Steve the IT Tech Guy

Enable TLS 1.1 and 1.2 in Windows 7 For Outlook To Work

Client that their email provider only connects using TLS 1.1 and 1.2. In Windows 10 its enabled by default and will work fine. For Windows 7 you have to run/check 3 steps. First make sure a Windows Update is installed. You must have SP1 installed and then download the update. Likely its already installed. Second you download and run a MS Easy Fix. Run then restart. Third you need to add 2 registry keys and restart.

Here is the website where I found this.

STEP 1 Download MS Update KB3140245

Install and reboot

STEP 2 Download MS Easy Fixit

Install and reboot

STEP 3 Add the following Registry items and reboot:

Check this registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\Schannel\Protocols

Under the Protocols key, add two new keys, if not already there: One called “TLS 1.1” and one called “TLS 1.2“. Inside both of these keys, add another key called “Client“. Now create a DWORD value in each Client key called “DisabledByDefault” whose value is 00000000.

Reboot and start Outlook.

If Outlook is still not able to send or can’t connect to port 465, change to port 25.

Error Adding Backup Drive For Windows Backup Server

Get the error:

“The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect”

This article explains options. The 3rd option is one needed if you don’t want to connect all the backup drives at once or cannot:

Add a new disk to the backup schedule by running the wbadmin command from an elevated command prompt.

Run the following command from an elevated command prompt to determine the Disk Identifier of the new disk:

wbadmin get disks

Based on the output, locate the disk that will be added to the scheduled backup. Make a note of the Disk Identifier. The output will resemble the following:
Disk name: xxxxxxxxxxx
Disk number: x
Disk identifier: {xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}
Total space: xxx.xx GB
Used space : xxx.xx GB
Run the following command to add the new disk to the Scheduled backup. Use the Disk Identifier from the previous step as the “AddTarget” parameter. (MAKE SURE ITS THE BACKUP DRIVE ID YOU USE AND NOT THE SOURCE)

WBADMIN ENABLE BACKUP -addtarget:{xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}

When you receive the following prompt, type Y for Yes.
“Do you want to enable scheduled backups with the above settings?”

AMENDMENT:

Seems this issue is with Server 2008,2008R2. There is no issue in Server 2012 or 2016

SBS 2011 Windows Backup Of System State or VSS Won’t Work

Had this in a few clients. Seems there is a Sharepoint update that causes it to stop working. From this website found the solution.

1. Open an Administrative command prompt (task manager, show all processes, file -> run).
2. Change directory to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\BIN
3. Run PSConfig.exe -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -force -cmd applicationcontent -install -cmd installfeatures
4. The command can take several minutes to run, please wait

Copy Hyper-V Drive

I have a client that is using Server 2016 Standard and is using Hyper-V. The Hyper-V client is a Windows 2008 R2 server running RDP. The Hyper-V was slow for the remote people so I decided to copy the Hyper-V drive to a set of SSD drives to make things faster. Googling I see there is an option to move the drive but for me being paranoid I wanted to copy the drive. Then create a new Hyper-V with the same specs and then after creating the new Hyper-V attach the copied drive on the SSDs. I have tried this in the past and there is one step you need to do for this to work. There is a permissions issue with the drive. MS has setup a hidden permissions for each Hyper-V drive configuration that you create and you have to give permissions on the drive. When you create a new Hyper-V and have it create a new drive during the configuration then its fine. Its when you want to attach an existing drive to the Hyper-V that you need to give permissions.

