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Most of the time in a Windows environment, a Windows PowerShell script runs in the security context of the user account that is running it. If you have a scheduled task that runs a PowerShell script then you can specify a user account (service account) that is used to run the task. The service account needs to be assigned the necessary permissions to perform any actions in the script. In some cases, you need to script to access remote resources and sign in. For example, if you have a scheduled task that pulls reporting information from Office 365. PowerShell has a method for storing encrypted credentials that can only be accessed the user account that stored them. The code below prompts you for a credential and then stored is encrypted in an XML file. $credential = Get-Credential $credential | Export-CliXml D:\credential.xml To retrieve the credential and using it within a script, you read it from the XML file: $credential = Import-CliXml D:\credential.xml If you created the XML file w...

I recently learned that many computers suffer from high levels of static when using the microphone input on the front of the computer. My computer certainly has that issue, but I didn't realize it was  common. The static is caused by interference from signals on other cables. The front microphone connector is connected to your mother board by a long thin unshielded cable. So, there are plenty of power cables for devices such as hard drives or USB that can cause interference. On my computer I was able to get rid of the static by unplugging the front USB ports from my mother board. However, that was very annoying when I wanted to use USB devices. My laptop doesn't have the static issue for the microphone. I'm assuming that's because the connector is directly on the motherboard like the back connector on my computer. The back mic port on my computer also does not have static. However, it's awkward to access the rear ports. The fix for my old headset was to buy an ine...

A key part of most Office 365 deployments is directory synchronization with on-premises Active Directory (AD). To maintain a link between individual object in AD and Office 365, one attribute in AD is defined as the source anchor. The source anchor acts as a unique identifier for each object so that you can change properties like UPN and have them replicate to the proper matching object in Office 365. Older versions of Azure AD Connect used the objectGUID attribute as the source anchor. In many cases, this is a good choice because it is an attribute that doesn't change. However, in complex configurations with multiple AD forests, this can cause an issue during migrations. When a user account is moved from one AD forest to another, it gets a new objectGUID in the new forest. Due to the new objectGUID , Azure AD Connect treats the user as a new user instead of an existing user. To avoid this issue, we need to use an attribute for source anchor that can be moved between forests. Micro...

A client has an issue in their Office 365 tenant that started yesterday (March 12/18). When attempting to delete a mobile device linked to a user, it fails and gives the following message: Error on proxy command "Remove-MobileDevice -Identity:' DeviceName ' -Confirm:$false to server...the mobile device DeviceName cannot be found... Error when removing mobile device I was still able to remove the device by using a Windows PowerShell prompt connected to Exchange Online. But what I noticed is that for the Remove-MobileDevice cmdlet to work, I needed to use the Identity property from the mobile device rather than the Name property that the Exchange admin portal was attempting to use. Using Windows PowerShell to remove the mobile device You can see in the screenshot above using the Name or DeviceID properties didn't work. Only the Identity property which includes the full path with the user name works. I've opened a support ticket with Microsoft and we'll see what ...

There is a bug in Exchange Server 2016 CU6, CU7, and CU8 that prevents clients from using offline access for Outlook on the web. It was working properly in CU5. In CU5, in Options, you select Turn on offline access and then another window pane is shown that asks whether you have exclusive use of the computer or not. In CU8 (also CU6 and CU7), that pane appears very quickly and then goes away. Basically the text flickers but it is removed right away. You can see a video of this behavior below. I tested this with Internet Explorer, Edge, Firefox, and Chrome with consistent results. I also tested this using both Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016 as the client operating systems. After trying everything I could think of for testing, I posted this issue to the Microsoft support forums and they confirmed that this is a bug and will be fixed in a future update. https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-US/3fbc0750-4a4c-4860-a3cc-f8112e3eec8a/outlook-on-the-web-owa-offline-mode-fa...

Not many organizations enable the antispam agents on their Exchange servers since they're probably paying for an additional service to do spam filtering. However, if you attempt to enable it on Exchange Server 2016 CU7 or CU8, there is an error in the script that you need to run. As of right now, CU8 is the latest update available so, this may continue in later updates. To enable the antispam agents in Exchange Server 2016, you run the Install-AntispamAgents.ps1 script located in C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Scripts. However in CU7 and CU8, you get an error like this: There are several screens of error information, but the key part is: A parameter cannot be found that matches parameter name 'EscalationTeam'. If you open the script and go to line 50, you'll see the following at the end of the line: If you delete the following text from that line, the script works properly: -EscalationTeam "AntiSpam"; Please note that this script does have a di...

This has been popping up for a while, but it's worth pointing out again. When you get a SAN/UCC certificate, the DNS name that you use for the subject (common name) also needs to be in the subject alternative names attribute. For example: Subject: webmail.contoso.com Subject alternative names webmail.contoso.com exch1.contoso.com exch2.contoso.com Autodiscover.contoso.com When you get your certificate from a public certificate authority (CA), most of them ensure that the subject is also added as a subject alternative name. However, some might not and you should watch for it. It's important to note that the Microsoft CA does not automatically add the subject to the list of subject alternative names. So, make sure that you do it as part of your certificate request for your internal CA. The reason you need to do this is because of how web browsers are processing subject alternative names. Web browsers are ignoring the subject if a list of subject alternative names is present. All ...