Block the Win 10 style Data Gathering from Windows 7/8/Server2008

Microsoft Windows 10 has some pretty intrusive data gathering built into the operating system.   It collects anonymous and not-so-anonymous data from users of the Operating System.   Today, MS released 4 Optional Updates to bring the Win 10 Style Telemetry and Data Gathering to previous versions of Windows. The 4 updates… Continue reading

Exchange 2007 Outlook Web Access Error The Password does not meet the minimum security requirements

In Microsoft Exchange OWA (outlook web access) a user will attempt to change the account password and encounter an error “The password supplied does not meet the minimum security requirements”. This error happens even though the GPO Policy has password complexity disabled. The cause of the error is the minimum… Continue reading

Installing SCEP using Microsoft NDES

SCEP (Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol) is a standard solution for admins wishing to deploy certificates to devices with little interaction and no manual uploading/downloading of cert files between systems. NDES (Network Device Enrollment Service) is Microsoft’s implementation of SCEP. NDES and SCEP are essentially 2 labels for the same service…. Continue reading

Replace Outlook Mail, Contacts, and Calendar with Thunderbird

My company uses MS Exchange 2013 for mail, contacts, calendars, and tasks. However, we have a lot of users on LInux desktops that can’t run Outlook. For others, the new Outlook 2013 is a horrible monstrosity of Flat icons on all all white background that burns your eyes after a… Continue reading

Exchange 2010 List ActiveSync Devices removed from Quarantine and other States

Exchange 2010 has this feature in active sync where the admin can setup rules to allow certain devices to connect via ActiveSync Access Rules. Device Access Rules can be setup so that only certain devices can connect and all other devices will be quarantined until an admin can act on… Continue reading

Check for 32 bit vs 64 bit Microsoft OS in Windows Batch File

This is a usable example showing how to check for a 32 bit OS vs a 64 bit OS in MS windows within a batch file. This is very useful when deploying certain applications through MS Group Policy. Example from a .bat file: @echo off Set RegQry=HKLMHardwareDescriptionSystemCentralProcessor REG.exe Query %RegQry%… Continue reading