Firewall Port Status Test Script

Recently I had some issues at a customer project where, due to the complexity of the environment, sometimes firewall ports were closed after they had initially been added to the rules list. This caused unexpected errors for SharePoint, of which we were unaware at the time that these were due to firewall issues. While analyzing the issue I came across the Test-NetConnection PowerShell command, which I used to manually verify the issue on one server.

Sharepoint Uls Log Files Empty

Ran into an annoying issue today where a SharePoint server was not writing trace log messages, the result was a log directory with 0 bytes logging files. Incidentally I found a Event Log error with the code: “A Session “WSSUSAGESESSION15” failed to start with the following error: 0xC0000022” Other posts mention adding the service account (or the WSS_WPG group) for the ‘SharePoint Tracing Service’ Windows Service to the administrators group, tested that, this indeed fixes the problem.

Creators Update 2 Microsoft Edge Google Inet_e_resource_not_found

Since the Creators Update navigating to any Google site (google.com, google.co.uk, google.nl, etc.) results in an INET_E_RESOURCE_NOT_FOUND error, only on my work laptop, none of my other devices which I’ve also upgraded. This only happened with Google, no other site had this issue… furthermore I could reach Google(.com) fine via Ping from commandline, Internet Explorer, FireFox and Chrome… Cleared my (Edge) browser cache, history, etc. no results. Everything was working fine until the Creators Update.

Creators Update 1 Remoteapp and Desktop Connection Gateway Unavailable

Last week I upgraded all my personal Windows 10 devices to build 1703 (Creators Update) and after a few days of testing I was convinced this build is solid enough to upgrade my work laptop as well… true so far except for one minor issue! When I had to connect to a client’s RemoteApp and Desktop Connection gateway, which they host on Windows Server 2008R2, I got the following error: “Your computer can’t connect to the Remote Desktop Gateway server.

Password Change Notification Script

Version 1.4 Recently I found myself in need of a password change notification script. What do all efficient/lazy administrators do when they need a script for any purpose? Right, I searched one online, downloaded it, checked it, suppressed any desire to fiddle with it and then scheduled it to run. For those interested, I used the script provided by Robert Pearman over at the Technet Gallery. For Office365 compatibility check his post here…

The Castle the City and the Outlands

The education sector In consultancy we see a wide range of business sectors. From healthcare, to banking, but also the education sector. Yesterday I was providing advice on user adoption and migration strategies for a large educational institute. In attempting to explain the security architecture of Office365 and SharePoint Online I used several metaphors. To summarize what I had told him, my customer offered a metaphor of his own in return which I found to be very effective.

Custom Domain Names With Azurewebsites

I’ve only recently set up this blog and since it’s always busy at work, I don’t always have the time to sort out those ‘nice to haves’. I’m hosting this blog using AzureWebsites, but obviously I use my own domain name. My pain? For the life of me I couldn’t figure out the magic rule to rewrite my x.azurewebsites.net url to the proper ‘bearman.nl’ hostname I’m using now. Shame on me, Microsoft consultant couldn’t figure out a simple IIS redirect rule… In my defense, I hadn’t really taken the time to do it properly and I had in fact solved it, but in the wrong order.

Sfb Ha Sql Dag Configuration

One of those silly mistakes… As mentioned in my previous post, I’ve recently installed and configured a new Skype for Business landscape at my company. While implementing this I made one of those silly mistakes that cause you to spend hours looking for a solution… which is in fact one simple undocumented configuration setting. For our SfB configuration we use a high availability SQL cluster and we’ve also set up a Database Availability Group, or DAG.

Customers Dont Have a Frakking Clue

Part 1: The origin story The origin story As a consultant in the IT industry it is expected to have a thorough understanding of all IT related products in one’s portfolio. When considering what these solutions are intended to provide, we all know the problems our customers face. Right? Wrong. Often enough I’ve heard colleagues in IT mention customers don’t have a clue and vice versa. What everyone should consider is that we’re both wrong unless we listen to each other!