Posts by ktaber
Version list for Exchange service packs and rollups
0If you want to see a list of service packs and rollups and see what their respective version numbers are then look no further.
Here is a Microsoft TechNet article that shows them all.
Update
I found another place that seems to get updated first…
Find your version
To find out what version you have use the following PowerShell command:
GCM exsetup |%{$_.Fileversioninfo}
Since updating to Adobe Reader 10.1.2 printing has not worked
0There is a bug in Adobe Reader 10.1.2 in which it has defaulted to duplex printing. Since most printers can’t print on 2 sides, the printers will spit out a blank page and not continue.
Here is their KB article to change it to normal single page printing.
Don’t worry this is just a bug and will be fixed in the next version of Reader.
For correcting the issue via GPO see this Adobe blog post.
XenServer 6 Networking Best Practices
0Here is Citrix’s document CTX130924 in regards to network design for XenServer 6.
It is a must read guide that provides a lot of best practices. (Especially read page 24 for bonding bandwidth explanations).
The PDF covers everything from VLANs, NIC bonds (teams), iSCSI multipathing, and much more.
Switch port configuration guidelines can be found here: CTX123158
XenDesktop 5.5 supported GPU for HDX 3D Pro
0Here is a list of Citrix’s tested GPUs for XenDesktop 5.5 HDX 3D Pro on XenServer.
If you have a gpu that was not in the test group, read Citrix’s System Requirements guide to see if it should work.
Install Citrix XenClient 2.1 from USB
0Here is how you create a bootable USB stick, in Windows, using your downloaded Citrix XenClient 2.1 ISO and Pendrive Linux’s Universal USB Installer. Note: There is a similar tool called UNetBootin, but it has not worked without modifications.
For best results, your USB drive should be 1GB or greater in size. This drive will be wiped automatically by the tool in the steps below.
Universal USB Installer steps:
- Select a Linux Distribution – Try Unlisted Linux ISO (New Syslinux)
- Browse and select the XenClient_2_1.iso file
- Select your USB Flash Drive Letter Only
- Click on Create and wait for it to finish
If you are not using the Synchronizer then don’t forget to follow this guide for copying .iso files to your machine in order to install guests.
Unattended Windows 7 Product Key Error
0If you followed Microsoft’s documentation on creating a Windows 7 image and deployed it using an Autounattend.xml answer file, you might have received an error about your product key.
To fix this you go back into SIM and edit your answer file and make the following changes:
Rather than:
WindowsPE Microsoft-Windows-Setup\UserData\ProductKey
Do:
Specialize Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup\ProductKey
This now works for my Volume MAK.
Here is the explanation of the correct Pass to have the Product Key listed:
“If you specify a product key in the windowsPE configuration pass with ProductKey (Microsoft-Windows-Setup), then Windows welcome will prompt for a product key. If you specify the ProductKey (Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup) setting during the specialize pass, then Windows Welcome will not prompt for a product key.”
Source: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749389(WS.10).aspx
Here is a copy of my Autounattend.xml. Just search for “Change-Me” in the file to find areas to enter your company related info and your own Product Key. See below:
My answer file works for Windows 7 Professional with SP1 64bit VL edition. It will simply wipe your primary drive, create a single partition, and install windows. You will not be prompted until Windows boots for the first time.
It is very handy to install Windows from a bootable USB flash stick and have Windows SP1 + Office 2010 SP1, both with all of their latest updates, in about 20 min without having to touch the machine.
Custom Office ribbon toolbar UI while locked down
0It is a best practice to lock down Ribbon and Quick Access Toolbar UI Customizations for Outlook on your RDS Session Hosts (Server 2008 R2). This will keep things consistant and prevent mistakes and helpdesk tickets.
But what if users want Quick Print or some other feature you didn’t initially plan for. Here is how to create a custom UI, while keeping things locked down.
