Stop Edge Hijacking PDF Files
KB ID 0001395 Problem This question appeared in my inbox today, ‘Edge’ has a nasty habit of assigning itself the default PDF reader, particularly after a round of updates! Solution First I went and had a look at my old Experts Exchange Buddy Ramesh’s site (www.winhelponline.com) who had done the heavy lifting and worked out the registry keys; Note: I’m only concerned with .pdf files, if you want to block .htm...
Windows 10 – Disable / Remove OneDrive
KB ID 0001328 Problem Microsoft have done a good job of embedding OneDrive into Windows 10. While Ive got nothing against OneDrive, for some admins the thought of users storing data out of their networks is quite worrying. So how do you ‘un-couple’ OneDrive from Windows 10? Solutions Option 1: Remove OneDrive ‘Quick and Dirty’ Open ‘Regedit’ and navigate to; HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT > CLSID >...
Changing the Windows 10 Browser, So It Isn’t Edge
KB ID 0001284 Problem I’ve seen one person use Edge as their browser in a business environment. I’ve got nothing against it, (I use a macOSX anyway). But I had a client that asked me how to make sure his machines are set to NOT use Edge as the default browser. I’m going to use Internet Explorer instead, but you can do the same with Chrome or Firefox depending on your browser of choice. Solution What I’m going...
Stop Windows Servers ‘Locking’ with Group Policy
KB ID 0001283 Problem Servers locking themselves after a period of inactivity is, (in most cases) a good thing. But on my test network that only I use it gets a bit annoying switching between machines and constantly having to unlock Windows all the time! Note: For obvious security reasons don’t do this on a production network! Solution Create a new GPO linked to your computer OU, (or edit an existing one). Edit the policy....
Windows – Forcing Domain Group Policy
KB ID 0001282 Problem I’ve written hundreds of posts about doing things with group policies. Every time I finish one, I write a couple of paragraphs on how long to wait, or how to force the policy etc. So I’ve finally got round to writing a post I can simply reference! How Long Before Group Policy Changes Are Applied? This is something that hasn’t changed since I was doing Windows 2000 exams 🙂 The default interval...
Windows – Deploy and Configure Photo Screen Saver via GPO
Screen Saver via GPO KB ID 0001281 Problem I was tasked with working out how to do this for a client a couple of weeks ago, so I thought it would make a decent article. I’m going to have a central server share, with some photos in, then I’m going to copy them down to all the clients, and finally set their screen saver to use those photos as a ‘slide show’ screen saver. I’ve done this with Windows 10...
Managing IE Settings via GPO
KB ID 0001269 Problem There used to be a GPO called “Internet Explorer Maintenance” that you could set your Internet Explorer settings, i.e. Proxy server settings, home pages etc. This has now gone, and has been replaced with a group policy preference. Solution From the Group Policy Management Console > Locate the OU containing the USERS you want to link the policy to and create a new policy, then give it a sensible...
Windows 10 Create a WMI Filter for Group Policy
KB ID 0001267 Problem I was messing around with some GPO’s for client today to replace ‘Edge’ as the default browser, (with IE11). To make the whole process more efficient, I wanted to use a WMI filter toapply the policy only to Windows 10 machines. Before this used to be simple enough, you just set the Windows version in a WMI query. But because it searches for a string e.g. 6.1 (for Windows 8.1), that’s...
Group Policy To Throttle Network Speed via QoS
KB ID 0001217 Problem Why would you want to do this? Well what if you want to test slow link group policy processing, or you are testing BranchCache? Using Group policy you can ‘throttle’ traffic to and from a particular IP address. Below I will pick a domain client on 192.168.110.120, and throttle all traffic between that client, and the domain controller to be 100kbps. Solution As I sad above I’m throttling...
Windows BranchCache (Hosted and Distributed)
KB ID 0001212 Problem The purpose of BranchCache is, (as the name implies) to cache files in branch sites, without the need for a local file server or DFS. There are essentially two deployment models, In Hosted Mode a server in the branch caches the files locally as they are requested by clients. This works because the main file server provides a hash of the requested file, the branch server will download it, and if another client...