Tag: error

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blog howto windows

Windows 10 May 2021 update can break audio service

Problem:
Sound is not working anymore in Windows and all programs. In the task area the speaker icon shows a red circle with an X. When you open sound settings it says there are no devices. In device manager the sound card is enabled and shows the correct latest driver.

Troubleshooting:
Removing (with delete driver) all the sound devices and output devices and reinstalling them has no effect. DISM /ScanHealth and SFC /scannow find no corruption. After trying lots of possible solutions, including doing a build upgrade to the same version, I was almost at the point that I would reset the entire system and install everything again. However in one last desperate Google search I came across the solution.

Solution:
The first solution I found was to add the localservice and networkservice (hidden) user accounts to the local administrators group. I tried this and sure enough this fixed the issue. But after reviewing other comments and checking on another (correctly working) computer I was convinced this was not a secure solution. So I removed the user accounts again from the group and sure enough the problem was back (after reboot). Luckily someone at the Dell forums found the real and secure solution.

The problem is a corrupted registry value that defines the Windows ACL rights for some part of the Windows Audio service. So open the registry editor (regedit) and navigate to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations

The issue is the value for ConsoleSecurity shows as binary null or empty and that’s faulty. The value is the same on each computer and should be:

"ConsoleSecurity"=hex:01,00,14,80,9c,00,00,00,a8,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,14,00,00,\
  00,02,00,88,00,06,00,00,00,00,00,14,00,01,00,00,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,05,\
  04,00,00,00,00,00,14,00,bf,03,0f,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,05,12,00,00,00,00,\
  00,14,00,89,00,0f,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,05,13,00,00,00,00,00,14,00,81,00,\
  00,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,05,14,00,00,00,00,00,18,00,bf,03,0f,00,01,02,00,\
  00,00,00,00,05,20,00,00,00,20,02,00,00,00,00,18,00,21,01,00,00,01,02,00,00,\
  00,00,00,05,20,00,00,00,2b,02,00,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,05,12,00,00,00,01,\
  01,00,00,00,00,00,05,12,00,00,00

I have attached a (zipped) reg file you can use to fix this value back to the original value.

fix_audio_service_no_devicesDownload

More information:
Apparently this happens when the Windows 10 May 2021 cumulative update (KB5003173) fails to install the first time. Somehow in this process the registry value gets corrupted.

As a side note somehow this update failure also changes the setting in the local group policy that requires you to press CTRL-ALT-DEL at the logon screen.

Resources and credit:
https://www.dell.com/community/Latitude/Latitude-5400-no-sound-after-May-2021-Windows-update/m-p/7980056/highlight/true#M34613
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/401440/kb5003173-no-audio-device-installed.html


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blog howto windows

Windows 10 settings doesn’t open

Windows 10 Settings doesn’t work anymore. You see the window opening but then it immediately closes.

In the eventlog you can see an error from DCOM:

Log Name:      System
Source:        Microsoft-Windows-DistributedCOM
Event ID:      10010
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
Description:
The server windows.immersivecontrolpanel_10.0.2.1000_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewy!microsoft.windows.immersivecontrolpanel did not register with DCOM within the required timeout.

DISM won’t fix this, the scanhealth and restorehealth options didn’t help.

To fix this follow these steps.
Open a CMD with run as administrator (elevated priveleges) and type:

cd c:\windows
ren ImmersiveControlPanel ImmersiveControlPanel.old
SFC /scannow

After SFC is finished, the settings windows should work again.

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blog howto windows

Cannot upgrade Windows 2008 R2 to 2012 R2 in place

When you run the setup and choose upgrade you immediately get the message from compatibility report “Windows Server 2008 R2 cannot be upgraded to Windows Server 2012 R2 (With a GUI)”.

You need to have Service Pack 1 installed on Windows 2008 R2 to be able to perform the in-place upgrade. Download SP1 from the link below.

https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=kb976932

Note: You also need to use a 2012 R2 setup edition in the same language and bit version (64bit).

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blog howto windows

Windows 7 & 2008 R2 Update error 80072EFE

When you try to search for an update you receive an error code 80072EFE

This might happen on systems that have not been updated for many years or that had a clean install with very old install media.

The solution is to manually install KB3138612. Download from the link below.
https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB3138612

If you can’t install the update, make sure you are running Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 or 2008 R2. Download from the link below.
https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=kb976932

After the SP update, reboot and try the KB3138612 update again and reboot again.

Searching for updates should now work!

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blog exchange howto server windows

Exchange database dirty shutdown recovery JET_errLogFileSizeMismatch error -541

Warning: This is a technical article describing steps that you should only execute if you’re familiar and confident with the matter.

