Network Audit and Documentation, CENTREL Solutions Blog

There seems to be a weird bug in the Azure AZ PowerShell API and the underlying REST API whereby when you list the App Services, also known as Web Apps, also known as Sites you find that the SiteConfig property contains null values and is generally missing information. However if you run the Get-WebApp with the -ResourceGroupName and the -Name parameters the SiteConfig property is populated. A similar issue is found when using the Azure REST API  /subscriptions/ subscription identifier /resourceGroups/ resource group name /providers/Microsoft.Web/sites/ web site name The return value's properties.siteConfig is also missing information. Using Fiddler to see how Get-WebApp is working - when you call with the -ResourceGroupName and -Name parameters the cmdlet is making multiple REST API calls and combining the information together. From here we find that to get the SiteConfig information you can make a GET request to the REST API here /subscriptions/ subscription identifier /reso...

 When using a Hewlett Packard (HP) machine and you use the HP Support Assistant that a "Question Mark" icon appears in the toolbar / system tray area of the Windows taskbar. Right clicking the taskbar and selecting Toolbars > HP Support Assistant Quick Access removes the icon, but it is recreated the next time the HP Support Assistant is loaded. To resolve this open the HP Support Assistant click the settings "Gear" icon, click "More Settings" and untick the "Display application icon in the taskbar (recommended)". Alternatively the following registry entry can be set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\HP\HPActiveSupport\HPSF NotifyTray 0

When you use the PowerShell Get-Volume cmdlet or Windows Server Manager you notice that no volumes are shown on Windows 10, Windows Server 2016, and above. You'll notice that this doesn't apply to Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2. This error can occur when the "Microsoft Storage Spaces SMP" service (smphost) is disabled or when the user is not an Administrator. The Microsoft advice is to not disable this service.

 If you are running an IIS ASP.NET application with a custom user account you may see the following error Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {<GUID>} failed due to the following error: 800703fa Illegal operation attempted on a registry key that has been marked for deletion.   This occurs because the custom user's profile has been unloaded by the system but IIS is still trying to access it. This can be solved by setting the Process Model > Load User Profile setting. When using AdvancedInstaller there is no direct configuration setting in the user interface. But setting this property is actually simple. Goto the IIS > Application Pools > Application Pool  > Custom Properties And add the following

When you create a new Active Directory user account using Active Directory Users and Computers you'll find that by default you have to set a password because of the domain's password policy. This is as you would expect However there are other ways to create user accounts including the .NET account management classes -for example: using (PrincipalContext context = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, Environment.UserDomainName)) {      using (UserPrincipal user = new UserPrincipal(context, "NewAccount" , String.Empty, true ))      {           user.Save();      } } These classes allow you to ignore the password policy and set a blank password. It does this by helpfully setting the  PASSWD_NOTREQD flag in the userAccountControl attribute documented here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-server/identity/useraccountcontrol-manipulate-account-properties The problem with this is that thi...

When you try and run Sysprep before imaging Windows 10 or Windows 11 you may see the error  Sysprep was not able to validate your Windows installation. You are told to check the log Checking the log shows an error similar to this SYSPRP Package Microsoft.OneDriveSync_21196.921.7.0_neutral__8wekyb3d8bbwe was installed for a user, but not provisioned for all users. This package will not function properly in the sysprep image. SYSPRP Failed to remove apps for the current user: 0x80073cf2. SYSPRP Exit code of RemoveAllApps thread was 0x3cf2.  While you're here - Why not check out our Windows Server Documentation and Audit Tool? This is because Windows store apps - more information can be found here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-US/troubleshoot/windows-client/deployment/sysprep-fails-remove-or-update-store-apps The code in the Microsoft article isn't very clear, instead this script should help. You can add additional packages if SysPrep fails with another package. Clear-Host $pack...

When you try and install Windows 11 on VMware workstation you see the following error: This PC doesn't meet the minimum system requirements to install this version of Windows. For more information, visit https://aka.ms/WindowsSysReq This can be because you don't have enough RAM (4GB) in the VM, a high enough CPU, or you don't have the TPM installed. You can fix this by doing the following: Check you have 4GB or RAM or more Make sure you're using UEFI Encrypt the virtual machine Install the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) You should now be able to install Windows 11. However... if you plan to used linked clones you will have a problem - encrypted virtual machines can't be used for linked clones! However the TPM security check is in the setup application only not in Windows so you can now shut down the virtual machine, decrypt it and remove the TPM. You'll then be able to create linked clones. There are also ways to ignore the check in setup by pulling up a registry...