Techie Talks

Recently, I had to move Pagefile.sys from C: drive to another drive on a server to free up some space. Page file is used as a virtual memory in Windows. Generally, you can find on C:\Pagefile.sys . It is a hidden file and you won’t be able to see it until you changes settings in Windows Explorer not to hide protected operating system files. To move the Pagefile to a new drive, follow these steps. You can perform these steps on any Windows Vista, or Windows 7 on wards or Windows server 2003 on wards.   Go to Control Panel and then System and Security . Now, click on Advanced system settings on the left side column. System properties box will appear, click on Advanced tab. Under Performance , click on Settings … button Performance Options box will appear, click on Advance tab. In Virtual Memory section, click on Change… button Virtual Memory box will appear. In this box, untick Automatically manage paging file size for all drives Select the drive lette...

Hi All, you may have already noticed that when you right click on any application on Windows 10 PC, you can see “Run as Administrator” option. But “Run as different user” option is missing. To get this option, you’ll make a make a change in registry.   Note :  Please backup registry and make a system restore point before making changes to Registry. Click on  Start . Type  Regedit  and press  Enter  key. In Registry Editor, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer        If you do not find this key, right click on Windows key and select new key. Rename it to Explorer . Now, in the right side pane, right click and add DWORD value ShowRunasDifferentuserinStart Right click on ShowRunasDifferentuserinStart and click on Modify… Change its value to 1 and click on OK . Close Registry Editor and reboot PC. Once you restart your PC, you can find Run as different user option is available w...

Hi All, in this post I am going to share information on how can you update an attribute(s) in AD for multiple objects. In this post, I am using a CSV file that contains users’ First Name, Last Name, their login name and Employee ID. I wanted to update Employee ID for all the users listed in CSV file. To achieve this, I have complied a PowerShell script that uses CSV file and update AD attributes for multiple users. CSV file: I saved CSV file in C:\ADTest.CSV . I ran following PowerShell script as admin. This script import CSV data, updates EmployeeID data for each login name (sAMAccountName) listed in CSV file. #Import Active Directory module Import-Module ActiveDirectory #Import CSV file $Obj = Import-Csv "C:\ADTest.csv" foreach ( $Usr in $Obj ) { Get-ADUser -Filter "sAMAccountName -eq ' $( $u . sAMAccountName) '" -properties * | set-aduser -replace @{employeeID = " $( $u . employeeID) " } -...

Hi All, this is my very first post on Windows 10 phone. I have a Windows 10 phone. Today, I saw following error message on phone. It didn’t allow me to unlock my phone using 4 digit pin I had set. The “Emergency calls” was the only option available to me. Error: This device has been locked for security reasons. Connect your device to a power source for at least two hours, then restart it to try again. I tried performing soft reboot but it didn’t fix. After doing a bit of research, I found a solution. Make sure that your phone is connected to Internet during this process. To fix this issue, follow these steps: Launch https://account.microsoft.com/devices on a web browser on another PC/Tablet or a smart phone Login using your Microsoft account (it is the same account you’ve used to configure your phone). Once you’ve logged in, Select your phone. On the next page, click on Lock button. A box will appear asking to enter 6 digit pin , a number where you can be reached (op...

I would like to share some information about SNR margin and Loop Attenuation values for your ADSL connection. These are very important to determine the performance of the Internet connection. I strongly suggest that you should use this information as guide only. These values may vary for different types of Internet connection such as ADSL, ADSL Max or Fibre connection. SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio) margin measures strength of the DSL signal to Noise ratio. Most of the modem manufactures suggest 6dB is the lowest to able to make Internet connection. The higher the value of SNR margin, better the connection. SNR Value (in dB) Internet connection status 6 or less Bad or may experience no sync or intermittent sync issue 7 – 10 Fair connection 11 – 20 Good connection with no sync issues 20 – 28 Excellent 29 or above Outstanding Loop Attenuation (Loop Att.) measures of how much the signal has degr...

The easiest way to connect to remote PC is using Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). Most common application to make a connection to remote PC is Remote Desktop Connection in Windows environment. Sometimes you may get error while trying to make a Remote Desktop connection. Recently, I came across following error message: The remote session was disconnected because there are no remote desktop client access licences available for this computer. Please contact your system administrator. If you’re getting this error message, there are couple of ways to fix it. Option 1: Run Remote Desktop Connection ( mstsc.exe ) application as “ Run as administrator ”. Option 2: Still no luck with Option 1, try following below steps: Note : Please backup registry and make a system restore point before making changes to Registry.           Click on Start . Type Regedit and press Enter key.           In Registry Editor, navigate t...

