Tuesday, May 3, 2011

TAPI Calling from Outlook and Lync 2010 issues

After installing Lync 2010 the TAPI calling feature in Outlook 2010 no longer was working. It seems that Outlook uses Lync as it’s default “Call Contact” method.

To change this you need to override this setting in the registry with the following key (you can paste this to a “.reg” file and double click it to add it to the registry):

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Call Integration]
"TAPIOVERRIDE"=dword:00000001

Monday, April 4, 2011

Enable hidden features in Zune

When I switched the Windows Live account I was using in Zune from a US registered account to a German registered account I wondered where all the features like podcast browsing and SmartDJ disappeared to.

For some reason Microsoft thinks that if you are in Germany you might not understand how these things work if there are not in the German language ;).

To turn these features on you have to add a registry key “FeaturesOverride” in HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Zune\ and add the DWORD values as in the graphic below:

image

Open up Zune and the features should be there :D

Blob Cache for SharePoint 2010

On a SharePoint Web Front End you can turn on the BLOB cache which allows the webserver to cache certain file types on the front end without having to go back to the SQL server.

The setting for doing this is in the web.config file of the web application. For example to activate it on the cp Portal I used the following configuration:

<BlobCache location="C:\BlobCache\14" path="\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|jpe|jfif|bmp|dib|tif|tiff|ico|png|wdp|hdp|css|js|asf|avi|flv|m4v|mov|mp3|mp4|mpeg|mpg|rm|rmvb|wma|wmv)$" maxSize="10" enabled="true" />

 

The line was already in the web.config file but I had to change enabled to “true” and also create the folder c:\BlobCache

The users also have to be changed a la: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff758656.aspx

Monday, March 14, 2011

Issues with Delta CRL Publishing to IIS

I have an Enterprise CA that publishes its CRL to an IIS (7.5) website. The CA adds a plus (+) character to the file name for the Delta CRL.

In order for IIS to show this plus sign properly you need to allow double escaping. You can do this with powershell:

Set-WebConfiguration -Filter system.webServer/security/requestFiltering -PSPath ‘IIS:\sites\My Web Site’ -Value @{allowDoubleEscaping=$true}

You may need to import the IIS module first with:

Import-Module Webadministration

Friday, February 25, 2011

Batch edit shortcut targets with a VB Script

On some file servers, users create multiple shotcuts pointing to different locations on the same server.
When migrating data from this server to another, these shorcuts are deprecated, so you need to update them and you can have thousands...
Here is a VB script that let you batch edit these shortcuts so that you can keep all of them updated.

Dim objFSO

Const srcServer = "\\formerServer\"
Const dstServer = "\\newServer\"

args = WScript.Arguments.Count

If args < 1 then
WScript.Echo "usage: cscript replaceLinkTarget.vbs [folder]"
WScript.Quit
End If

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

Call FindEditShortcut(WScript.Arguments.Item(0))


Sub FindEditShortcut(currentDrive)
Dim objFile
Dim objFolder

For Each objFolder In objFSO.GetFolder(currentDrive).SubFolders
For Each objFile In objFolder.Files
'Check extension
If LCase(objFSO.GetExtensionName(objFile)) = "lnk" Then
Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set shortcut = objShell.CreateShortcut(objFile.path)
target = LCase(shortcut.TargetPath)

If (InStr(target, srcServer) > 0) Then
target = replace(target,srcServer,dstServer)
Wscript.Echo "New target : " & target
shortcut.TargetPath = target
shortcut.Save
End If
End If
Next

Call FindEditShortcut(objFolder)
Next
End Sub

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Browse a Windows Server 2008 through an alias with explorer

When migrating a server to a new one, you may want to create an alias with the old server name to the new one.
DNS will resolve it, but browsing through explorer will fail.
In order to solve this, start RegEdit and deploy :
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters
Then create a new DWORD value called : DisableStrictNameChecking and set it to 1.
Restart your server.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Add language pack even if the feature is missing / unavailable in Windows 7 (or Vista)

On computers purchased from manufacturers like Dell, HP..., a Windows 7 OEM version is installed.
In these OEM versions, contrary to Microsoft contracted versions, the button to add a language pack from a MUI is unavailable (Control Panel / Region and Language / Keyboards and Languages).

If you bought your system abroad or Windows doesn't match the user's language, you can still do it successfully on Windows 7 and Vista with this little utility : Vistalizator