Exchange 2010 SP3 upgrade on SBS 2011 - Setup cannot continue with the upgrade because the 'console' (Windows SBS Console) process has open files. Close the process and restart Setup.

During an installation of  SP3 for Exchange 2010 on an SBS 2011 server, this error appeared when performing the readiness checks. Having rebooted the server and ensured that the SBS Management console was shut it seemed a little odd.

However, launch task manager I could see that the "console" process was still running even though the window had been closed.

I ended the console task and re-ran the readiness check which then passed. Problem solved.

No verification email when trying to reset office.com or live.com password

We've recently had a few problems with older machines they have required a re-installation. However, the newer versions of office are often tied to a users email address and they can never remember the password, so we end up trying to reset the password to re-download office and activate it.

Some of the spam filters that our clients use have been refusing to let the verification emails through - they're just totally disappearing into the ether.

We added @microsoft.com to the spam filter white-list, but this didn't help.

Turns out, you need to add: @account.microsoft.com as this is the domain that Microsoft send password resets from. 

Hopefully it helps someone out

BT Infinity static IP addresses with a Home Hub - not showing correct IP

Recently, I was involved in the setup of a new Infinity line for a business. They ordered the line and then requested 5 IP addresses but weren't sure how to get them working.

Once again, BT were not overly helpful with how to use the static IP addresses.

The client was told that the should use 56.23.45.62 (not their actual IP address, but works for this example) and that was it.

If you log into the homehub and go to the "advanced" settings page you can then select "Static IP".

In here, you need to enable it and put in your routers address as they call it. To get this working correctly, we had to enter "56.23.45.61" as using the last available IP (56.23.45.62) would not let the device connect.

However, the really odd thing is that when you reboot, the router will still get a seemingly random IP address not related to the static IP at all.

If you've set it up right, the statics will still work - they just wont appear on the router!

Windows 10 Downloads Folder Slow to Load

Something that's started happening on my PC is that the downloads folder in Windows 10 can take a very long time to load when it contains more than 20 or so mixed items.

After a bit of an investigation into this, it seems as though the system is trying to decide exactly what kind of data is stored in the folder and then display it in the most appropriate way.

To disable this and get the folder to load quickly again, you need to right click on the folder and then go to properties.

In the properties window, select "Customize" and then from the "Optimize this folder for..." drop down select "General". I also ticked the "Also apply this template to all subfolders" option to ensure that other folders in the downloads folder are treated in the same way.

And that's it, the downloads folder should now open up in a matter of moments!

Installing Windows 7 on H500S Lenovo PC - Bluescreen ACPI (Error 0x000000A5)

I ran into a problem when trying to install Windows 7 on a H500s Lenovo PC. I kept getting a blue-screen relating to an ACPI error

Not ACPI Compliant (Error 0x000000A5)


There are a few blogs detailing elaborate ways around this problem such as:
http://bootables.net/lenovo-h500s-bios-update-how-to/

However what no-one seems to have said is that if you still have a working copy of Windows 8 running on the system then you can flash the bios from there instead of creating a boot disk to do it!

To do it from Windows 8:

1: Download http://cdn.bootables.net/uploads/2015/04/IPJY41USA-lenovo-H500s.rar (this is a rar file, so you may need something like WinRAR to open it)
2: Extract the file onto your main drive (keep the folder structure simple, don't do it in your downloads folder for example. I used c:\temp\)
3: Navigate to the folder and find the file called IPJY41USA.exe
4: Right click this and select "Run as administrator"
5: The utility should update the bios - and thats it, you should now be able to install Windows 7

Perhaps this is fairly obvious? But from what I could see no-one in the support forums has mentioned this as a quick way around the problem.

Wordpress Contact Form 7 checkboxes one per line in a list rather than bunched up

Contact Form 7 is a great plugin for Wordpress that allows you to easily add contact forms to your website.

One of the bugbears that I have with it is that checkbox lists are bunched up rather than being on one per line.

There is a really easy fix though - add the following to your sites CSS

span.wpcf7-list-item {
margin-left: 0.5em;
display: block;
}

and that will sort it out - no need to edit Contact Form 7s CSS files!

Bypassing NTFS permissions in Windows when recovering data from a faulty drive

There's nothing more frustrating than trying to recover data from a drive that's on its last legs and to add insult to injury, if you have put the drive in a different PC and you try and access the files in the user folder you won't be able to see them because of the permissions present on the drive.

Normally, you can just take ownership of the folders and get around this - but when its a faulty drive that may fail at any time you really don't want (or the drive may not be able to) go through each file and folder to change the permissions.

there's a simple way to get around them though - as the "system" permission is present on these folders. So all we have to do is launch our favourite copying app as a "system" user and grab the data we need.

To do this, you will need one of the sysinternal tools called PSExec:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/pxexec.aspx

Once downloaded, you can use this tool to run another application (in my case, I've chosen unstoppable copier) as a system process

To get unstoppable copier, download it here:
http://roadkil.net/program.php?ProgramID=29
So, here's how you do it:

1: Download PSExec and put it in a location (c:\temp\ will be used in this example)
2: Download unstoppable copier and put it in the same location (c:\temp\)
3: Open a command prompt as an administrator (right click the start menu in Windows 10 and select "Command Prompt (Admin)" or right click on the "command prompt" menu option in Windows 7 and select "Run as administrator)
4: You will start in C:\windows\system32 - type cd\ and then press enter
5: Type cd\temp and press enter
6: Now type psexec unstopcpy_5_2_Win2k_up.exe (you may need to change this bit depending on the app you're launching or the version of unstoppable copier you have downloaded)
7: This should now launch unstoppable copier as a system user and you should be able to browse to any folders to copy your data without having to take ownership!

I really hope this helps someone - having a drive fail is a total pain