How to enable Ping in Windows Server 2012

GUI – Graphical User Interface
1. Open Control Panel, then select System and Security by clicking on that header

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2. Select Windows Firewall

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3. Advanced Settings

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4. In ‘Windows Firewall with Advanced security’ click on ‘Inbound rules’

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5. Scroll down to ‘File and Printer sharing (Echo request – ICMPv4-In)

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6. Rightclick on the rule and select ‘Enable rule’

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Make sure that it turns green

Done, close down the ‘Windows Firewall with Advanced Security’ windows and then the Control panel.
Verify functionality by pinging the servers own IP address from a command or PowerShell prompt.
Done!

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PowerShell
(This will enable the existing rule exactly as the instruction above does)

Import-Module NetSecurity
Set-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName “File and Printer Sharing (Echo Request – ICMPv4-In)” -enabled True

 

(ABove enables the existing rule, below will create a new rule that allows ICMPv4/Ping and enable it)

Import-Module NetSecurity
New-NetFirewallRule -Name Allow_Ping -DisplayName “Allow Ping”  -Description “Packet Internet Groper ICMPv4″ -Protocol ICMPv4 -IcmpType 8 -Enabled True -Profile Any -Action Allow

 

(For IPv6 Ping you obviously enable the v6 Inbound Rule…)
Thats all there is to it!

How to Delete Shadow Copies in Server 2008 R2

   Information

Shadow Copies (Previous versions) are copies of files and folders created by Windows Backup when you back up your files, and copies of files and folders that Windows automatically saves as part of a restore point. When system protection is turned on, Windows will only automatically create previous versions of files and folders that have been modified since the last restore point was made.

This will show you how to delete shadow copies in Vista Ultimate, Business, and Enterprise editions, and all editions of Windows 7.

   Warning

Deleting a shadow copy will also delete the restore point it was part of.

BEFORE YOU START

To View Volume Shadow Copies Details

NOTE: You will need to do this first to know what drives/volumes letters you have shadow copies on, and for how much disk space the shadow copies use before continuing on to the options below. The example shadow copies below contain two restore points on drive C: , and two backups on drive F: .

1. vssadmin list shadows
NOTE: This command lists existing volume shadow copies, the time the shadow copy was created and its location. You need this to see and know the Shadow Copy ID needed in OPTION TWO and OPTION THREE below, and to see how many shadow copies are on each hard drive letter.

A) Open a elevated command prompt.

B) In the elevated command prompt, type the command below and press enter.

vssadmin list shadows

2. vssadmin list shadowstorage
NOTE: This command lists the volume shadow storage space usage, the allocated space while a shadow copy is active and the maximum space that can be used. This is useful to see how much total space is being used on each hard drive letter by the shadow copies on it.

A) Open another elevated command prompt.

B) In the elevated command prompt, type the command below and press enter.

vssadmin list shadowstorage

3. Set these command windows aside for easy reference when you do either OPTION ONE, OPTION TWO, or OPTION THREE below for what you would like to do to delete the shadow copies.

OPTION ONE

Delete Shadow Copies Using "Disk Cleanup"

NOTE: Disk Cleanup will delete all shadow copies and restore points saved to the selected hard drive letter except the most recent copy.

1. Open the Start Menu, type cleanmgr into the search box, and press Enter.

2. Select the drive/volume letter that you want to delete shadow copies on, and click on OK. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: You will not see this window unless you have more than one drive or partition on your computer.

3. You will now see this screenshot below for a moment. (see screenshot below)

4. Click on the Clean up system files button. (see screenshot below)

5. If prompted by UAC, then click on Yes (Windows 7) or Continue (Vista)

6. Repeat steps 2 and 3.

7. Click on the More Options tab, and click on the Clean up button in the bottom System Restore and Shadow Copies section. (see screenshot below)

8. Click on the Delete button. (see screenshot below)

9. Click on OK. (see screenshot below step 7)

10. Click on the Delete Files button for the final confirmation. (see screenshot below)

11. When the shadow copies and restore points are finished being deleted, Disk Cleanup will close.

OPTION TWO

Delete Shadow Copies Using "wmic shadowcopy delete" Command

WARNING: This option is for advanced users, and should not be tried by beginners.

