Lync: Appear Offline Status

Back in the LCS and OCS days, you could have a status called "Appear Offline" which allowed you to function if you were online, but people wouldn't know it.  Now this option is hidden, but you can re-enable it manually if you edit the registry.

Manually Create

• Run regedit
• Go to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft"
• Create a new key "Communicator"
• Create a dword "EnableAppearOffline"
• Set the vecimal value of "EnableAppearOffline" to 1

Create via .reg file

• Open Notepad
• Copy and paste the text below into notepad
• Save as a .reg
• Open the .reg file and import

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator]
"EnableAppearOffline"=dword:00000001



Before

After

Windows 7 Brightness Not working - Dell Precision - M4600/6600 nVidia Optimus

If you have Windows 7, a Dell Precision Laptop with nVidia Quadro 1000M or 2000M with Optimus enabled and your brightness is not working...add this registry key and restart.


Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4d36e968-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}\0000]
"FeatureTestControl"=dword:0000ffff
"KMD_EnableBrightnessInterface2"=dword:00000000
"KMD_EnableBrightnesslf2"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4d36e968-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}\0001]
"FeatureTestControl"=dword:0000ffff

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\intelkmd]
"FeatureTestControl"=dword:0000ffff

Windows 8.1 Brightness Fix - Intel HD Graphics 3000

So I updated to Windows 8.1 because I figured it's been out long enough and the vendors got the driver issues fixed...apparently not!  A day later, I realized I was no longer able to adjust my screen brightness.  My laptop has two video cards, but the internal screen is driven by the Intel HD Graphics 3000 / 3000M.

So, I downloaded the latest driver from Intel's website - no dice.  I uninstalled the driver entirely, and found that the built-in Windows standard/generic graphic driver works for brightness.  However, the external VGA port doesn't work using that driver, and since it's a generic driver it obviously doesn't perform well.

Luckily, I found a fix for the issue - a simple reg hack.  Make a text file in notepad and paste the following into it:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4d36e968-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}\0000]
"FeatureTestControl"=dword:0000ffff
"KMD_EnableBrightnessInterface2"=dword:00000000
"KMD_EnableBrightnesslf2"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4d36e968-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}\0001]
"FeatureTestControl"=dword:0000ffff

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\intelkmd]
"FeatureTestControl"=dword:0000ffff

Save the file as HD3000MFix.reg or something, double-click to import it and reboot.

Brightness control works now!

Lync 2010 - Edge Server Services won't start

If your Lync Edge Server service - specifically the Lync Server Access Edge service won't start recently (September 2014) - you are likely affected by Windows Update KB2982385.

Issue:

The System event log reports the following errors:

EventID: 7024
Source:   Service Control Manager
Description: The Lync Server Access Edge service terminated with service-specific error %%-1008193023.

The Lync server event log reports the following errors:

EventID: 50007
Source: LS AppDomain Host Process
Description: An unhandled exception was encountered.

Exception Details. System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
   at Microsoft.Rtc.IIMFilter.IIMFilter.GetThrottlingConfig(Int32& messageOverloadWatermark, Int32& memoryWatermark, Int32& overloadRecalculationInterval, Int32 messagesInServer)
   at Microsoft.Rtc.ApplicationService.ApplicationService.Start(EventWaitHandle shutdownEvent, RoleName roleName)
   at Microsoft.Rtc.ApplicationService.ApplicationService.Main(String[] args)
   at System.AppDomain._nExecuteAssembly(Assembly assembly, String[] args)
   at System.AppDomain.ExecuteAssemblyByName(String assemblyName, Evidence assemblySecurity, String[] args)
   at Microsoft.Rtc.AppDomainHost.Launcher.AppDomainLauncher.RunThread()
   at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)
   at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart()
Cause: One of the applications identified in the eventlog description failed.
Resolution:
Restart the server. If the problem persists contact product support.

EventID: 12331
Source: LS Server
Description: Worker process exited prematurely.  The process will be automatically restarted.

Process: 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft Lync Server 2010\Server\Core\RtcHost.exe'  Exit Code: E0434F4D!_HRX! (No Message Text Found!_HRM!).


EventID: 12308
Source: LS Server
Description: A component could not be started.  The service has to stop.

Component: Live Communications Applications Module  Error code: C3E83201!_HRX! (SIPPROXY_E_SHUTDOWN_REQUESTED!_HRM!)

