Test Layout

To get the immutableID value from a user (should be able to do similar with Get-MSOLUser if preferred): $id = (Get-AzureADUser -ObjectId User@domain.com).immutableid To convert that ID to hex for entry $hex=([system.convert]::FromBase64String("$id") | ForEach-Object ToString X2) -join ' ' To view the value in $hex: $hex The immutable id will be a value something like: fhG+Kox7LkaYwSIf6s6UFA== The hex for that one is: 7E 11 BE 2A 8C 7B 2E 46 98 C1 22 1F EA CE 94 14 The hex value can be entered into the ms-DS-ConsistencyGUID attribute of the user object. And converting from objectGUID to ImmutableID $immutableID = [system.convert]::ToBase64String(([GUID]($u.ObjectGUID)).tobytearray())

 I've run into problems with Windows Server where the Install-Module cmdlet generate errors and won't download from the PowerShell  repository on the internet. To fix this you need to enable TLS 1.2 for PowerShell. To do this permanently for .NET 4 and up, set two registry keys for 64-bit and 32-bit .NET Framework: Set-ItemProperty -Path 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\.NetFramework\v4.0.30319' -Name 'SchUseStrongCrypto' -Value '1' -Type DWord Set-ItemProperty -Path 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\.NetFramework\v4.0.30319' -Name 'SchUseStrongCrypto' -Value '1' -Type DWord If you need to do a quick temporary fix because you can't update the registry then use this: [ Net.ServicePointManager ] ::SecurityProtocol = [ Net.SecurityProtocolType ] ::Tls 12 The temporary fix is only for the current PowerShell prompt.

This one is primarily notes to myself... When Exchange 2016 is installed with Exchange 2010, MAPI over HTTP is enabled by default for the organization. Exchange 2010 mailboxes continue to accessed via RPC. Exchange 2016 mailboxes will use MAPI over HTTP If Exchange 2016 mailboxes have Full Access to an Exchange 2010 mailbox then Outlook Anywhere is used to connect to that secondary mailbox. If using a wildcard cert you need to set the certificate name for the EXPR outlook provider for Outlook Anywhere as msstd:*domain.com. Authentication prompts Exchange 2010 on Windows Server 2008 R2 requires a security update for Outlook Anywhere to function properly. This is a security update from 2016 (KB3140410). It "should" already be in place, but if it's not then Outlook Anywhere will cause tons of authentication popups in Outlook. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2990117/outlook-anywhere-users-prompted-for-credentials-when-they-try-to-conne I saw this manifest as Exchange...

Using Power BI for data analytics and reporting https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/paths/create-use-analytics-reports-power-bi/ City of Winnipeg Software Piracy https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/city-of-winnipeg-manager-in-charge-of-police-radios-arrested-after-2-year-investigation-1.5027975 What's wrong with this picture? https://twitter.com/DaveLeeBBC/status/1102359402151985152 Computer system failure grounds transit system in San Francisco https://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2019/news20190309 Supply Chain Management Simulator https://www.scmglobe.com/supply-chains-roman-empire/ Career wisdom from IT pros https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/dzm3xs/once_a_young_sysadmin_and_now_an_old_unicorn_how/ (A few) Ops Lessons We All Learn The Hard Way https://www.netmeister.org/blog/ops-lessons.html Michael Geist blog (copyright and net freedom issues) http://www.michaelgeist.ca/ Government IT failures Federal Government - Phoenix payroll system #1 http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/...

A client is migrating their remaining mailboxes from on-premises Exchange to Office 365. Today they went to migrate a mailbox, but the user account wasn't replicated up to Office 365. After verifying that it was not being filtered by OU in Azure AD Connect, I checked the Synchronization Service Manager for Azure AD Connect and found an error listed for the export to the Azure AD tenant (XXX.onmicrosoft.com). The error was LargeObject and when I drilled down, it had these details: The provisioned object is too large. Trim the number of attribute values on this object. This error is typically caused by: Too many user certificates (15 max) Too many SMIME certificates (15 max) A thumbnail photo that is too large Too many proxy addresses This user object did not have any user certificates, SMIME certificates, or a thumbnail photo. So, let's check out the proxy addresses. The user object had 540 addresses. After a bit more research, I found that user objects in Azure AD have a limit ...

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...