1. Be sure you do the "BEFORE YOU START" section at the top first.

2. Open a elevated command prompt.

3. In the elevated command prompt, type wmic and press Enter. After a few seconds wmic:root\cli> will appear.

4. Copy and paste the command below and press enter.

shadowcopy delete

5. You will now be asked Y/N for if you wanted to delete the available shadow copies one by one. Type your answer and press Enter after each one. (see screenshot below)

   Note

The listed shadow copies that you answer Y/N to delete or not are referenced by their Shadow Copy ID number. You can compare this Shadow Copy ID number with the ones listed from step 1 in the "BEFORE YOU START" section to know for sure which one you are deleting or not.

For example, the Shadow Copy ID below for the one I deleted in step 5 above is the bottom shadow copy listed in my examples in step 1 of the "BEFORE YOU START" section for the C: drive. You can also compare the Shadow Copy Volume number between step 1 and step 2 in the "BEFORE YOU START" section for additional information about the shadow copy.

Shadow Copy ID
{1FAE1C7E-729C-4BE5-92D9-1FD643336AE1}

Shadow Copy Volume
{62027452-787d-11e0-8219-806e6f6e6963}

6. When finished, close all command prompts.

OPTION THREE

Delete Shadow Copies with "vssadmin delete shadows" Command

WARNING: This option is for advanced users, and should not be tried by beginners.

   Note

Only shadow copies that have the ClientAccessible type can be deleted using this command.

For example, if you look at my examples in step 1 in the "BEFORE YOU START" section, you will notice that only the C: drive/volume shadow copies have Client-accessible listed in their Attributes, and not the F: drive/volume shadow copies. This means that I can only delete the C: drive/volume shadow copies using this command. I would have to use OPTION TWO to be able to delete the F: drive/volume shadow copies instead.

1. Be sure you do the "BEFORE YOU START" section at the top first.

2. Open a elevated command prompt.

3. Do step 4, 5, or 6 below for how you would like to delete the shadow copies.

4. To Delete the Oldest Shadow Copy on a Specific Volume
NOTE: This can be handy if you have more than one shadow copy on a drive/volume letter, and wanted to only delete the oldest one.

A) Type the command below and press Enter.
NOTE: Substitute C: in the command below for the drive letter that you want to delete the oldest shadow copy in instead.

vssadmin Delete Shadows /For=C: /Oldest

B) Type Y or N to delete the shadow copy or not. (see screenshot below)

C) Go to step 7.

5. To Delete All Shadow Copies on a Specific Volume

A) Type the command below and press Enter.
NOTE: Substitute C: in the command below for the drive letter that you want to delete the oldest shadow copy in instead.

vssadmin Delete Shadows /For=C: /All

B) Type Y or N to delete the shadow copies or not. (see screenshot below)

C) Go to step 7.

6. To Delete a Specific Shadow Copy from Any Volume

A) Type the command below and press Enter.
NOTE: Substitute {Shadow Copy ID} in the command below with the actual Shadow Copy ID number of the shadow copy that you want to delete from step 1 of the "BEFORE YOU START" section.

vssadmin Delete Shadows /shadow={Shadow Copy ID}

For example, if I wanted to delete the 3rd shadow copy with the Shadow Copy ID of {ef4d4bbc-b569-4c1c-b8d3-a46af09e0ddf} in my example in step 1 of the "BEFORE YOU START" section, I would type this below.

Code:

vssadmin Delete Shadows /shadow={ef4d4bbc-b569-4c1c-b8d3-a46af09e0ddf}

B) Type Y or N to delete the shadow copy or not. (see screenshot below)

C) Continue on to step 7.