Resolution:

To resolve, visit the Microsoft Download Center to obtain Security Update for Lync Server 2010 (KB2982385, KB2982388)

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=44080

Download all three files into the same folder, run LyncServerUpdateInstaller.exe and run all updates.

After this, restart the Edge services in this order:

• Lync Server Access Edge
• Lync Server Audio/Video Authentication
• Lync Server Audio/Video Edge services.

In-Place Upgrade of Windows Server Edition

Want to upgrade the Windows 2008 R2 OS edition without re-installing?  This page is for you.

To get the current edition:

dism /online /get-currentedition

To get a list of available editions to which you can upgrade:

dism /online /get-targeteditions

To set the new edition:

dism /online /set-edition:ServerEnterprise /ProductKey:xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

or

dism /online /set-edition:ServerDataCenter /ProductKey:xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

After that, all you need to do is reboot!

Somestimes, you may receive an error - even if you use the correct key!  In this case, use the KMS keys - and then reboot and reactivate using your key.  Here is a list of KMS keys from Microsoft.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff793421.aspx

Perfmon.exe CLI Options for Troubleshooting

Recently I ran perfmon.exe / from command line. It yelled at me, "Parameter is incorrect," which made me wonder what the correct one(s) might be. Well here they are! This is great for quick performance troubleshooting.

Reliability Monitor

Perfmon.exe /rel - Provides a reliability report. This can be broken down by days and weeks, with messages for events in all categories: informational, errors, and warnings. A description is included about critical system failures and even system changes like a driver installation.

Check out the cool graph it gives you!

It's also interactive. You can click on the icons to get more information about the type of events occurring at that time.

Performance Report

Perfmon.exe /report - Provides a 60 second capture of performance data and then outputs a report which can be printed, e-mailed or saved.


The report spits out a Dianostic Results page that provides a nice high-level view of what's wrong. Things like... missing drivers! (What a noob!).

Towards the bottom of the summary section there is a nice overview of the areas requiring attention.

There is also a basic resource performance average with CPU, Network, Disk and Memory utilization from the 60 second capture.

Pretty cool eh?

RDS / Remote Desktop Web Access - Browser Not Supported Fix for IE11 / Windows 2008 R2 RDWeb

If you are using Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) and getting an error when trying to access RD Web Access running on a 2008 R2 server - you are not alone.  You are greeted with the following error:

Browser Not Supported - This Web browser is not supported by RD Web Access. RD Web Access requires Internet Explorer 6.0 or later. You can download the latest version of Internet Explorer from the Windows Update Web site

This fix only works on Windows Server 2008 R2 with SP1.  Be sure to apply SP1 first, before applying this fix - otherwise it has no effect.

Here is how to resolve this stupid issue:

1. Open up IIS Mgr

2. Click on the website, expand it, and then click the RDWeb web application

3. Double-click on the HTTP Response Headers

4. Right-click in the blank space and choose "Add..."

5. Enter the values as follows:

Name: X-UA-Compatible
Value: IE=9

When complete, it should look like this:




6. Recycle the application pool - do this by right-clicking on the RDWeb web application, choose deploy - and Recycle.  CloudPro Exclusive! Some sites/pages for this fix say you have to IISRESET, but you do not!

7. Now - refresh your browser (F5) or close and reopen Internet Exploder.  It should work now.

Check Windows for Partition Alignment via WMI

We all know (or should know) the importance of partition alignment.  One quick way to check a Windows server to run this on the command line:

wmic partition get BlockSize, StartingOffset, Name, Index

The starting offset on all three disks on this machine is 32256 - the default.  You can verify this - see if 32256 is evenly divisible by 1024.

32256/1024 = 31.5

As you can see, 32256 is NOT divisible by 1024 evenly - and thus is not aligned.

Windows 2008 and above will automatically set the partition offset correctly, but to check you can run the same command - you should see a starting partition offset of 1MB

1048576 / 1024 = 1024

As you can see, the offset is 1048576 or 1MB - and it is properly aligned.

Flush Windows 2008 R2 RDS Web Access Icon Cache

If you have added a new remoteapp, and you see a generic icon - or the icon is wrong when accessing RD web access - you can clear the cache and it usually fixes the issue.

On the RDS Web Access server - navigate to:

C:\Windows\Web\RDWeb\Pages\rdp

Delete files from this folder - and do an iisreset