Category Archives: Windows

How To Fix: Bitlocker Recovery Key Prompts On Every Reboot

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windows-10-bitlocker-featured

There are few reports of users having Bitlocker issues following the October 2016 patches.

The issue: On every reboot, the Bitlocker recovery key is required which is quite disruptive and cumbersome. As a workaround in order to solve this issue, the following steps can be taken:

On the next reboot and once in Windows, reset Bitlocker by disabling and re-enabling it.
In administraive command prompt, do the following:
manage-bde -protectors c:-disable
then do this:
manage-bde -protectors c:-enable

At this time, I’m not certain on which patch is causing the issue but I wanted to share this info to help. You can also discuss in this TechNet post.

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Updated – Microsoft Update Catalog Site

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new-ms-update-catalog

The Microsoft Windows team mentioned on August 15, 2016 that they were working on releasing an updated version of the Microsoft Update Catalog which would eliminate the need for ActiveX requirements in order for the site to work in any browser.

The Microsoft Update Catalog website is being updated to remove the ActiveX requirement so it can work with any browser. Currently, Microsoft Update Catalog still requires that you use Internet Explorer. We are working to remove the ActiveX control requirement, and expect to launch the updated site soon.

Good news! As of yesterday, the site has been updated and you can now access the Microsoft Update Catalog site using any browser including Edge, Google Chrome, and others with the following URL: http://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com. Here’s the blog post by Michael Niehaus with the announcement.

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Windows 10 Anniversary Edition (Version 1607) Available in VLSC

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Windows10-Enterprise1607-VLSC

The long awaited Windows 10 Anniversary edition (version 1607) has been released and is now available for download from the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) portal. You’ll find both 32-bit and 64-bit ISO files with a download size of 2787 MB and 3728 MB respectively.

Happy Windows 10 Anniversary installation!

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How To Reset WSUS Server

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3d human try to press a button

Sometimes, for various reasons, one must perform a WSUS reset function to make the WSUS server happy again. The reset process forces a resync of each update in the WSUS server with Microsoft services. This task can take a long time to complete as each update will be re-evaluated and re-downloaded, so be patient.

Here’s the command to run from an administrator command prompt::
%SystemDrive%\Program Files\Update Services\Tools\WsusUtil.exe reset

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MDT 2013 Update 2 Released

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mdt2013update2

The Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2013 Update 2 has been released and the most current version (6.3.8330) can be downloaded from the Microsoft Download Center.

According to the MDT blog post by Aaron Czechowski (Senior Program Manager), MDT 2013 Update 2 is basically a quality release which does not contain any new features. Some of the significant changes in this update include:

  • Security- and cryptographic-related improvements:
    • Relaxed permissions on newly created deployment shares (still secure by default, but now also functional by default)
    • Creating deployment shares via Windows PowerShell adds same default permissions
    • Updated hash algorithm usage from SHA1 to SHA256
  • Includes the latest Configuration Manager task sequence binaries
  • Enhanced user experience for Windows 10 in-place upgrade task sequence
  • Enhanced split WIM functionality
  • Fixed OSDJoinAccount account usage in UDI scenario
  • Fixed issues with installation of Windows 10 language packs
  • Various accessibility improvements
  • Monitoring correctly displays progress for all scenarios including upgrade
  • Improvements to smsts.log verbosity

There are no significant known issues in this release, however the previous post for MDT 2013 Update 1 has some information that may still be applicable, other than the fixes list above. The following post provides some information on How to get help with MDT, in case you need it.

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You Get To Keep Your Free OneDrive Storage

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OneDrive

Last month on November, 2, 2015, Microsoft made a surprising announcement regarding changes to it’s OneDrive storage plans, which resulted in a backlash from the OneDrive user community. Over 70,000 votes were generated in a form of a protest called “Give us back our storage” which was launched on the UserVoice site, forcing Microsoft to address this issue. And they did today.

OneDrive_GiveBackStorage

The above feedback on UserVoice was closed by Douglas Pearce, Microsoft Group Program Manager, who also offered this statement:

In November we made a business decision to reduce storage limits for OneDrive. Since then, we’ve heard clearly from our Windows and OneDrive fans about the frustration and disappointment we have caused. We realize the announcement came across as blaming customers for using our product. For this, we are truly sorry and would like to apologize to the community.

