Jan 24

How to fix the iCloud Outlook plugin after Win10 update

Even though I’m a Microsoft fanatic, I do love my Apple devices, like iPhone or iPad. That’s why I have an iCloud account. One of the benefits of an iCloud account is that you can easily share a calendar with other iCloud users. To make sure I don’t make any double booking in my planning, I use the iCloud software which integrates in my Microsoft Office Outlook Client.

As a Microsoft fanatic I’m a member of the Windows Insider Program and since 2015 running the fast ring releases. This results in often new builds / reinstallations of Windows 10. Which is not a problem if I can give feedback on the new builds and new features. But after every reinstallation of Windows 10 the local installed iCloud add-in in Outlook didn’t work anymore.  The add-in disappeared from the Outlook Ribbon and although my iCloud calendars were still available, I couldn’t update them anymore… To fix it (quick and dirty), I removed the iCloud for Windows software and reinstalled iCloud for Windows again…. But unfortunately after several reinstallations even that didn’t work anymore…. So now what?
When troubleshooting this issue I found out that the iCloud add-in in Outlook was still in my add-in list, but it was inactive. Normally the iCloud add-in would show the load behavior, but in my case it showed ‘Deleted’ (verwijderd in Dutch).

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Nov 17

Cannot connect Microsoft Lumia phone to Windows 10

As a Windows fanatic I have a Surface laptop and a Windows phone (Lumia 950XL). Both running Windows 10 (Insider build).
Both work fine, but when I have installed another Insider build on my laptop, I cannot connect my Windows Phone to my Windows laptop using the USB cable. In Explorer there is no device / drive available and Device Manager shows a warning on my Lumia…

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Mar 24

How to set permissions on custom SCCM reports

System Center Configuration ManagerFor one of my customers I was asked to set up a new SCCM site (SCCM2016 – 1610). They had one extra request, they wanted to use a custom report: Software Update Compliance Dashboard (a nice report from Gary Simmons).

After setting up the SCCM environment, I setup the Reporting Server and the reporting services point. When that was working I imported the custom report. So far, so good. The custom report was accessible for the SCCM Admins security group. As I didn’t want to give all users full SCCM admin permissions, I added the reporting security group on the Manage Folders section on my SSRS site. And it worked! Users from the reporting security group could access the site.

A few minutes later, when I was showing the report to my customer, I didn’t had access anymore. After checking the permissions on the SSRS site, I noticed that the security group was removed?! I tried the same actions, one more time, but again, same result.

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Apr 24

App-V not working on Pro-edition after Windows 10 upgrade 14316

windows_10_logo

As an App-V 5 enthusiast and App-V 5 trainer I virtualized almost all my applications and run them locally. This made it so easy to join the Windows 10 Insider Program and run the latest build on my production laptop. If something goes wrong, I easily revert to a previous build and import my App-V applications again.

On the 6th of April of 2016, Microsoft announced Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14316 which I directly installed. After the upgrade I didn’t find any issues, different then described in the known issue list released by Microsoft (https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/04/06/announcing-windows-10-insider-preview-build-14316/). I did notice that one of my virtualized apps (App-V) crashed at launch, but because another app did launch, I thought it had to do with that specific package.

Two days later I noticed that another virtualized app, didn’t work as before. And then it struck me. App-V would be integrated in the upcoming Redstone release. So did Microsoft added App-V in this build already? I found that my App-V client was removed, but I couldn’t find an App-V feature. After contacting my friend Ryan Bijkerk (MVP), I tried to enable App-V through PowerShell, but still no luck…

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Apr 14

Upgrade Windows 10 Pro to Enterprise Edition

As an IT Consultant with a Microsoft mindset I really like the Windows 10 Insider program. But when I updated my laptop to the latent Insider build (14316), I noticed that my local App-V apps weren’t working anymore. This is due to the new integrated App-V client within Win10 (http://www.tmurgent.com/TmBlog/?p=2433). As an App-V enthusiast a smile appeared on my face, until… I couldn’t enable the App-V client as apparently I was running Windows 10 Pro Edition (which was available when I joined the Insider Program) and to enable that functionality, I needed the Enterprise Edition…

So what’s next? I didn’t want to loose my local data… The question arised: “What is the impact of upgrading to an Enterprise Edition”?

Luckily it’s really easy to upgrade Windows 10. The only thing you need is the Enterprise product key! You don’t even need to use an Enterprise ISO or any other install media!

So how to do the upgrade:

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Oct 21

SCCM: How to SEE that your OS installation was successful?

A couple years ago I was working on a project on which I was responsible to set-up an OS Deployment using SCCM (at that time 2007R2). We wanted to deploy multiple workstations at once and we wanted to implement a solution to easily see that the installation was successful. The only requirements I received were: it should be visible & easy to understand…
I’ve created a solution already in 2011, but I thought that it was just a temporary solution untill we found a better way. The implemented solution is still in use by that customer. In fact this solution now is used in several big companies in the Netherlands and still colleagues are asking me to share the solution! So I think it’s time to share my solution with you all 🙂 Please do remind this is only tested on Windows 7.

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Jan 12

Change VLC installation directory during silent install mode

When working on a packaging process, you normally package using specific guidelines. One of the packaging guidelines I often use, is changing the installation directory of an application to a unique directory, conform naming standards.

There are lots of blogs on how to create a silent install package for VLC Player, but the most current blogs never mention how to change the installation directory. I noticed that previously the parameter /D was used for changing the installation directory, but in the current version (2.1.5) that doesn’t work anymore.

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Sep 04

Windows cannot be installed on this disk

In October 2012 I create a blog about not able to install Windows 8 on my SSD (install Windows 8 on SSD). After almost 2 years, I have a simulair issue!

Again late at night, cleaning my laptop before returning it to the office. From my installed Windows 8.1 I formatted my secondary drive. This was the Original drive of the laptop and because I’m about to return my laptop, I changed the drive back as primary drive and started a new installation of Windows 8.1.

I booted from USB, which is no problem, started the wizard like I did lots of times before and… When I wanted to select the partition to install on, I noticed the error: “Windows cannot be installed on this disk”. I was not able to remove, or format the partition. It was all greyed-out! Crap! Here we go again…..

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May 12

SCCM2012 – WSUS installation errors

At one of my customers, I was working on setting up a SCCM2012 environment. The environment includes a Central Administration Server and a Primary Site Server. The Software Update Point role was already installed on the CAS, but not on the primary.
Clients in the primary site aren’t able to retrieve Windows Updates directly from the CAS, therefore I wanted to add the SUP role on the Primary site server.

First: Install WSUS.
The most easy part of it all is installing WSUS on a Windows 2012 server (I thought). In Windows 2012 WSUS can be installed as a Server Role, directly from Server Manager. Because I already had all the required pre-requisites, I only needed to add WSUS. This all went fine,but… After the installation there is a Post-installation job to configure WSUS.
(When using SCCM you don’t need to configure WSUS, but at least the post-installation job should start to finish the installation of WSUS.)

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Apr 23

SCCM OSD: Failed to get client identity (80004005)

Deploying clients with SCCM is great when everything works smoothly, but when you get an error…. it really can be a pain in the A**…ehm,  Bum…

At one of my customers, where we had to work with some old/spare devices, I had issues with deploying them. The WinPE booted, but then directly restarted. I always enable F8 – testing mode in the Boot Image, so I was able to check if the client had an IP address and if the client had normal access to the local harddrive. Both were OK. So next step: Check the log!

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