Windows – Suppress the ‘First Run’ Welcome to Windows Animation
KB ID 0001186 Problem I don’t like ‘first-run’ dialogs, Internet Explorer is annoying enough, Now Windows and Office insist on playing me a film clip when they start for the first time. I’m a busy guy I have things to do, stop asking me questions and making recommendations! It takes this long to create a user profile? I don’t think so. Solution You can do this by local policy on the machine, but domain...
MS Office – Cannot Add Trusted Location
KB ID 0001171 Problem I was doing a Domain/Exchange/RDS migration for a client this week. He had some Macros that he used for printing. Now Macros are something I know very little about. So I had made it clear, if he had problems with them, I would not be the best person to ask. So when the call came in, that they were having problems with Macros I cringed! As it turned out, the problem wasn’t the Macros at all, it was the...
Failed to open the GP object. You may not have appropriate rights
KB ID 0000008 Problem When you try and edit a GPO, you get the error above. Solution 1. Install the Support Tools from the Windows media 2. Start > All Programs > Windows Support tools > command prompt. 3. dfsutil.exe /purgemupcache {enter} 4. Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK. 5. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionWinlogon 6. If the WaitForNetwork...
Mapping Printers based on Computer OU (via Script)
KB ID 0000645 Problem Location based printing has long been a pain. In the past I’ve tackled it with Group Policy Preferences, and I’ve even gone ‘old school’ and mapped printers with con2prt. A few months ago I put in a new network at a school, they were using a vbs script to deploy all their classroom printers, and I had a quick (unsuccessful) attempt to do the same. But time was against me and I used GPP...
Deploy ODBC Settings via Group Policy
KB ID 0000805 Problem I’ve briefly mentioned this before when I wrote about Group Policy Preferences so when I had to do this on-site this week, I jumped straight into the group policy management console, and found that because my ODBC connection was using SQL authentication (with the SQL sa account), this would NOT WORK, (it only works with Windows authentication and even then it needs a tweak). If you are using SQL...
Configure Wireless Network Stings via Group Policy
KB ID 0000923 Problem If you have a corporate wireless network, you can send the settings out to your clients, rather than have them all ask you what the wireless settings are, and how do they connect. Here I’m going to use Domain group policies, but the procedure is the same for local policies (just run gpedit.msc instead). And the dialog boxes are exactly the same as if you were configuring them on the client machine. (You...
Windows Server – Disable Password Complexity
KB ID 0000324 Problem If you are unsure what password complexity is click here. Bear in mind that it’s there for valid security reason, the more complex your passwords are, the more secure your network is. However the vast majority of users can even remember where they saved their last Word document, never mind a complex password that changes every 30 days. If your data is not the sort of data that Tom Cruise would abseil down...
Deploying Certificates via ‘Auto Enrollment’
KB ID 0000919 Problem SHA CERTIFICATE WARNING: Note This article was written some time ago, ensure your CA environment does NOT use SHA1 for your certificates, if it does, Please visit the following link for migration instructions; Upgrade Your Microsoft PKI Environment to SHA2 (SHA256) I need to setup wireless authentication based on computer certificates, I’ve done similar jobs before by manually issuing certificates for Cisco...
Windows – “Don’t Display Last Login User Name” via GPO
KB ID 0000460 Problem By default Windows will display the last user that successfully logged on, on shared machines or in a secure domain environment you might not want this.. Solution On a Single (stand alone) machine. 1. Click start and in the run/search box type gpedit.msc{enter} 2. Navigate to > Computer Configuration > Windows settings > Security Settings > Local Policies > Security Options >...
Prevent Users changing Desktop Wallpaper with Group Policy
KB ID 0000461 Problem If you need to lock down your client machines desktops and prevent your users from changing the wallpaper, then here’s a run through on how to do it. Solution 1. On your domain controller , Start > Administrative Tools > Group Policy Management Console > Either create a new policy and link it to your targeted USERS or edit an existing one, then navigate to; User Configuration > Administrative...