Cisco VPN Client fails to connect

When running the Cisco VPN client on a Windows 64bit OS, it seems to never install correctly and will fail to connect.

Secure VPN: Connecion terminated locally by the Client.
Reason 442: Failed to enable Virtual Adapter

It seems to be an issue with how the installer registers the network device for the Service. It’s an old issue that has been popping up for YEARS.

Windows 8, 10 and Server 2012 R2 upgrade stops at “Setting up a few things”

I’ve done upgrades on several computers and for the most part never had an issue, but everyone now and then I have found that while the Windows install goes all the way through the installation and device setup, it then seems to get stuck during the very last “Setting up a few more things” stage, sometimes stopping at a frustrating 79%!

I’ve tried leaving them for several hours but it never gets past that point. A hard reset is the only option, after which Windows restores the previous version. So at least nothing is lost other than time.

In all cases though, I’ve found the problem is having the Hyper-V role installed. There must be something about the Hypervisor that causes a problem.

After the OS rolls back, go into roles and features and remove the Hyper-V role, then try the upgrade again. After it completes just add the Hyper-V role back in again and it should pick up all the previous settings.

Windows 10 Adventures – Build 9860

Continued from the first post

The first big update has come… and wow. Build 9860 has been made available.

I have already mentioned how much faster and more responsive Windows 10 seems to be, and this new updates seems to kick it up another notch! I’m sure the SSD makes a huge difference, but whatever Microsoft have done with the caching technology is amazing.

• The issue with dragging windows to the top of the screen seems to be fixed in this release
• I’m starting to like the new start menu. I can see now how you can mix and match between menu list items and tile items
• The multi-desktops thing just didn’t work for me in the first build, but they’ve done some nice tweaks and I really quite like it now. There are still a few useability issues, like how to move apps between desktops, but I think this is going to be a lot more useful than I expected

Microsoft is now also giving you a choice to how quickly you get new versions of the preview updates. If you are adventurous you cna take the “Fast” path, or if you want others to find the bugs first you can take the “Slow” path. It’s a little thing, but a nice thouch.

Did I mention it was fast?

Quick and Dirty DomainController Restore/Recovery

WARNING: This is intended for use in a lab environment rather than production. Given the nature of domain controllers, all details here should be used with extreme caution as damage is HIGHLY POSSIBLE and data loss is a risk.

At various time I want to test something that I want to install on my production system at home without actually risking damaging anything. The easiest way I find is to make a copy of the virtual machine hard disks and start them up attached to a new LAB version of the machine, on an isolated Virtual network of course. This works fine for Domain Controllers also which makes it quicker to test things like Exchange with your actual configuration.

Configuration Manager Update source content being deleted

[Place holder post – FULL POST write up coming shortly]

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/3ac88d59-d1b5-4826-a44d-bb94bfd80f66/configmgr-2012-update-source-content-deleted?forum=configmanagergeneral#39c42c3c-d3af-4362-b097-09c022adc86b

An issue where some source folder content of Windows Update deployment packages is deleted for no apparent reason.

Currently waiting for a response from the Microsoft ConfigMgr Product team on if they feel this is an issue worthy of a product update or just a TechNet article warning of the impact

Summary: issues relating to Update deployment packages that are migrated between ConfigMgr hierarchies that share the same source folder location. Automated “orphan cleanup” process will delete content from the folder if one of the hierarchies doesn’t need it, even it the other one still does.

Delete WINDOWS.OLD on Windows Server

After performing an in-place upgrade on a Windows machine, you will find a WINDOWS.OLD folder in the root of C:. This folder will have a backup of your old program files, appdata and Windows folder… just in case you need to revert back or recover something that might have been lost during the upgrade. When you try to delete it though you are told you don’t have permissions.

Windows 10 adventures (Welcome to the WinX club)

  The Windows 10 technical preview is now open for all to try out. I’ve just taken the plunge and done an in-place upgrade of my main PC (was Windows 8.1) and it’s all come back up fine with no need to re-install anything (so far). It’s available for anyone who want’s to try it out from here:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/preview

Welcome to the WinX club!

Is Windows 10 really a whole new OS version? No, I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure it was what they were going to release as Windows 8.2 (Windows 8, Update 2) but decided to go with the approach that worked well for the change from Vista to Windows 7. Try to cut the connection between the bad press of Windows 8 and learn from previous mistakes. Again. I’m sure Apple is in a panic now that Microsoft has finally caught up in OS version numbers.