Exchange – 4.5.1. 4.4.0 Primary Target 4.2.1 unable to connect to alternative host
Nov17

Exchange – 4.5.1. 4.4.0 Primary Target 4.2.1 unable to connect to alternative host

KB ID 0000790  Problem My colleague Allen was doing an Exchange 2003 to 2010 migration today, and things were not going well, mail refused to flow from the Exchange 2003 server to the Exchange 2010 server (it flowed from 2010 to 2003 without error). During migrations that’s not unusual, and removing and recreating the routing groups usually fixes it, but he had done that. Mail was sat on the Exchange 2003 Server outbound queues on the...

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Exchange 2003 – Defragmenting Your Database with Eseutil
Nov17

Exchange 2003 – Defragmenting Your Database with Eseutil

KB ID 0000814  Problem I don’t have many clients left that still have Exchange 2003, so this will probably be the last time I have to do this (famous last words). Exchange databases NEVER get smaller, if you delete information out of them, it simply creates white space, that Exchange will reuse, (so they will steadily grow in size). Before you carry out this procedure, get your users to clear down their mailbox’s. Also...

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Microsoft Excel – SGXLADDIN.dll could not be found

KB ID 0000505  Problem Seen when launching Microsoft Excel.. Error: ‘C:WindowsSysWOW64SGXLADDIN.dll’ could not be found, Check the spelling of the file name, and verify that the file location is correct. Solution You are seeing this because you have installed a Sage accounting product in the past and it dropped some add-ins into Excel. 1. Close the error > Click File> Options > Add-Ins > Select the “Sage...

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Excel – Creating a Dropdown Box ‘From data on another sheet’
Nov17

Excel – Creating a Dropdown Box ‘From data on another sheet’

KB ID 0000711  Problem My wife asked me how to do this today. I don’t use Excel much, most people think because I work in IT I know everything about all software packages, and they are surprised when I’m asked questions like this, and I say ‘I don’t know I’m a network engineer’. But seeing as it was for the better half, I fired up Excel and worked it out. (This must be worth at least a cup of Tea!)...

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Excel – IP Address Formula for ‘Auto fill’
Nov17

Excel – IP Address Formula for ‘Auto fill’

KB ID 0000928  Problem I got asked this week if I know how to do this, a colleague was doing a spreadsheet, and needed to quickly put in IP addresses. The Problem is if you use ‘Auto Fill’ to continue your IP addresses, it does not behave quite like you would expect. Solution A quick search got me most of the way there, but the solution is different depending on which ‘octet’ of the IP address you want to...

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Allow Users to Install Printers with Group Policy
Nov17

Allow Users to Install Printers with Group Policy

KB ID 0000148  Problem Ordinary domain users cannot install printer drivers, because installing a printer driver requires “rights”. So unless you have installed the print driver as an administrator, the users cannot add a new printer, without logging on with administrative privileges, installing the printer and driver, then logging back on as the user, only at that point can they install the printer. To stop this happening...

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Active Sync  on Small Business Server 2003 with iPhone
Nov17

Active Sync on Small Business Server 2003 with iPhone

KB ID 0000336  Problem I don’t know why but ActiceSync will NOT work out of the box with SBS 2003, for a long time I’ve just told my clients “it can’t be done”. However after the problem went off the boil for a while, it was the topic of conversation in the office, I did some searching and came up with a solution. You don’t need IMAP – you don’t need ISA server – you just need 5...

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Windows – Remove the Username (Personal Folder) From the Start Menu
Nov17

Windows – Remove the Username (Personal Folder) From the Start Menu

KB ID 0000398 Problem Normal users probably won’t care, but if you’re in a corporate environment or a school for example, you might not want your users having access to the personal folder in their Start Menu. The video below runs though how to remove this option on a single machine and how to remove it with Group Policy Preferences (GPP). Solution   Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links Group...

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Windows – Reset all User Passwords in an OU
Nov17

Windows – Reset all User Passwords in an OU

KB ID 0000497  Problem I did some bulk user imports for a client this week, and then needed to set all the passwords on these accounts. Seeing as it was a school, and each year group was in its own OU in Active Directory, I needed a way to “Bulk Reset” the passwords. Note: Passwords can NOT be set with a CSV / CSVDE import. Solution 1. We are going to perform this procedure while logged onto a domain controller with...

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Bulk Importing Users with CSVDE
Nov17

Bulk Importing Users with CSVDE

KB ID 0000498  Problem This is not a task I’ve had to do for ages, so when I had to do it this week, I thought I’d just do a quick Google search as a refresher. What I can remember was a simple task took me far too long to work out. So heres a quick solution for everybody else. Solution Before I begin, the spreadsheet below, was the hard work of John Haddock, I have only made some minor tweaks and adjustments. 1. You will...

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