Activesync meets your file server

Received notification today for the next Adelaide Windows User Group and was intrigued by the topic, Work Folders in Windows 2012 R2.

The link included in the meeting notice was a Technet article and it seems to be a very useful feature.

It sounds like the Microsoft ActiveSync for Exchange Team had a beer with the File Services team and basically come up with a feature that is like an ActiveSync like connection to a file server.

It can enforce encryption and lock screen passwords on supported devices.

I am looking forward to the meeting and finding out more about the feature as I can some valuable se for this in the context of BYOD (Bring your Own Device) and also non domain devices like IOS (so hoping for an IOS App is available!)

Search Query Topology stuck at deactivating

Consultant working with us removed a Web Front End server from our SharePoint 2010 farm before removing a query component assigned to that server (query component is on all our web front ends)

This lead to an issue with errors being logged about the query component in the event log:

Log Name: ApplicationSource: Microsoft-SharePoint Products-SharePoint Server SearchEvent ID: 2587Description:The following conditions are currently affecting index propagation to this server for search service application 'Search Service': 1. Query 3 has been disabled so that crawls can continue. It may be recovered via the Restart-SPEnterpriseSearchQueryComponent command in PowerShell.

We then removed the query component from the search topology.
However there was a SQL permission issue as well in the background (still not 100% sure of the cause of that yet)

I found that the old top[ology was stuck at deactivating by using the poweshell command 

GET-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication | GET-SPEnterpriseSearchQueryTopology 

The event log errors continued and laso in the ULS log we were getting a lot errors in the SharePoint 2010 search area.

Unable to find server  

Found great article at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepoint_strategery/archive/2013/05/19/sp2010-troubleshooting-serverid-mismatch-deleting-components.aspx

Which mentioned to do a index reset.  

Great script I found at http://get-spscripts.com/2012/02/resetting-sharepoint-2010-search-index.html which I reporduced below was awesome at resetting the index

#Get the search service application
#You will need to specify the -Identity switch and a name if you have more than one
$sa = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication

#Reset index with the following options in brackets:
#Disable Alerts $true/$false
#Ignore unreachable server $true/$false
try
{
    Write-Host "Attempting to reset the index...please wait"
    $sa.Reset($false, $false)
    Write-Host "Index successfully reset" -ForegroundColor Blue
}
catch
{
    Write-Host "There was a problem resetting the index:" $_ -ForegroundColor Red
}

After the index reset  the topology was inactive so I could then simply use the command

GET-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication | GET-SPEnterpriseSearchQueryTopology | where {$_.Id -eq "2598bfd7-2e73-4f20-ace9-fc8c92010c88"} | Remove-SPEnterpriseSearchQueryTopology

Setting Time on a Reebook S Pulse Heart Rate Watch

1. Press and keep Holding the Mode button until the time display starts to flash.
2. When it starts flashing then again press the mode button till the time section that you want to correct would flash , i.e. either hours , minutes or seconds.
3. To move the time up or down, you can use the start/stop and reset buttons.
4. After you have set the time, press and hold the mode button till the time everything stops flashing and comes back to normal mode.

Dell XPS M1530 System Restore

After much mucking about I have discovered Dell are now using the built in Vista repair feature for their factory image.

To restore, use F8 on startup, select Advanced Boot Options, Repair you computer
A recovery OS will then boot, select your language options, then select Dell Factory restore and follow the bouncing ball..

I found the how to on the Dell Website

Acer Aspire Recovery Partition Access Shortcut

To access the recovery partition for system restore press the ALT-F10 or ALT-F9 key, after post

Creating an Exchange Test Enviroment without Data

If you want to create a test/development enviroment for exchange with all you users but without the headache of the GBs of rubbish users call email?

This method is designed if you have imaged your server, minus the data to a Virtual Machine, I recommend the free VMWare server if you are unlucky like me to not have a ESX server hand..

Unfortunately Exchange will fail to start the Store service if your databases are missing. So you need to create an empty one, however without the store service running, Exchange System Manager wont come to the party....

