All posts by BoonTee

Office

Viewing your Office 2016 Product Key from the Microsoft Office Account

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Note: This article does not apply to Office 365 Professional Plus or Office 365 for Business installations, as the activation is tied to the Microsoft Account. This works with the online installations (Click and Run) for Office 2016 and 2013.

Why do we need to know this, if you already have the Product Key card? If you activated more than one installation on the same day, you will not easily be able to distinguish which installation pertains to the specific Product Key.

For example, when logged in to www.office.com/myaccount, we can see that this user activated the software on 2 PCs on the same day. Suppose one of these PCs needed to have Office 2016 re-installed? Which install should we choose?

office2016

If you have the Product Key card, you can compare that key to the key on one of these installations.

  1. From My Account, select Install from a disc.
    office2016a
  2. Expand I have a disc, and click View your product key
    office2016b
  3. You will now see the product key for this installation and compare this with the Product Key card to verify that you will be reinstalling the correct keyed version of Office 2016 on the PC.

Kudos to Richard and Ken from Junction City for the pointer to this information.

Windows 10

How to remove Built-In Apps in Windows 10

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Here is a tutorial on using PowerShell to remove the WIndows 10 Built-In apps. This is useful for providing a standardized PC environment to users in a work environment.

Basically, several PowerShell commands are used. The following commands show and remove apps from the user account.

  1. Show a listing of all the installed apps on the computer – Get-AppxPackage | Select Name, PackageFullName
  2. Remove the app – Get-AppxPackage [PackageFullName] | Remove-AppxPackage (you can put this into a script for multiple apps, or use wildcards)

Variations include uninstalling the app from all user accounts by adding -allusers –  Get-AppxPackage -allusers [PackageFullName] | Remove-AppxPackage

If you need to re-install a particular app, you can use the following command – Add-AppxPackage -register “C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\[PackageFullName]\appxmanifest.xml” -DisableDevelopmentMode

Thanks to the folk at A?KVG for these articles.

Fixes, Windows 10

Partitions may be missing after installing the Windows 10 Anniversary Update

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The main thing to glean from this issue is “not try to recover or otherwise write data to the affected partition, nor should you format the partition”

From Microsoft – http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-files/partitions-may-be-missing-after-installing-the/ffafb34b-df6e-4c61-927d-babf29b46b87

Microsoft has received a small number of reports of partitions not appearing in File Explorer after installing the Anniversary Update. When viewing the partition in Disk Management, it appears as RAW, unallocated space.
Microsoft is aware of this issue and is working on a solution to be released through Windows Update. Any data you have stored on the affected partition is still there. We recommend that you not try to recover or otherwise write data to the affected partition, nor should you format the partition. We will update this thread when a patch is released. If you would like to be notified when this thread is updated, click the Subscribe button at the end of this post.
For up to days 10 days after installing the Anniversary Update, Windows includes the ability to “go back” or return to the previous build if you are experiencing this issue and do not want to wait for the patch to be released.

To uninstall the Anniversary Update:

  1. Open the Settings app.
  2. Select Update & security and then the Recovery tab.
  3. Under “Go back to an earlier build”, click the Get started button and follow the instructions.

(Note: If more than 10 days have elapsed since installing the Anniversary Update or the “Go back” option is otherwise not available; we ask for your patience until a patch can be released. Please check back on this thread for an update.)

Fixes, Windows 10

Windows 10 may freeze after installing the Anniversary Update

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More problems are brewing with reports that Windows 10 may lock up or experience unusual networking issues after installing the Windows 10 Anniversary update.

One of the first troubleshooting steps to take is to uninstall and re-install the networking drivers.

If this does not work, follow the steps noted here to rollback the update until a fix is released – http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-performance/windows-10-may-freeze-after-installing-the/5a60d75d-120a-4502-873c-8bfec65c82d0?page=1&auth=1

Method 1: Using the Recovery Console

  1. Restart your PC. When you get to the sign-in screen, hold the Shift key down while you select Power > Restart.
  2. After your PC restarts to the Choose an option screen, select Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Go back to the previous build. If you don’t see this option, try Method 2.

Method 2: Using the Settings app from Safe Mode

  1. Restart your PC. When you get to the sign-in screen, hold the Shift key down while you select Power > Restart.
  2. After your PC restarts to the Choose an option screen, select Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Startup Settings > Restart.
  3. After your PC restarts, you’ll see a list of options. Select 4 or F4 to start your PC in Safe Mode.
  4. Open the Settings app.
  5. Select Update & security and then the Recovery tab.
  6. Under “Go back to an earlier build”, click the Get started button and follow the instructions.
Fixes, Server 2012 R2, Windows 10

Windows 10 Anniversary Update and Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials

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If you are running Windows Server 2012 R2, and have Windows 10 Clients that will soon update to the Windows 10 Anniversary update, you should review the following links.

