Categories
Windows

Installing .NET Framework 3.5 on Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2

There might be requirements of installing .Net Framework 3.5 in Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2, and you will most likely run into problems while installing it.

If you are trying to install .NET Framework 3.5 from the Server Manager GUI, you will see this when installing the feature:

“Do you want to specify an alternate source path? One or more installation selections are missing source files…”

Confirm

 

 

To solve this, you can either:

1. Go to a command prompt and enter this:

dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:NetFX3 /all /Source:d:sourcessxs /LimitAccess

Note: Source should be the Windows installation disc. In my case, this was located on D:

command

2. Go down to “Specify an alternate source path” and enter “d:sourcessxs” as the path.

addroles

addroles

Now you can proceed with installation.

Categories
cloud Windows

Microsoft Antimalware for Azure services available for free

The solution is built on the same antimalware platform as Microsoft Security Essentials [MSE], MicrosoftForefront Endpoint Protection, Microsoft System Center Endpoint Protection and Windows Defender for Windows 8.0 and higher. Microsoft Antimalware for Azure is a single-agent solution for applications and tenant environments, designed to run in the background without human intervention. You can deploy protection based on the needs of your application workloads, with either basic secure-by-default or advanced custom configuration, including antimalware monitoring. When you deploy and enable Microsoft Antimalware for Azure for your applications, the following core
features are available:
Real-time protection – monitors activity in Cloud Services and on Virtual Machines to detect and block malware execution.
Scheduled scanning – periodically performs targeted scanning to detect malware, including actively running programs.
Malware remediation – automatically takes action on detected malware, such as deleting or quarantining malicious files and cleaning up malicious registry entries.
Signature updates – automatically installs the latest protection signatures (virus definitions) to ensure protection is up-to-date on a pre-determined frequency.
Antimalware Engine updates – automatically updates the Microsoft Antimalware engine.
Antimalware Platform updates – automatically updates the Microsoft Antimalware platform.
Active protection – reports telemetry metadata about detected threats and suspicious resources to Microsoft Azure to ensure rapid response to the evolving threat landscape, as well as enabling real-time synchronous signature delivery through the Microsoft Active Protection System (MAPS).

Samples reporting – provides and reports samples to the Microsoft Antimalware service to help refine the service and enable troubleshooting.
Exclusions – allows application and service administrators to configure certain files, processes, and drives to exclude them from protection and scanning for performance and/or other reasons.
Antimalware event collection – records the antimalware service health, suspicious activities, and remediation actions taken in the operating system event log and collects them into the customer’s Azure Storage account.

Microsoft Antimalware in Azure workflow – enable, configure, and monitor

image


How to enable and configure Microsoft Antimalware for Azure virtual machines?

There are multiple ways to do this, in this section I’m will let you know how to enable it using Azure management portal while provisioning a virtual machine.

  • logon to Azure management portal at https://manage.windowsazure.com
  • To create a new virtual machine, click New, Compute, Virtual Machine, From Gallery, as shown below.

image

  • Select the Microsoft Windows Server image on the choose an image page.
  • Click the right arrow and input the Virtual Machine configuration.
  • Check the Microsoft Antimalware checkbox under Security Extensions on the Virtual Machine configuration page.
  • Click the Submit button to enable and configure Microsoft Antimalware for Azure Virtual Machines with the default configuration settings.

image

Categories
Windows

IE 11 Out now for Windows 7

IE 11 for windows 7 is out now, it’s available for download. The tagline for IE 11 in Microsoft website is

Fast and fluid for Windows 7

IE 11 System requirements

  • A Windows 8.1 or Windows RT 8.1 PC/ Windows 7
  • Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster with support for PAE, NX, and SSE2
  • RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
  • Hard disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
  • Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver

IE 11 CAN BE DOWNLOADED FROM HERE

Categories
technews Windows 8

Installing Oracle Virtual Box in Windows 8

I have installed Oracle Virtual Box in Windows 8 and it worked pretty Cool, and now I can create and experiment on all flavor of OS. And here are a few installation screenshots for Oracle Virtual Box version 4.3.0.

This is the latest version available for download from Oracle Website, and here’s the link if your are lazy to Google 🙂

As mentioned in one of my previous pots, Oracle virtual Box is one of the best Free virtualization software available currently and works in a Desktop/home PC setup.

So here goes the installation screenshots.

1. Click on the virtual Box downloaded exe, this is what you see, click ‘next’

1

 

2. select the installation location, there is no harm in keeping the default settings, and click “next”

2

3.  click  on “next”

3

4. Click “Yes ” and proceed to the next step

4

5. Installation process begins 🙂

5

 

6. Click on “install” for installing Oracle Corporation drivers for better system devices sync.

6

7. Click “Finish ” to complete the installation, and there you go.

7

 

And you are ready to create VM’s of own.

Categories
technews Windows

VMware Workstation 10 now supports Windows 8.1

With the release of Windows 8.1, VMware has added support of Windows8.1 to Vmware workstation 10. The Unity mode has been enhanced to seamlessly work with Windows 8.1 UI changes.Workstation 10 can now convert a Windows 8.1 physical PC to a virtual machine.

 

VMware Workstation 10 features

  • Support for 16 vCPUs, 8 TB SATA disks and 64GB of RAM
  • New Virtual SATA disk controller
  • Now supporting 20 virtual networks
  • USB3 streams support for faster file copying
  • Improved application and Windows VM startup times
  • SSD Pass through

 

 

 

Categories
Windows

Windows 8.1 and Windows RT 8.1 are now available online and in the Windows Store.

The final versions of Windows 8.1 and Windows RT8.1 are available online and in windows store for download. Windows 8.1 preview is no longer available for download. You must install the final version of Windows 8.1 or Windows RT 8.1 before January 2014 when the license the preview will expire. If you’ve been using the preview, you should update to the final edition as soon as possible to avoid an interruption in using your PC.