So these are the 2 sites I found online that helped me do this. The first one has made a mistake so the second link help me figure out the issue and corrected it:

Link 1

Link 2

So these are the steps I used to make it work:

Shutdown the existing Hyper-V
Copy the .vhdx drive to the new location
Create a new Hyper-V setup with the same specs as the original BUT select attach drive later
On a Powershell command (Make sure you run as administrator or it won’t work) type the following:
Get-VM ‘New Virtual Machine’ | Select-Object VMID (Where New Virtual Machine is the name of the new Hyper-V that you created)
It will display a long SID. You need to copy this SID (Easily in Powershell is highlight the SID and then click on the top bar and select Edit and then copy.
Now this is where link 1 makes a mistake. For me I started a Command Prompt with administrator and went to the folder where the new copy of the .vhdx was. For example the .vhdx file is called server.vhdx. I then typed this command:
icacls “c:\drive\server.vhdx” /grant “NT VIRTUAL MACHINE\{SID}”:(F) where {SID} is the pasted SID. Don’t include {}
Now go into the new Hyper-V settings and attach the .vhdx. It should then start (first time takes a bit).
Once it is loaded I then went in and changed the network IP to what it was on the original. Check Windows activation. It should be OK. If you have MS Office you might need to reactivate it but should not give you problems. For me I also had to duplicate the MAC address of the network card. Each time you create a new Hyper-V it creates a new MAC address (So they don’t conflict if you were running both Hyper-Vs at once). For me I shutdown the new Hyper-V. Go into the settings and expand the network adapter and select the Advanced features and then change the MAC address as the same as the original. For me the client has special TSPrint and TSScan software that check the drive and network device for activation. Changing the MAC address is easier then deactivating and reactivating the software.

I have done this twice on the same server and it has worked for me each time. If you make a backup copy of the .vhdx drive and have to restore likely you will need to run these same steps to get it working.

Recover Windows 8 or 10 Key From Bios

From an elevated command prompt, run:

wmic path SoftwareLicensingService get OA3xOriginalProductKey

Should return a BIOS CD key (8.x & 10 only). It will not return which version it is for.

Another option is to download a utility that will do this.

Follow this LINK to download

Why RAID Is Important

All my servers I build have RAID. Mostly RAID 1. My main multimedia machine at home has 5 drives. 4 of them are set to RAID 1. Well one of these drives died recently. The 8 year old drive (almost to the day) on one of my RAID 1 sets is dead. I have 1000’s of videos,pictures and music that I don’t want to spend days or more to replace so this is why I implemented RAID. I took out the failed drive. Replaced it with a new drive and started the Intel Raid software to rebuild. All up and running fine. For home and small servers I implement the RAID option on the ASUS Motherboard. Its called BIOS RAID. If you search all the IT people say don’t use BIOS RAID. Well I have used BIOS RAID for over 12 years and NEVER had an issue!! Sure the RAID rebuild is slower compared to hardware RAID but the nice thing I like with BIOS RAID 1 is I can take one of the drives if say the MB died and can read from any PC. Lets see you do this with a RAID 5 controller set. NOT! I have had a client many years ago that had RAID 5 and this happened. If the controller dies you are SOL. Luckily they had a good backup. It took me 3 days to get everything going as before. This is why I will never implement RAID 5. I only do RAID 1 and RAID 10.

Windows 10 1803 Problems

There seems to be some people having issues with the new Windows 10 1803. I have upgraded 4 of my PCs and my one Laptop is on insider and has had it for about a month before release. I have not had any issues that some people have had. I don’t use Chrome that often so won’t have that issue. Don’t use a microphone so can’t relate on that. Have not gotten any BSOD. Most of my PCs are running ASUS MBs. I have a used Dell PC and a Lenovo Laptop. Maybe I am one of the lucky ones or maybe its hardware related with drivers etc. Any how here is a link of issues that people have been having with Windows 1803.

Windows 10 1803 Issues

M.2 Controller Comparison

So as I am starting to create pricing sheets for PCs I sell and starting to include 8th gen Intel CPUs and I started to look at the different options for the motherboards. One of the major options is the M.2 slots. Looking at the various ASUS MBs with M.2 there are a different versions of the controllers speeds. This is also compared to the M.2 SSD drive versions. I looked for a chart that compared this but have not found one. The drives all specify MB/s. The controller like to specify Gbps or just architecture. So for me and others I have created a chart that explains the differences.

In my chart I compare speed of the Gbps, M.2 controller, controller name, Max MB/s and example of ASUS MBs. The basis is to prevent you spend a large amount of money on a high end NVMe drive and install it in a low price MB that has a limited M.2 controller.

