Test Layout

Currently working on a migration project where the source and target environments are quite large. We have a script that queries all mailboxes in the source and matches them to a target object. The script takes 10-12 hours to run. We're making tweaks and want to see the effect, but we're not going to watch the script to verify the time to complete. Here's a little bit of PowerShell that you can add to any script to measure the time to complete: #Start of Script $start = Get-Date #End of script $end = Get-Date # Calculate elapsed time # Output in format hh:mm:ss Write-Host “Script run time” Write-Host $($end-$start)

Azure AD Connect is configured to perform automatic updates by default. When version 1.4.x.0 (in my case 1.4.18.0) is installed, device objects previously synced to Azure AD might be removed. Previous versions of Azure AD Connect synchronized devices that were not relevant. So, this release is cleaning them up. For details, see: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/hybrid/reference-connect-device-disappearance In larger organizations, the number of devices deleted might be more than 500 which exceeds the deletion threshold. At this point, Azure AD Connect stops syncing. You might not notice it right away, but any new user accounts will not be synced up to Azure AD/Office 365. In the Synchronization Service app, you will see a line with the status of: stopped-deletion-threshold-exceeded Before you attempt to fix the issues, you should verify that it is only device objects an not another accidental deletion issue. The steps for this from Microsoft are: Start Synchroniz...

I do a lot of work with Powershell and Office 365. To allow for multi-factor authentication when managing Exchange Online, you can use the Microsoft Exchange Online Powershell Module. I installed the Microsoft Exchange Online Powershell Module on my computer some time back and had used it successfully. However, at some point it stopped working and gives the error: Your administrator has blocked this application because it potentially poses a security risk. Your security settings do not allow this application to be installed on your computer.   For a while, I've been connecting with normal Powershell for management, but today I wanted to get this thing fixed. This error can apply to ClickOnce applications in general. It is not specific to the Microsoft Exchange Online Powershell Module. There are trust levels that you can define for ClickOnce applications. These are set in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\.NETFramework\TrustManager\PromptingLevel . There are settings for different security z...

Sage 50 is a pretty common app in Canada for doing small business accounting. However, one of it's major drawbacks is really poor email integration. I think they've improved it somewhat in recent versions, but there is a MAPI dependency. If you install the 64-bit version of Office, then Sage 50 will not be able to use Outlook to send messages. Now that 64-bit Office is the default for Office 365, you need to watch for that as step one. However, yesterday, on a new install of Sage 50, it wasn't working even with the 32-bit version of Outlook. We got the error: Sage 50 cannot communicate with your e-mail program. Please ensure that your email program is MAPI-compatible and that it is the default MAPI client You also need to have Outlook configured as the default mail program. The Mail program in Windows was configured as the default. So, we changed that to Outlook. Still no luck. Same error. The final fix for me was adding a registry key. According to a few people in discus...

This one is just a note for me. To clear cached credentials in TFS 2017 browse to C:\Users\ \AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_ed299a44\Team Explorer and delete the TeamExplorer.config file. You will then be prompted for credentials next time you start the TFS client.

I recently upgraded storage on my Hyper-V server that hosts all of my virtual machines to SSD drives. As part of this, I got lazy for some of the VMs and copied the files manually from drive to drive by using File Explorer rather than moving the VM storage by using Hyper-V Manager. After the disk reconfiguration was done, I got this error for the VMs where I had simply copied the data. Synthetic SCSI Controller (Instance ID GUID) : Failed to Power on with Error 'General access denied error'. Account does not have permission to open attachment ' PathToVirtualDisk '. Error: 'General access denied error'. This is a permissions error indicating that the VM doesn't have access to it's own virtual hard disk. As part of my file copying, the VM level permissions were lost. You can see in the screenshot below that only System, Administrators, and Users have permissions. Normally, you should also see permissions for a GUID that represents the VM with Full control....

I have an annoying issue where I'm storing scripts in a path so long that it makes it awkward to work at the PowerShell prompt. Almost everything I do is wrapping onto the next line. So, to set the prompt to static text that doesn't include the path, use the following command: function prompt {"PS> "} If I'm working with PowerShell prompts connected to different Office 365 tenants, I'll put in text that identifies the tenant. If you do need to view the current directory, you can use Get-Location or $pwd .