For up-gradtion help to windows 8.1 from Windows vista or Xp , refer here

 

For buying Microsoft Windows 8.1, Visit Microsoft Online Store

Categories
Windows

How to Set MaxPageSize in Active Directory

Certain LDAP clients can only receive the first 1,000 results when they make an LDAP query to Active Directory, when more results exist that satisfy the query scope.  If there are 1,200 results to be returned, the client will receive the “Size Limit Exceeded” error when the paging control is not used.

Microsoft lists MaxPageSize as:

MaxPageSize – This value controls the maximum number of objects that are returned in a single search result, independent of how large each returned object is. To perform a search where the result might exceed this number of objects, the client must specify the paged search control. This is to group the returned results in groups that are no larger than the MaxPageSizevalue. To summarize, MaxPageSize controls the number of objects that are returned in a single search result.

Default value: 1,000

Here are the steps for showing and changing the default MaxPageSize in AD.

Microsoft Windows [Version 5.2.3790]
(C) Copyright 1985-2003 Microsoft Corp.

C:Documents and Settingsusername>ntdsutil
ntdsutil: ldap policies
ldap policy: connections
server connections: connect to server <yourservername>
Binding to <yourservername> ...
Connected to <yourservername> using credentials of locally logged on user.
server connections: q
ldap policy: show values

Policy                          Current(New)

MaxPoolThreads                  4
MaxDatagramRecv                 1024
MaxReceiveBuffer                10485760
InitRecvTimeout                 120
MaxConnections                  5000
MaxConnIdleTime                 900
MaxPageSize                     1000
MaxQueryDuration                120
MaxTempTableSize                10000
MaxResultSetSize                262144
MaxNotificationPerConn          5
MaxValRange                     0

ldap policy: set maxpagesize to 7000
ldap policy: commit changes
ldap policy: q
ntdsutil: q

 

No Restart is required for this settings change

maxpagesize

Categories
Windows

How to edit the password policy on Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows 2012

It’s not possible directly to edit the password policies in AD setup both in Windows 2008 and 2012 environment. Before doing the changes have a look into the current settings, and backup if necessary. To check the currents settings, type ‘gpedit.msc’ in command prompt and then navigate to  ‘Computer SettingsWindows SettingsSecurity SettingsAccount PoliciesPassword Policy’ section.

localsecpolicyMost of the times the settings will be greyed out (disabled), if it’s greydout here how we can change it.

  1. Go to a command prompt
  2. Type ‘secedit /export /cfg c:local.cfg‘ and hit enter
  3. Using notepad, edit c:local.cfg (keep a backup if required)
  4. Look for the line which you want to edit. For eg. “PasswordComplexity = 1” and change it to “PasswordComplexity = 0”
  5. Save the file
  6. At a command prompt type ‘secedit /configure /db %windir%securitylocal.sdb /cfg c:local.cfg /areas SECURITYPOLICY

This will apply the new settings and refreshing the gpedit.msc should reflect the new settings
Set your new less complex password!

 

 

Categories
technews Windows

Microsoft releases emergency update to patch Internet Explorer bug

Microsoft has released an emergency update to patch a security vulnerability in Internet Explorer that is being exploited in attacks aimed at government contractors and other targeted organizations.

The patch fixes a “use after free” bug in versions 6, 7, and 8 of the Microsoft browser and will be automatically installed on affected machines that have automatic updating enabled,The unscheduled release comes just six days after Microsoft’s most recent monthly Patch Tuesday batch of security updates, but it was pushed out to counter an experienced gang of hackers who have infected websites frequented by government contractors to exploit the vulnerability.

Monday’s update came hours after Oracle released an unscheduled patch to fix a critical vulnerability in its Java software framework. As reported last week, the zero-day Java exploits were added to a variety of exploit kits that criminals use to turn compromised websites into platforms for silently installing keyloggers and other malware on the machines of unsuspecting visitors.

The attacks exploiting the IE vulnerability, by contrast, targeted a much narrower set of people, researchers said. Such campaigns have come to be dubbed “watering hole” attacks, because they’re akin to hunters who hide out at ponds or other sources of water and wait for their prey as they quench their thirst.

Versions 9 and 10 of IE are more resistant to security attacks that aren’t vulnerable to the exploit. If possible, readers should install one of those versions.

Microsoft previously issued a “Fixit” tool to mitigate the effects of an attack. People who have applied the temporary fix do not need to uninstall it before installing the permanent patch. Still, Microsoft suggests users uninstall the FIxit once the patch is in place. The patch is not a cumulative batch of previous IE fixes, so users still must apply MS01-077 to be protected against vulnerabilities Microsoft patched last week. The company’s advisory is here.

Shared via ars technica

Categories
Windows

Windows Server 2012 Overview

With Windows Server 2012, Microsoft delivers a server platform built on our experience of building and operating many of the world’s largest cloud-based services and datacenter. Whether you are setting-up a single server for your small business or architecting a major new datacenter environment, Windows Server 2012 will help you cloud-optimize your IT so you can fully meet your organization’s unique needs.

Key windows Server 2012 capabilities can be simplified in a diagram as below.

Evaluation copy of windows 2012 can be downloaded from this link “Download 2012 Evaluation copy”

Preinstallation information

System Requirements

  • Processor: Minimum 1.4Ghz 64bit processor
  • RAM: Minimum 512MB RAM
  • Disk Space requirements: 32GB (this is the minimum disk space required for a minimal install it may vary based on the server setup required)
  • Other requirements: DVD drive, Super VGA (800 * 600) or higher resolution monitor, Keyboard, mouse and finally an internet access.