While we are not changing our overall plans, we’d like to clarify what we are doing for customers impacted by the changes and share a new offer which we hope will go a long way in making the situation better for our biggest fans.

Office 365 Home, Personal, and University subscriptions will continue to include 1 TB of storage. Any subscriber who received additional storage as part of our unlimited offer will keep it for at least 12 months. For anyone unhappy with the decision to not offer unlimited storage, we will offer a full refund.

For customers of our free service who have over 5 GB of content and who are directly impacted by the storage change, we will offer one free year of Office 365 Personal, which includes 1 TB of storage. These customers will receive an email with redemption information early next year.

In addition, for our biggest fans who have been loyal advocates for OneDrive, we are adding a new offer that lets you keep your existing 15 GB of free storage when the changes happen next year. If you also have the 15 GB camera roll bonus, you’ll be able to keep that as well. From now until the end of January, you can sign up to keep your storage at the link below.

http://aka.ms/onedrivestorage

We are all genuinely sorry for the frustration this decision has caused and for the way it was communicated. Thank you for sticking with us.

Bottom line, if you want to keep your 15 GB free storage as well as the 15 GB bonus for using the Camera Roll feature, head over to https://preview.onedrive.com/bonus/ before the end of January 2016 to lock that in for each individual account you use.
OneDrive_KeepFreeStorage

Once you have done so, you’ll be glowing with success!
OneDrive_success

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ADMX, ADK, RSAT Released For Windows 10 (Version 1511)

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Computer_update_comic

With the release of Windows 10 version 1511, the following tools to support this latest release has been made available, which includes Windows 10 Administrative Templates (.ADMX), Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK), Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT), as well as the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool.

Windows 10 Administrative Template (.ADMX)

Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 10 (RSAT)

Windows 10 Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK)

Windows 10 Media Creation Tool

Microsoft Office 2016 Administrative Templates and Office Customization Tool is also available for download.

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Update – Windows ADK For Windows 10 (Version 1511)

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windows10_adk

Update / Warning:

Aaron Czechowski, Senior Program Manager, Enterprise Client and Mobility has issued a warning regarding the latest release of Windows ADK for Windows 10, version 1511:

“…….there is a serious issue with it that blocks the following Configuration Manager OS deployment scenarios:

  • From Software Center, launch a task sequence that uses a Windows PE v10.0.10586 boot image. When the computer restarts into Windows PE, it will fail when “Initializing hardware devices” with the error: “Windows PE initialization failed with error code 0x80220014.”

At this time, we do not recommend that Configuration Manager customers use the 1511 version of the Windows 10 ADK.”

Johan Arwidmark, a System Center and OSD expert had also posted a warning on November 15, 2015 on his blog post “Inside Windows 10 ADK Build 10586“.

“Warning: Do NOT upgrade your ConfigMgr 2012 R2 SP1 or MDT 2013 Update 1 environments to this build yet. For ConfigMgr, even though it seems to fix the x64 UEFI / PXE and Powershell/.NET issue, which is great, the new ADK does break Computer Refresh scenarios (Bare metal works). The error code is 0x80220014. Research and discussions with the product teams in progress… MDT 2013 Update 1 yet to be validated, but error comments on twitter does not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling.”

——————————————————————————————————————–
Original post: November 20, 2015.

The Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) for Windows 10, version 1511 is now available from Microsoft’s “Download Kits and Tools for Windows 10” site.

The Windows ADK now includes:

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Windows 10 Enterprise Build 1511 ISO Available on VLSC

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win10-ent3

Microsoft Volume License customers will now find the Windows 10 Enterprise (build 1511) downloads (ISO files) are now available on the Microsoft Volume Licensing Center (VLSC) portal (as of November 16, 2015).

There are two downloads available for this edition (see image below):

  1. Windows 10 Enterprise (Released Jul ’15)
  2. Windows 10 Enterprise, Version 1511 (Released Nov ’15)

win10-ent2

** Windows 10 Enterprise, Version 1511 is a Current Branch and includes the latest updates and features. For Current Branch for Business, install Windows 10 Enterprise (Released Jul ’15).

  • System Requirements for Windows 10:

    Processor: 1 GHz processor or faster
    Memory: 1 GB ( 32-bit ) and 2 GB (64-bit)
    Drive Space: Up to 20 GB available hard disk space
    Operating System: Windows 10