7. When finished, close all command prompts.

That's it,

Enabling Disk Cleanup Utility in Windows Server 2012

"Disk Cleanup Utility"

Step No. #1 Open The Roles and Features Wizard

To open the roes and feauture wizard. Lauch the "server manager" by pressing the Windows key


and clicking on the server manage please see Screenshot as shown. 

Step No. #2 Click on Add role and Feature

Click on add role and feture to launch the add role and feature wizard.

Step No. #3  Choose  installation Type

Choose rolebase or feature based installation  to install to local machine.

Step No. #4  Click Next all the way to features

Click "next" all the way to features.  Locate "User Interface and Infrastructure".  Click on "Desktop Experience"


and install additional required feature.

Step No. #5  Proceed with the installation and Reboot

Make it sure that you reboot the system

Step No. #6  Verify that the Utility is indeed installed

Ready to run diskcleanup. See screen shot below.

Disk Cleanup in Action

Below is a sample snapshot of disk cleanup in action.

Changing a Username and Email Address

Problem

This was asked on Experts Exchange this morning, and so I thought I'd get it documented. There are loads of reasons why you might want to change a username, display name, and email address. It can be spelt wrong, a user has got married/divorced and changed their surname, or they have simply changed their name.

There are also some clients who don't create a new user when a member of staff leaves. They just want to rename the old user and change the email address. The advantage of this approach is that all the group membership, and permissions will be correct for the replacement member of staff.

Solution

Step 1 Change the Username, Logon Name and Display Name.

1. On the Exchange server > Start > Run > dsa.msc {enter} > Locate the user in question > Right click and rename.

Note: You can do this on any Domain Controller but for Step 2 we will need to be on an Exchange server, or a machine with the Exchange Management tools installed.

2. As soon as you press {enter} > The rename user dialog will open, and you can change the display name, and the user logon name > OK.

Step 2 - Exchange 2000 / 2003 (Including SBS 2000 / 2003) Change the Email address.

Note: For newer versions of Exchange see below.

1. Whilst still in active Directory Users and Computers > Right click the affected user > Properties.

2. E-mail Addresses tab > Add > SMTP Address.

3. Type in the new email address > OK.

4. Untick the "Automatically update email..." option > Select the NEW email address >Set As Primary > Apply > OK.

Note: It can take a while for your global address list to update, then your Outlook clients need to get the updated list, sometimes this can take a couple of days! Be patient, the changes have been made.

Step 2 - Exchange 2007 / 2010 (Including SBS 2008 / 2011) Change the Email address.

1. On your Exchange 2007/2010 Server Launch the Exchange Management Console > Recipient Configuration > Mailbox > Locate the user > Properties. 

2. E-mail Addresses tab > Add > Type in the new address > OK.

3. Untick the "Automatically update email..." option > Select the NEW email address > Set As Primary > Apply > OK.

Note: It can take a while for your global address list to update, then your Outlook clients need to get the updated list, sometimes this can take a couple of days! Be patient, the changes have been made.

.lnk File association issues/ all programs open in Notepad/Word

The other day I got a call from a  user who had somehow managed to make all his desktop shortcuts open in Word. I suspected he had used the “open With” option in the context menu; thus, telling Windows to “Always use this program to open these files”. The problem was clear. Even though each shortcut had the correct settings, Windows would still open them in Word. The problem is, you can’t just tell Windows to open the shortcut files in an other program than Word. You have to somehow Reset the shortcut behavior to factory settings.

So how did we fix it ?

Doing some initial Googling (that’s a word now I believe) I came up with two solutions, where the first was to delete all .lnk references in the registry HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and then import these from a different computer. Luckily I then found a much safer (and quicker) method, that actually works.

1. Open Regedit
2. Open Key folder:
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER | SOFTWARE | MICROSOFT | WINDOWS | CURRENT VERSION |EXPLORER | FILEXTS |.LNK
3. Locate a sub folder named: User Choice
4. Delete it
5. Close RegEdit
6. Reboot

Now all your shortcuts should be back to normal