Error information:
Below is some error information that you might have seen and that’s why your search leads you here.

eseutil /ML “L:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Mailbox\DB-MBX2\E02.log”
Extensible Storage Engine Utilities for Microsoft(R) Exchange Server Version 15.00
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Initiating FILE DUMP mode…
Base name: E02
Log file: L:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Mailbox\DB-MBX2\E02.log
ERROR: Cannot read log file header. Error -541.
Operation terminated with error -541 (JET_errLogFileSizeMismatch, actual log file size does not match JET_paramLogFileSize) after 0.16 seconds.

eseutil /r “L:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Mailbox\DB-MBX2\E02.log”
Extensible Storage Engine Utilities for Microsoft(R) Exchange Server Version 15.00
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Initiating RECOVERY mode…
Logfile base name: E02
…
Performing soft recovery…
Operation terminated with error -541 (JET_errLogFileSizeMismatch, actual log file size does not match JET_paramLogFileSize) after 0.31 seconds.

Solution:
If possible have a backup or a copy of the database before you manipulate it! Transaction log files are critical for the database, these are not just information files that you can delete!

If the DISK where the log files of your exchange database resides has run out of space you could find yourself with a corrupt log file. When you try to perform a soft recovery with eseutil /r and the path to your E0?.log (in my case E02.log) file you get an error about header information and size mismatch. The E0?.log file is the current transaction log file that Exchange was writing to when the disk ran out of space. This file is now corrupt and transactions in the file that were not applied to the database will be lost. All other older log files will have hexadecimal sequence to it such as E0?00E475A.log and so on. You can check which log files are required for the database to perform a soft recovery by reading the header information of the database in question as follows:

eseutil /mh “F:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Mailbox\DB-MBX2\DB-MBBX2.edb”
replace path and filenames with your database

In the wealth of information returned you will see a line stating the state of the database, which will be Dirty Shutdown. (If it is Clean Shutdown than you do not need to perform recovery). Below the state is the line Log Required which shows the files needed.

Log Required: 190299-190336 (0x2e75b-0x2e780)

In my case the databases needs the files E020002E75B.log and newer on to E020002E780.log (this is HEX sequence). Older log files can be moved to a different hard disk if you need to free some space. Be careful, don’t delete, sorting these files in Explorer is not easy, you can’t do it by name because of the hex sequence and by date/time is not foolproof. So double-check or just expand the disk and leave all log files as-is.

Now to perform the recovery we have to move the corrupt E02.log file to a folder or other disk. Now that the corrupt file is removed and you are 100% sure that all the other required log files (see section above) are present we can perform soft recovery with the /a option to skip missing log files and bring the database back to a clean state.

eseutil /r /a E02 /l “l:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Mailbox\DB-MBX2” /s “l:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Mailbox\DB-MBX2” /d “F:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Mailbox\DB-MBX2”
change the names and paths to your situation.

/r is soft recovery
/a is skip missing logfile
E02 is the base name of the logfiles, this is dependant of the database, could be E01, E02, E03 …
/l is for the log files location (where E02.log and other E02xxxx.log files reside)
/s is for the system files location (where E02.chk resides)
/d is for the database files location (where DB-MBX2.edb resides)

Output will be like this:

eseutil /R /a E02 /l “l:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Mailbox
\DB-MBX2” /s “l:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Mailbox\DB-MBX2” /d
“F:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Mailbox\DB-MBX2”

Extensible Storage Engine Utilities for Microsoft(R) Exchange Server Version 15.00
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Initiating RECOVERY mode…
Logfile base name: E02
Log files: l:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Mailbox\DB-MBX2
System files: l:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Mailbox\DB-MBX2
Database Directory: F:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Mailbox\DB-MBX2
Performing soft recovery…
Restore Status (% complete)
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
|—-|—-|—-|—-|—-|—-|—-|—-|—-|—-|
……………………………………………

Operation completed successfully in 3.635 seconds.

The database is now clean, you can check again with eseutil /mh as we did before and see the state listed as Clean Shutdown.

If you want to quickly clean-up logfiles no longer needed you should perform an Exchange aware backup. If you don’t have one and you understand the consequences you can enable circular logging on the database.

Good Luck!

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blog howto windows

Citrix client receiver error AllowHotkey

This problem can be solved by either disabling lockdown on the client or adding a registry key on the client for allowhotkey.

—————————
Error number 2320
—————————
Citrix online plug-in Configuration Manager: No value could be found for (AllowHotkey) that satisfies all lockdown requirements. The lockdown requirements in force may be conflicting.
—————————
OK
—————————

option 1 (disable lockdown)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Citrix\ICA Client\Engine\Lockdown Profiles\All Regions
Enablelockdown change to 0

option 2 add reg key for AllowHotkey with empty value
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Citrix\ICA Client\Engine\Lockdown Profiles\All Regions\Lockdown\Client Engine\Hot Keys
“AllowHotkey”=””

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howto windows

Windows 10 Upgrade error unable to install on partition

EDIT: I read somewhere that it needs 50MB of free space on the partition. Maybe you can first assign a drive letter using disk management and see if you can free up some space.