There are other controllers and different speeds (m.1, U.2 etc) but these are the most common now. I have included SATA drives and controllers to give a comparison of the old SATA vs SSD.

Gbps	Max MB/s	Drive Example	Drive Max Speed	Controller Name	ASUS Ex MB Models

3 Gbps	375 MB/s	WD Blue 500GB SATA	108 MB/s	SATA II 3	All
6 Gbps	750 MB/s	WD Black 4TB SATA	175 MB/s	SATA III 6	All new
10 Gbps	1250 MB/s	WD Blue M.2	560 MB/s	M.2 PCIe x2 (socket 2)	H310M-C
20 Gbps	2500 MB/s	WD Black PCIe M.2	2050 MB/s	M.2 PCIe x4 (socket 3)	B250M-C
32 Gbps	4000 MB/s	WD Black NVMe M.2	3400 MB/s	M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4	H370M-PLUS B360M-C

I included Western Digital Drives because they are common with all different configurations. There are also Samsung drives and others that would be similar. Some have faster speeds than the WD but it gives you an idea with max MB/s options. If you look the SATA 3 and 6 are rated at faster speeds than the drives but the limit of spinning drives vs SSDs you can see why the future will be all SSDs. Once the price is better. It takes time. I remember the first SSD was like $1000 for say 20GB now you can get 128GB for under $100. Also you can see that SATA III can handle SSDs speeds. Thats some of the lower SSDs say M.2 SATA. Also why all the SATA SSDs have a max of 5XX MB/s even though theoretically its 750MB/s with all the overhead etc it won’t get there.

I feel this is just an intermediate. The norm will be M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 and the next faster SSDs will be beyond these. We will see what the future holds.

Computer Electronics

When I went to College my major was Computer Electronics Engineering. The last year was geared to my TR. This is a project you build that is computer related. My TR (which won the TR of the year) was a remote control device over the phone to control devices. This was 1991. There were no Arduino, Raspberry pi etc. It was created with a limited CPU, RAM, EEprom, analog to digital device, telephone chip that can interpreted. I had at the time a new device that I could record my voice digitally and could just send a command to the device to play the recording depending on the address. I think this part made me win the award. There were other students that were building similar devices but no other had the voice part. The voice part helped the person on the call to control the device to hear “Press 1 to turn on device 1” etc. The others basically had to guess what the state of the device or had a high or low beep to tell the person what the state of the device. The biggest learning part at the time is this is how computers were built at the time. The programming of the device was all assembly. The issue back then was you do the program, send to an eeprom. Put the eeprom in the socket and hope for the best. This was the back bone of how computers were made.

Now you can do this with different hardware and software over the Internet in a very short time. I know because I built an Arduino with a wired shield to connect to the Internet. Connect a light to the Arduino and with a little website I could remote in from anywhere to connect to the Internet and control the Internet. I did not have the voice but did not need this since I had a website that told me the state of the device. It took me maybe 2 hours to create the program and get the website and Arduino going. It took me 4 months to get the TR project going in 1991. This is the differences of how computer tech has gotten better over the years!!

Change IDE To AHCI Mode For Windows 7, 8, or 10

For Windows 10

Found this at the following post.

Basically follow these steps:

Right-click the Windows Start Menu. Choose Command Prompt (Admin).
Type this command and press ENTER: bcdedit /set {current} safeboot minimal
Restart the computer and enter BIOS Setup (the key to press varies between systems).
Change the SATA Operation mode to AHCI from either IDE or RAID (again, the language varies).
Save changes and exit Setup and Windows will automatically boot to Safe Mode.
Right-click the Windows Start Menu once more. Choose Command Prompt (Admin).
Type this command and press ENTER: bcdedit /deletevalue {current} safeboot
Reboot once more and Windows will automatically start with AHCI drivers enabled.

For Windows 7

Open regedit and go to the following location:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\msahci

or Windows 8 and 8.1

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\storahci

And change the Start DWORD value from 3 to 0.

Got this from this location

Steve the IT Tech Guy

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