy.

TeraCopy has been very reliable and very fast for copy operations.  I frequently copy over data backups from my local Windows 8.1 desktop computer to my NAS device and I nearly always use TeraCopy for these operations.  Copy operations that would typically take several minutes using Windows Explorer copy, typically take 1/2 that time or less using TeraCopy.  The biggest annoyance that TeraCopy removes from standard Windows copy operations is the lengthy time to "analyze" the copy operation before the Windows Explorer copy operation actually proceeds.

Of course, if you need to purchase a copy of TeraCopy Pro either for its additional features or for commercial use, the licensing cost is extremely affordable at only $19.95 per license.  If you decide to purchase TeraCopy, you can buy it directly from the Code Sector website (purchase button at the bottom of the page): http://codesector.com/teracopy

Updating Device Drivers on outdated Windows hardware

If you have laptop or desktop that is more than a few years old, it is likely that the hardware manufacturer (like most hardware manufacturers) never bothered updating the device drivers for your system to support newer operating systems such as Windows 8 or Windows 8.1.

Therefore, if you ever go to the hardware manufacturer's website and look for newer device drivers you are completely out of luck!

What is even worse is that many of the device drivers that were written for an older OS such as Windows 7 will either not work at all or cause Windows system compatibility problems which can spell bad news for the stability of your Windows system and OS.

So what can you do in this situation?

Fortunately, there is a 3rd party software vendor that has an answer to this big dilemma and that company produces a product called Driver Genius (http://www.driver-soft.com/index.html)

UPDATE: Raxco Software (the makers of PerfectDisk) has a similar product called PerfectUpdater which operates on a yearly subscription model (http://download.raxco.com/perfectupdater?utm_campaign=perfectupdater&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=12164660&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_GWU4uLtWGM_xjdY6JBSDldpnfEMtR6--Dhib1V-qbkgBDje0nzXycA_aPictRdn2VldTAwY5pPFgwgms6sGYbJ_mJcA&_hsmi=12164660)

Once you download and install this software on your computer, it will allow you to scan your entire system for all missing or out-of-date device drivers and then connect to all of the various device driver repositories to search for new and updated device drivers for your existing system hardware!

How cool is that!

In my tests with using Driver Genius, Driver Genius was able to detect all of my missing device drivers (that I could tell by reviewing my hardware manufacturer's website for downloadable device drivers) and install the most recent available device drivers from each of the respective manufacturer's websites (AMD, Intel etc.).

While Driver Genius may certainly not solve ALL of your pesky device driver problems, it certainly helps with many of those critical hard-to-find device drivers that keep your system up and running properly such as the Chipset device drivers, Video device drivers etc.  It certainly helped me and saved me a lot of time from digging around the Internet to find the most appropriate device drivers for my system!!