I had this “Something went wrong” & “unable to install on partition” error when I tried to upgrade a Laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit installed. This laptop is from late 2011, and had Windows 7 pre-installed by the manufacturer.

This cryptic error, in my case, just meant that the hidden reserved system partition that Windows 7 creates on install was too small/full for Windows 10.

In earlier versions of Windows 7 this partition would be created with a size of 100MB. In Windows 8 I mostly see this partition with a size of 400MB.

So what to do? Expand this hidden system partition from 100MB to at least 400MB. To be safe for the future I expanded it to 800MB.
Now this is not something you can do from within Windows, because the C partition will have to shrink AND move to the right to make room to expand the system partition.

I suggest using a partition manager to do this. I had success using the free Minitool partition manager.
http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html

First select the C partition and shrink by 700MB and move it to the right so that the free space comes available in between the small SYSTEM partition and the C partition. Then next select the SYSTEM partition and expand by 700MB until the free space is gone.

Now click the execute button, the software will tell you it must reboot to execute these actions.
Go ahead reboot, and then wait for some time (could take up to hours on big and slower drives) for the software to finish. You get a nice progress bar. For me it took 10minutes on an SSD.

When it’s finished it will boot Windows and you can check in Disk Manager if everything looks good. You can then uninstall or keep the software and start your Windows 10 Upgrade again.

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blog exchange server windows

Outlook Web Access OWA error 500 when logging in

When you fill in your credentials on the login screen of Outlook Web Access or OWA (2010) and click submit you receive an Internal Server Error 500 and the URL shows /owa/auth.owa

There are no events logged in Application or System log that explain this problem.

IISreset does not help.

The problem and solution could be very simple.
Check the the service “Microsoft Exchange Forms-Based Authentication service” is started. If not, start the service and try to login to OWA again. Problem should be solved.

If the service doesn’t start or fails frequently you’ll have to investigate that further.

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blog howto server windows

printer driver installation error 0x00000057

note: This is a technical article meant for system administrators or advanced users. Make backups of files or registry keys that you manipulate. Use caution and proceed at your own responsibility.

I ran into this problem after cleaning up printer drivers and manually cleaning up in the c:\windows\system32\spool directory.
When trying to connect to a printer on the printserver the error 0x00000057 would show. This error occurs when windows tries to install the printer driver.

If the driver is already present on the system, first try to remove the printer driver using the printserver properties (printui.exe /s /t2). http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2771931 After remove try again to install. If that didn’t work, or like me this particular driver was not installed on the system, read on.

If you have another computer or server that does install the printer without problem, than you can try this.
1) On the working computer open the registry editor and navigate to: (note for 32bit systems its slightly different)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\Windows x64\Drivers\Version-3\
2) Find the key with the driver you need. Export this driver key to a REG file. Copy the file to the problem computer.
3) On the problem computer open the registry editor and check for the presence of the key, delete if present.
4) Import the REG file made in step 2 on the problem computer.
5) In the key note the value of the Infpath item. It’s the location of the INF file. We need the whole containing folder and items in it.
Should be something like: c:\windows\system32\DriverStore\FileRepository\xxx.inf-yyyyyy-zzzzz\
6) We need to copy this folder and its content to the problem computer. Not an easy task because of the permissions.
But you can do it like this from the working computer:
– Open an elevated command prompt (run as administrator CMD.exe)
– execute the following command: xcopy C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\xxx.inf-yyyyyy-zzzzz\ \\problemcomputer\c$\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\xxx.inf-yyyyyy-zzzzz\ /E /C /F /H /R /K /O
7) Now we have the registry key and the files present on the problem computer.
8) Restart the print spooler on the problem computer and try to connect the printer again or try to install the driver again.

0x00000057 printer driver installation error
source: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/itmanagement/en-US/a225d71c-be8b-4530-bf50-63001559a978/windows-can-not-connect-to-the-printer-0x00000057?forum=itmanager

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blog howto windows

Exchange: Name Could Not be Matched to a Name in the Address List

English: “Name Could Not be Matched to a Name in the Address List”
Dutch: “Naam niet gevonden in de adreslijst”

Outlook showed this error while setting up the mailbox profile.
The user could login in to OWA without issues. In my case it had nothing to do with the Global Address List or Offline Address book.
Seems some attributes on the user in Active Directory were missing. In Exchange console i disabled the mailbox and thus removing exchange attributes from the user. The mailbox them became disconnected, and next I connected the mailbox again to the same user.

After that everything worked! If you have multiple AD sites remember that the Domain Controllers need time to sync.