Windows ‘Always On’ VPN Part 2 (NPS, RAS, and Clients)
KB ID 0001403 Problem Back in Part One, we setup the AD (Groups,) and the Certificate services that will knit everything together. Now we need to configure an NPS server that acts as a RADIUS server for our remote clients, And a RAS Server that our remote clients will connect to. Step1: Network Setup Microsoft have an alarming habit of telling you to connect DMZ assets to the LAN. In their defence I’ve seen some documentation...
Remotely Log Users Off From CLI / PowerShell
KB ID 0001401 Problem I’ve not had to do this since the days we got “The terminal server has exceeded the maximum number of allowed connections” errors. Now thankfully Windows Server tells us who is logged on so we can ‘ask politely’ before we boot them off! Today though, my user session got all messed up, and I needed to kick ‘myself’ off remotely, (and have a fresh session.) Solution From a...
Windows ‘Always On’ VPN Part 1 (Domain and PKI)
KB ID 0001399 Problem Always On VPN was a bit of a misnomer when it was released, as it was only really ‘on’ when a user logged on. So when comparing it with ‘Direct Access’ it didn’t have the capacity to ‘Manage Out’. With the release of Windows 10 (1709) this has been rectified with ‘Device Tunnels’, (more on that later). The solution uses RAS, NAP (NPS), and PKI (Certificate...
Deleting Folders With ‘Long Filenames’ (Source Path Too Long)
KB ID 0001396 Problem Source Path Too Long The source file name(s) are larger than is supported by the file system. Try moving to a location which has a shorter path name, or try renaming to shorter name(s) before attempting this operation. “Have you come across a problem deleting folders with long filenames?” I got asked this question twice in the first week at a new job. In a former role my colleague did a lot of work in...
Windows – Set Desktop Wallpaper From Central Server Share
KB ID 0001280 Problem You have a corporate wallpaper, and you want to set it as the desktop wallpaper on all your machines. Solution Firstly make sure you have some wallpaper! Create a hidden, (with a $ on the end) share on your server, set the share permissions to Everyone = Read. On the security tab make sure ‘Domain Users’ have read, and I would add in administrators with full control to be on the safe side. Now create...
Windows: Enable ‘Previous Versions’
KB ID 0001393 Problem Anyone who’s ever trashed a spreadsheet, or saved a file over the top of one that they shouldn’t, will appreciate previous versions. It’s done by a technology we have had since Windows XP (and Server 2003) called ‘shadow copy’. If you are familiar with virtualisation it’s a bit like taking ‘snapshots’ of files. It’s also great for sysadmins, as users can...
Remote Registry: No Location Found
KB ID 0001379 Problem When attempting to connect to a remote machines registry; Error The program cannot open the required dialog box because no locations can be found. Close this message and try again. Solution The ultimate cause of this problem is, that the machine you are on cannot see Active Directory, either because there are no domain controllers are online, or its DNS settings are incorrect. Related Articles, References,...
Windows Server – User Account Control Will Not Disable
KB ID 0001373 Problem While doing some work for a client, I was constantly getting nagged by User Account Control prompts like so; It’s been a while since I spoke about UAC, (and how to turn it off) see the link below; Windows – How to Disable ‘User Account Control’ As I’ve said UAC is a good thing, it’s there for a reason, but in this case I was logged onto a clients domain servers, with an administrative account,...
Windows NT/2K/XP/2K3 Password Recovery
KB ID 0000095 Problem Note: As the title suggests, this is quite an old post! you might prefer THIS ONE. Disclaimer: This information is designed to help people who are locked out of their own PC’s and not for Hacker Wannabe’s with the IQ of a haddock. Information is not inherently dangerous, just some people are. If you want to break things and be a general pain in the ass, sod off to Google and leave the grown ups alone....
Windows Certificate Services ‘certsrv’ Website displays 403.14
KB ID 0001342 Problem I seem to get all the PKI/Certificate services problems! Yesterday I was trying to use the web enrolment portal on a certificate services server, and could not get in locally, (or remotely) via http, (or https) it simply showed me a 403.14 error. HTTP Error 403.14 Forbidden Solution This was an odd one, in IIS Manager select the ‘Certsrv’ virtual directory > Advanced Options > And look at the...