While trying to fix one of our user’s IT issue remotely, I had to turn off Windows firewall which was set to Public. Users account does not have appropriate permission to make any changes to the system or run a command prompt. When I tried to make a RDP connection, it failed due to Public firewall is enabled. I tried below Netsh command to turn off firewall on remote PC but it didn’t work. Netsh –r 192.168.1.15 –u admin –p Password –c advfirewall set allprofiles state off Then, I learnt about PsExec command. PsExec is a light-weight telnet replacement that allows users to run programs executable files on remote machines. First, you will have to download PSTools. Click Here to download it. Once you’ve downloaded PSTools, unzip the file and copy PsExec to executable path. I copied file to C:\. Run following command to turn off filewall on remote PC using PsExec: C:\> psexec ComputerName –u username –p password cmd ComputerName  - replace it with t...

Today, I installed a Ubuntu server 16.04 LTS on my test lab. I installed it as a virtual machine on my Hyper-V host. When installation finished, I was presented with the server Core edition. As I am fairly new to Linux OS, I wanted to have Graphical User Interface (GUI). I went on Internet to find a way to convert my Core server to GUI. I learnt that I need to install ubuntu-desktop package to have GUI. sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop When I ran this command, I got a following error message: E: Unable to locate package update After doing a bit of a research, I found out that I will have to run some more commands to upgrade current package list before trying to install desktop version. I used following command to have GUI version of Ubuntu server. Use following command to upgrade packages installed on your PC or update your all system. When Prompted, type Y and press Enter key. Sudo apt-get upgrade Once you've upgraded your system, run this com...

Here I go with another post on PowerShell. This time, I would like to share a PowerShell command that will help you to export list of users of particular AD (Active Directory) group to a CSV file. Run PowerShell and type following commands: # This will import ActiveDirectory module Import-Module ActiveDirectory # This command will export list of users from GroupName to a CSV file Get-ADGroupMember -Identity "GroupName" -server "TestDomain" -recursive | get-aduser -Properties mail | select name , samaccountname | export-csv -path c:\Script\report.csv -NoTypeInformation In above command, replace GroupName with the Group you want to retrieve members list. Type your domain name in place of TestDomain . Once you run above command, it will create a CSV file “ Report.CSV ” and save it in C:\Script folder. I hope you find this post very useful. Disclaimer: www.TechieTalks.co.uk does not conceal the possibility of error and shortc...

Hi All, this is my very first post on PowerShell Script. Today, I am going to share a script that you can use to find out free disk space from multiple servers. You will have to create a Text file and a PowerShell script to accomplish this. Let’s begin by creating a Text file. I have setup a folder on my C: Drive called PS_Script (C:\ PS_Script). I created a Text file, ServerNames.txt, and saved it in C:\PS_Script folder. Use following code to create a PowerShell script and save it as DiskReport.PS1. #Get Current date $currdate = ( Get-Date ) . tostring( "dd-MM-yyyy" ) #Set path for output file $report = "C:\PS_Script\" + "DiskSpaceReport_" + " $Currdate .html" #Run command to get free disk space from multiple servers and export output to HTML file Get-WmiObject Win32_LogicalDisk -filter "DriveType=3" -computer ( Get-Content C:\PS_Script\ServerNames.txt ) | Select SystemName , DeviceID , V...

Hi All, I know it’s been a long a time since I have written an article. Today I came across a question where user wanted to change his/her password while they are connected to a Server remotely via Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection. Generally, you press CTRL+ALT+Del , you get  the following choices that includes Change a password… option. This works perfectly fine if you are logged in locally and wants to change password. But if you are logged on to PC remotely using Remote Desktop  connection and press CTRL+ALT+DEL from keyboard, it will apply command to your local PC instead of remote PC. There are two ways to change password using Remote Desktop connections.      Press CTRL+ALT+ END from your keyboard while you are logged in to Remote PC. You should get following options:     Alternatively, press Win +R key in your Remote desktop connection. Type OSK to launch OnScreen Keyboard. Press CTL+ALT from your keyboard and use...

Hi All, it has been a long time since I have posted last blog. I was away for a while during Christmas time. Today, I am going to share information about how to get virtual USB port in drop down list while installing local printer (USB) on Windows 7, if it’s not available by default. I followed below steps to add virtual USB port to add USB printer to Windows 7 PC.           Click on Start . Go to Devices and Printers .           Click on Add Printer .           Select Add a local Printer           In Choose a printer port box, select Create a new port option.           From the drop down list, choose Local port and click on Next button.           Port Name dialog box will appear. Type port name USB001 , click on OK           In the step, choose appropriate printer driver from list or provide a dr...