Susan Bradley’s blog on the manual steps required – http://blogs.msmvps.com/bradley/2016/08/11/windows-10-anniversary-update-and-essentials-r2/

Robert Pearman’s blog with some Powershell fixes – https://windowsserveressentials.com/2016/08/05/july-update-rollup-kb3172614-and-windows-10/

Reinstalling he Essentials Client Connector – Cannot download the package. Check these out – https://windowsserveressentials.com/2016/08/08/cannot-download-the-package-essentials-2012-r2/ and https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40285

Azure

Azure RemoteApp will be deprecated in August 2017

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The Remote Desktop Team have just put out a blog announcing a partnership with Citrix in providing XenApp “express”. In the process, Azure RemoteApp will be deprecated. Final purchased will be available up to 1 October 2016, while support will be available until 31 August 2017.

See the announcement here – https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/enterprisemobility/2016/08/12/application-remoting-and-the-cloud/

Windows 10

Windows 10 free upgrade is still available if you use Assistive Technologies

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If you missed out on the closing date for the Windows 10 free upgrade offer on 29 July 2016, ghacks.net reports that Microsoft have a pathway for customers who use assistive technologies to be able to access the free upgrade. That website can be found here – https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/accessibility/windows10upgrade

What are Assistive Technologies, you ask? According to Microsoft (https://www.microsoft.com/enable/at/), “Assistive technology products are specialty hardware and software products (such as screen readers and voice recognition products) that provide essential accessibility to computers for those with significant vision, hearing, dexterity and mobility, language and communication, or learning needs.”

So how do you qualify for the free upgrade?

  1. Go to the link above, and click Upgrade Now.

That’s it. There have not been any restrictions put on the site, and there are no specific Assistive Technologies required to qualify.

Fixes, Hardware, Server 2012 R2

Installing the LAN Driver on Windows Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 on an Intel NUC 5i3RYH

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I recently had to set up a Hyper-V server in a very small environment using an Intel NUC PC. The system installed well, but the LAN drivers would not install. Using information from the following two websites (https://jayrbarrios.com/2014/11/19/intel-nuc-d54250wykh-installing-lan-driver-on-windows-hyper-v-server-2012-r2/ and https://foxdeploy.com/2013/09/12/hacking-an-intel-network-card-to-work-on-server-2012-r2/), I was able to install the LAN driver properly.

  • Download the latest driver for the NUC for the Windows 8.1 operating system. The file should be called LAN_Win8.1_64_nn.exe
  • Extract the installer using WinRAR to the C:\TEMP folder.
  • Go to the following folder C:\TEMP\PRO1000\Winx64\NDIS64 and open e1d64x64.inf in Notepad
  • Remove the highlighted 3 lines.

  • Copy the following 3 lines

  • Scroll down to the next section and past them here

  • Save the inf file.
  • Run the following 3 commands from an Administrative command prompt.
    • bcdedit /set LOADOPTIONS DISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS
    • bcdedit /set TESTSIGNING ON
    • bcdedit /set nointegritychecks ON
  • Reboot the server
  • Install the driver from an Administrative command prompt

    C:> pnputil -I -a C:\TEMP\PRO1000\Winx64\NDIS64\e1d64x64.inf

  • Click Install this driver anyway when prompted

  • The following messages should be shown.

    Processing inf : e1d64x64.inf

    Successfully installed the driver on a device on the system.

    Driver package added successfully…..

  • Run the following 3 commands from an Administrative command prompt.
    • bcdedit /set LOADOPTIONS ENABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS
    • bcdedit /set TESTSIGNING OFF
    • bcdedit /set nointegritychecks OFF
  • Reboot the server and check that the driver has install properly.
Azure, Business, Cloud, Featured, Windows 10, Windows Server

PowerBiz Solutions gains Microsoft Silver Small and Midmarket Cloud Solutions competency

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SilverSMSC

PowerBiz Solutions today announced that it has successfully achieved the Microsoft silver Small and Midmarket Cloud Solutions competency. Partners demonstrating professional and proficient capability in assisting small and medium sized businesses moving to the Cloud can attain this certification upon satisfying established performance criteria and providing customer references.

The competency demonstrations the continued dedication and commitment to excellence in enabling businesses to use technology as a business advantage to achieve their targets and objectives. PowerBiz Solutions continues to provide high quality technical expertise to enable small and medium business to be efficient and effective in the use of Microsoft on-premises and cloud technologies based on Windows Server, Windows 10, Office 365 and Azure.

 

 

Features, Office 365, Useful Links

Office 365 Service Comparison

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Here is a great resource for evaluating and comparing the myriad of options available in Office 365. This site also provides you with a downloadable Excel workbook so that you can work on this offline.

The technet resource is available here – https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dn788955.aspx