Follow the steps below to get the service started and the store databases created:

1. Right click on each of the mailbox stores and check the option "Do not mount this store on startup"
2. Start the Exchange Information store service, it should now start...
3. Right click on each of the stores and click on Mount, you will be prompted to create an empty store, click Yes to do so.
4. Right click on the store and uncheck the option "Do not mount this store on startup".
5. Enjoy your new enviroment.

Converting a WIndows XP Professional Ghost Image to Windows XP Tablet PC Edition

I have a Windows XP Pro Volume Licence image which we use to deploy out to your desktops and notebooks. However we know have some Tablet PC's (namely a HP 2710p).

Luckily I have found the Deploying Windows CP Tablet PC Edition guide and its supplement Single Image Deployment Supplemental Guide.

These describe in detail on various methods based on RIS, images, sysprep etc.

Our Windows XP Pro SP2 image has been sysprepped and part of the build process is a check for the processor type to adjust the HAL.

Our installation path is set to C:\I386 in sysprep.inf.

The basic overview of how to convert a sysprep Windows XP Sp2 Volume Licence ghost image to Tablet PC edition 2005 is the following:

1. Ghost your Windows XP Pro image to a hard disk and either use a windows PE / BartPE cd or mount the drive in a PC so you can add/edit files without booting from it.
   
   
2. Copy \CMPNENTS\TABLETPC\*.* from Tablet PC Edition Media to C:\I386\CMPNENTS\TABLETPC\*.*
   
   
3. Copy \CMPNENTS\NETFX\*.* from Tablet PC Edition Media to C:\I386\CMPNENTS\NETFX\*.*
   
   
4. Expand and copy into a folder used in your sysprep config for OEM drivers (eg. C:\Windows\PnPDrivers or C:\I386\PnPDrivers etc the following:
   
   hiddigi.in_ expand to hiddigi.inf
   mutohpen.sy_ expand to mutohpen.sys
   serial.sy_ expand to serial.sys
   wacompen.sy_ expand to wacompen.sys
   
   
5. Make sure the following is included in your sysprep.inf
   
   [Unattended]
   InstallFilesPath=C:\sysprep\i386
   OEMPreinstall=Yes
   UpdateInstalledDrivers=Yes
   OEMDriversPath=C:\Windows\PnpDrivers
   
   [UserData]
   ProductKey=xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
   
   (Product ID to be used is a valid Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 Volume Licence Key, we had to buy a Vista Business Licence and call for a downgrade key)
   
   
6. Create / Edit cmdlines.txt in C:\I386\$OEM$ to include the following:
   
   [Commands]
   "sysocmgr /i:%windir%\inf\sysoc.inf /u:c:\sysprep\tablet.txt /c /x"
   
   
7. Create the file C:\SysPrep\Tablet.txt that includes the following:
   
   [Components]
   TabletOC=On
   TPG=On
   System=On
   OOBE=On
   Notebook=On
   Stickynotes=On
   
   
8. You can now restart and the Mini-Setup will build you a Tablet PC edition install!
   

You could potentially just script the change / additon to cmdlines.txt and the change of product key and then use the same image for both Professional and Tablet PC editon. It is the change of product key, the line in cmdlines.txt and additon of the files that makes the build, however it is only the actual key change and the cmdlines.txt change that invokes the tablet PC install.

Some Troublshooting Extra steps that might be needed

Windows XP Pro image had .NET 2.0 SP1 on it, so I needed to repair the installation of it as Tablet PC install forces install of .NET 1.0. I simply went to the control panel and add/removes programs and clicked on change, the PC then needed a reboot.

My digitizer drivers (Wacom Serial Tablet) wouldnt install. It may have been because original image built with VMWare. It kept coming up telling that the drivers were corrupt even though I tried a gudzillion drivers... I discovered I needed to copy the following files to C\Windows\System32\Drivers and then uninstall and redetect the device

• hidclass.sys
• hidparse.sys
• hidusb.sys

This also stopped the HP Quick Launch drivers from installing!