Part 1:
In your Office 2010 GPO check that the following are set:
User Configuration/Policies/Administrative Templates/Microsoft Office 2010/Global Options/Customize –> Allow roaming of all user customizations
Then Enable –> Turn off user customizations via UI
On that Setting tab, also check –> Disallow in Outlook
Part 2:
On a technician machine, that does not have the GPO restrictions, setup your Outlook Quick Access Toolbar customizations to the way you want it for all of your users. Then look in your %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Office for *.officeUI files and copy them to your file server.

Note: Exporting the settings directly from Outlook makes a slightly different file. *.exportedUI. So just manually copy the files rather than export them from within Office.
From that file server you can now either script the files to copy when the user logs on, or manually install them for certain users who want Quick Print etc.
Part 3:
On a Remote Desktop Session Host, close Outlook and perform a gpupdate /force to immediately see the changes to any GPOs you editted.
Now the user can re-open Outlook and the customizations should be seen.
In the end you should see something like this:
Sources: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee704589.aspx
Upgrading ShoreTel V series switches broke voice mail
0After upgrading our ShoreTel 11.1 system to the latest version, 12.1, the sites with Voice series switches no longer had voice mail capabilities. If you missed a call the link would just ring 4 times and go to dead air.
Knowing that V series ShoreGear switches were sensitive to NTP for voice mail to function, it was time to check the switch configuration.
When connecting via SSH using admin/ShoreTel as my login/password, I noticed the configuration showed the following incorrect NTP info:
Time server IP address = 132.163.4.101
However, when I tried to change the time server IP I received this message:
please use Director’s Sites page to set Time Server (NTP) Ip Address
Logging into Director’s Sites page and inputting the Network Time Protocol Server and rebooting the switch did the trick.
ShoreWare Director > Administration > Sites > My specific site:
Cisco ASA DNS inspection for DSNSSEC
0It is important to use DNS inspection and update it for up coming DNSSEC. Here is how to enable your ASA to work with DNSSEC.
Required: Cisco ASA running software version 8.2.2 or later
Cisco Documentation
CLI Configuration:
ciscoasa# configure terminal
ciscoasa(config)# policy-map type inspect dns preset_dns_map
ciscoasa(config-pmap)# parameters
ciscoasa(config-pmap-p)# message-length maximum client auto
ciscoasa(config-pmap-p)# write memory
You can now exit your SSH connection.
ciscoasa# show running-config
You should see this somewhere in your configuration now:
!
policy-map type inspect dns preset_dns_map
parameters
message-length maximum client auto
message-length maximum 512
policy-map global-policy
class global-class
inspect ftp
inspect icmp
inspect dns preset_dns_map
!
Note: The message-length maximum 512 should already be there from the inspection defaults.
ASDM Configuration:
Ubuntu boots to initramfs BusyBox message
0Thinking that installing a virtual kernel for Ubuntu 11.04 would allow my VM to run as paravirtualized (PV) and allow my XenServer Tools to work, I was sadly mistaken.
Once the XenServer Ubuntu VM rebooted, I was no longer able to boot and just received a BusyBox initramfs prompt.
Grub2 is supposed to allow you to hold Shift to get to the grub menu but this did not work at all for me. Just kept seeing a blank screen and eventually the initramfs screen. I think this is a XenServer limitation, as I was trying from the VM console.
The version of grub2 is 1.99 beginning with Ubuntu 11.04 and we can boot with the LiveCD to ChRoot and remove the wrong kernel. Older versions should work too, but I am just letting you know what I was facing.
Boot the appropriate Ubuntu LiveCD (needs to be the exact same bit/version of your installed OS).
Next, mount your disk assuming your /boot partition is not on a separate partition:
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
for i in /dev /dev/pts /proc /sys; do sudo mount -B $i /mnt$i; done
sudo chroot /mnt
Once ChRooted run apt-get remove linux-image-<your-version-to-remove> (review boot/grub/grub.cfg to see what the version is you want to remove: vmlinuz-2.6.32-13-virtual):
apt-get remove linux-image-2.6.38-13-virtual
exit chroot by pressing CTRL-D
for i in /sys /proc /dev/pts /dev; do sudo umount /mnt$i; done
sudo umount /mnt
sudo reboot
For further details please review the Ubuntu Community Help on ChRoot











