Missing tabs in ADUC?

Remote Server Administration Tools is great when you want to administer your servers from your Windows 7 clients. If you are using ADUC (Active Directory Users and Computers) you might have noticed that you are missing some tabs when you choose Properties for a user account? The solution is to be found here!

Windows 7 chat transcript now up

This afternoon I held a chat about Windows 7 hosted by the Swedish MSN website. The chat was in Swedish and I have now put the transcript up for everyone to enjoy at my Swedish Windows site.

Modify default profile in Windows 7 with the least amount of effort

I’ve received a question on why Microsoft stopped supporting the old way of making changes to the default user profile in Windows 7. As you might already know the only supported way to make changes to the default user profile is to make them with a local user account and then sysprep the image with an answer file containing CopyProfile=TRUE.

The question or should I say problem is that the user in question find it ineffective to make changes to the default user profile, by installing the image to a machine then make the changes and once again to sysprep and capture the image.

Fortunately there is a much more effective way to make changes (though unsupported). Just mount the image using imagex or dism, and then add or remove the files you want. If you want to change some settings they most likely stored in the registry so then you can just start the regedit.exe utility as usual and then mount the ntuser.dat file within the image to make the changes and when done just applying the changes and you are done!

Live Meetings, now with Aero!

If you use the Office Live Meeting client you have surely noticed that it does not support Windows Aero. Thanks to Brian McCann for the solution to enable Aero when using Live Meeting. Great!

Solution to folder icons not showing if it is shared

When teaching a Windows 7 course some time ago I was asked why shared folders often are not displayed in Windows Explorer as being shared. Well, the reason for this bug is still unknown but at least there is now a solution available, se KB article KB2291175. This fix will be included in service pack 1.

Quickly login with local user account

Ever tried logging in with a local user account to a Windows 7 machine wondering what the heck the computer name is? Simply type:

.\username

and the password to login. This will login you in with a local account to the machine. Simple as that! :)

Fix for annoying DFS issue with Windows 7

I have experienced this problem a few times and there is now a hotfix for a problem with mapping and accessing DFS shares with Windows 7 clients. Hotfix can be requested from Microsoft Support. Basically you get “An unpexcted network error occured” or a couple of other issues and cannot access the DFS share. Patch and make the problem go away.

Tip when using roaming profiles in Windows 7

If you are using roaming profiles in Windows 7, you should probably want to look at a new GPO setting named “Background upload of a roaming user profile’s registry while user is logged on” that (Computer\Administrative Templates\System\User Profiles) which by an interval you specify upload the registry hive for the user logged into the machine. This is in particular good as users tend to become more and more mobile and just bringing the machine to sleep or hibernation. Normally the profile and the registry included are only copied to the network server at user logoff time. Making this settings hopefully keeps customizations done by your users stick, making the users a lot happier.

Who do not want to cache video and music files using offline files?

Even been in a scenario where users tend to put not only large files but also a large number of music and movie files in a folder which is redirected using folder redirection? Find relief in this new GPO setting which you can use to exclude certain file types from being cached on the client machines. You find the setting in Computer configuration > Administrative templates > Network > Offline files and the setting is called “Exclude files from being cached”. Now only the relevant files will be cached on the client machines, saving space and reducing network bandwidth.

How to resolve common problems when BitLocker enters recovery mode

From time to time BitLocker enabled machines enter recovery mode, requiring an unlock to proceed. Sometimes this comes as a surprise to you as an administrator. An example of when BitLocker  unexpectedly enters recovery mode could be when installing a language pack as this modifies the boot configuration data (BCDEDIT) making BitLocker automatically go to recovery mode as it thinks this is an attack on the machine. Ask the Core team has created a list of the most common problems with BitLocker entering recovery mode.