Restore Classic Permissions Dialog In Outlook 365

Later versions of Outlook 365 have an “abbreviated” version of the Permissions tab on its folders (like Calendar) that just shows “Custom” without any detail. To restore the proper useful detail in versions 1903 and later:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Options\Calendar\
DWORD: ShowLegacySharingUX
Value: 1

“Windows 11/10 installation has failed”

When updating a Windows 7/8 machine to Windows 10, it may fail with a message box that says “Windows (10 or 11) has failed” with only an OK button. Here’s how to resolve this:

  1. Create an ISO with the Media Creation Tool.
  2. Extract the ISO into a folder (WinRAR will do this.)
  3. Right-click on Setup, Run as Administrator
  4. On the Install Windows 10 page, click on “Change on how Windows Setup downloads updates” link and select “Not Right Now”
  5. Proceed with the upgrade and it should complete successfully.

Block auto-update to Windows 11

To permanently block Windows 10 from “automatically” (forcing you to) upgrade to Windows 11:

In Windows 10 Pro:

  1. GPEDIT
    Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update > Windows Update for Business
  2. Edit ‘Select the target Feature Update version’ policy to ‘Enabled’ in the right of the Windows Update for Business folder to edit.
  3. Set ‘Which Windows product version would you like to receive feature updates for?’ to WIndows 10
  4. Set ‘Target version of Feature updates’ to 21H1 or 21H2 or 22H2 (latest)

In Windows 10 Home: (this REG file can also be used to do the following)

  1. REGEDIT
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows
  2. Add key WindowsUpdate
  3. Add new DWORD 32-bit named TargetReleaseVersion and set value to 1
  4. Add new String Value named ProductVersion and set value to Windows 10
  5. Add new String Value named TargetReleaseVersionInfo and set value to 21H2

Trick-1-28a

Subscription verification in AutoCAD, Adobe, etc., “can’t connect to server”

This can happen on Windows 7 when TLS hasn’t been updated.

  1. Make sure KB3140245 has been installed:
    https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/search.aspx?q=kb3140245
  2. Update the registry:
    https://download.microsoft.com/download/0/6/5/0658B1A7-6D2E-474F-BC2C-D69E5B9E9A68/MicrosoftEasyFix51044.msi

(From: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/update-to-enable-tls-1-1-and-tls-1-2-as-default-secure-protocols-in-winhttp-in-windows-c4bd73d2-31d7-761e-0178-11268bb10392)

 

RDP Authentication Error Has Occurred – The Function Requested Is Not Supported

We were stuck with this when trying to connect to an RDP host that was behind on its updates and had its NLA requirement enabled. Since we had no way to remotely connect to the host to install updates or disable NLA, we were able to override this requirement on the remote machine by modifying the registry on the remote machine:

REG ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\CredSSP\Parameters /v AllowEncryptionOracle /t REG_DWORD /d 2

This allowed the remote connection to succeed. This can be reversed after resolving the host problem with this on the remote machine:

REG ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\CredSSP\Parameters /v AllowEncryptionOracle /t REG_DWORD /d 0

Windows Update on Server Stops Working Properly

We had a Server 2016 machine where Windows Update would get stuck at “Downloading 100%.”  Trying to install the updates manually would get stuck at “Copying packages to the update cache.” Here’s how we fixed it:

  1. Write down the KB numbers of the pending updates.
  2. Download the offline installers for the above KB numbers, if you haven’t already, from the Microsoft Update Catalog here: https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com
  3. Open Services and change Windows Update Startup type to “Disabled.”
  4. Open an elevated command prompt.
  5. net stop wuauserv
    (If it cannot be stopped, find the PID for the service in Task Manager and kill it with
    taskkill /f /pid <PID for process>)
  6. net stop cryptSvc
    net stop bits
    net stop msiserver
    del /f /q “%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\Microsoft\Network\Downloader\qmgr*.dat”
    del /f /s /q %SystemRoot%\SoftwareDistribution\*.*  (This may take a long time)
    del /f /s /q %SystemRoot%\system32\catroot2\*.*
    del /f /q %SystemRoot%\WindowsUpdate.log
  7. Go back to Services and change the Startup type for Windows Update to Manual
  8. Now back to the elevated Command window:
    net start cryptSvc
    net start bits
    net start msiserver
  9. Now manually install the updates from step #2 above
  10. Now change the startup for Windows Update to Automatic and start it if it’s stopped.

 

 

IIS broken when WSUS/WID role removed from server

We set up a site in IIS on a Windows Server machine that had been configured with the WSUS/WID role. After the site was up and running, we removed the WSUS/WID role on the server. Thereafter, the IIS site was returning “HTTP Error 500″

Removing the WSUS role on the server removes almost all the files installed by the Windows Update Services but does not undo the changes to the configuration written in the ApplicationHost.config file. The Applicationhost.config file tries to call the .dll installed by the WSUS Server which no longer exists on the system.

From the Applicationhost.config file:

<scheme name=”xpress” doStaticCompression=”false” doDynamicCompression=”true” dll=”C:\Program Files\Update Services\Webservices\suscomp.dll” staticCompressionLevel=”10″ dynamicCompressionLevel=”0″ />

Running the following command will remove all references to the module installed by WSUS.

%windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe set config -section:system.webServer/httpCompression /-[name='xpress']

RDP Printer Redirection not working or crashing with Windows 10 host

When Windows 10 is acting as a host for Remote Desktop, redirected printers may stop working or cause the RDP client to crash (NT.DLL.)

This can happen when the “Easy Print” driver is installed by the host machine despite there being a proper printer driver installed. This unnecessary substitution can be turned off:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Terminal Services

Add DWORD key UseUniversalPrinterDriverFirst and set value to 4

(Values are Enabled = 3, Disabled = 4)

In some cases, the host has to be rebooted for this to take effect.

UNC connections to C$ denied

When attempting to attach to a C$ share with proper credentials, it may be rejected as “access denied.”

Example: \\machine\c$

On the target machine with the desired C$, Add/change this registry key and restart the Server service.

Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
 Value: LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy
 Data: 1 (to disable, 0 enables filtering)
 Type: REG_DWORD (32-bit)