You will notice that there is a problem with mailflow and on the Queue Viewer in your Exchange setup you will notice that the mailflow is stuck for a good number of messages. You will also notice that the error message is 430 4.2.0 STOREDRV; mailbox logon failure.

You can also see the event viewer showing the Event ID 1009 in the Application log: The Microsoft Exchange Mail Submission service is currently unable to contact any Hub Transport servers in the local Active Directory site. The servers may be too busy to accept new connections at this time.

This can be because that the Microsoft Exchange Transport Service and Microsoft Exchange Transport Log services are running with a user and not the Network Service or Local System.

To fix this, open the Services.msc and set both services to Log On As Network Service or Local System. Restart both services and mailflow should get moving.

One time when I encountered this after a reboot of the device, being a Cisco router or Switch or Wireless Device, I get back to factory settings. After some research I found out that the device is bypassing the startup configuration. This is what you get after a reboot:

--- System Configuration Dialog ---
Would you like to enter the initial configuration dialog? [yes/no]:

To fix this answer no to the question and press enter and type the following.

enable
show version

If you notice Configuration register is 0x2142 in the information displayed, then type the following

enable
configure terminal
config-register 0x2102
end
reload

And when asked if you want to save the configuration, type no

Some other Configuration Register codes and what they mean. The list below have been taken from the Cisco website.

0x0000-0x000F | Boot Field Parameters 0x0000 Stays at the system bootstrap prompt 0x0001 Boots system image on EPROM 0x0002-0x000F Specifies a default netboot filename.
0x0040 | Ignore NVRAM contents.
0x0080 | OEM bit enabled to exclude details in boot messages.
0x0100 | Break disabled
0x0400 | IP broadcast with all zeros
0x800-0x1000 | Console line speed
0x2000 | Boot default ROM software if network boot fails
0x4000 | IP broadcasts do not have net numbers
0x8000 | Enable diagnostic message and ignore NVRAM contents

When setting up an Exchange server 2007 upwards to be used also as a blocklist or antispam, you must set the IP Blocklist Providers so as to get that extra protection. This is applicable if you have an Edge or standard Exchange configuration. Here’s how.

On Microsoft Exchange Server (No Edge)
Open the Exchange Mangement Console
Goto Organization Configuration
Click on the Hub Transport
Click on the Anti-spam tab
Double click on the IP Block List Providers

On Microsoft Exchange Edge
Open the Exchange Mangement Console
Click on Edge Transport
Select the server and click on the Anti-spam tab
Double click on the IP Block List Providers

On the Providers tab click on the Add button
Enter the provider name and DNS suffix as below
Click OK

General Providers used (Name/DNS Suffix)
SpamHaus / zen.spamhaus.org
SpamCop / bl.spamcop.net
SORBS / dnsbl.sorbs.net
Surriel / psbl.surriel.com

Once done, this can also be confirmed by using the Exchange Management Shell and typing Get-IPBlockListProvider.

To test a provider using the Exchange Management Shell, type the below keeping in mind to change the 0.0.0.0 to an existent IP address. If the IP address is not listed you will get a false. Of course you can also change the provider by replacing the SpamHaus with the name of the provider you configured.

Test-IPBlockListProvider -Identity SpamHause -IPAddress

The log file of the agents including the AntiSpam agents can be found in the below location:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\TransportRoles\Logs\AgentLog

If you wish to use the Exchange Management Shell to input your Provider’s List, here is an example of how to do it. Keep a note of the priority when adding additional providers.

Add-IPBlockListProvider -Name "SpamHaus" -LookupDomain "zen.spamhaus.org" -Priority 1

One day I have noticed that some text gets blurry while scrolling on Firefox. I have managed to fix this by disabling a feature in Firefox.

Open Firefox
Open a new tab
Enter about:config in the address bar
Click on the “I’ll be careful I Promise” button
Find gfx.content.azure.enabled
Double click on it to set it as false

When you need to setup a USB hard drive or pen to an ESXi 5 onwards, it doesn’t supported directly. You need to setup a controller and add the USB device. To do so follow the below instructions, in the vSphere Client.

Setup USB Controller
Log onto the server.
Right click on the guest machine and select Edit Settings.
Click on the Add Button.
Select USB Controller and click OK.
On the Controller type screen, click OK.
Click OK to exit the Virtual Machine settings page and affect the changes.
This will setup the controller.

Setting up the USB Device
Plug in the desired device.
Right click on the guest machine and select Edit Settings.
Click on the Add Button.
Select USB Device and click OK.
On the next screen you should see the USB drive in the list of devices.
Select the device and click OK.
Click OK and OK to affect changes.

Open your virtual machine and you should see the USB drive in your computer.

When opening Outlook 2003, you might have the error “MAPI32.DLL is corrupt or the wrong version“. This can be if you had a newer version of Microsoft Office, un-installed it and installed Microsoft Office 2003. This can be fixed by renaming the MAPI file on your computer as above:

Goto C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\Msmapi\1033
Rename Msmapi32.dll to Msmapi32_old.dll
Open Outlook

Apple TV requires some ports to be open to be able to sync and activate with the Apple Servers. If the ports are not configured properly, you might have the following errors:

Activation: Failed
Date/Time: Skipped (Reachable)

The ports needed for an Apple TV to work are:

– TCP Port 123 (Time server)
– TCP Port 3689 (iTunes)
– UDP Port 5353 (Bonjour Service)
– TCP Port 80 (Web)
– TCP Port 443 (SSL)
– TCP Port 53 (DNS)

If the problem still persists, one can also setup the DNS specific to the Apple service which are:

Preferred – 208.122.23.22
Alternate – 208.122.23.23

This can be done by switching the DNS to manual and typing in the DNS addresses.

On a server I have noticed that after it was promoted to a domain controller or after you seize all the roles (using force), the NETLOGON share was not created. This has happened on a Windows 2008 onwards machine.

After you seize the roles, you might get an error saying:

Naming Information cannot be located because: The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted.

Of course one must assume all the meta data cleanup processes have been done. You might also notice that the netdom /query fsmo might fail.

This can be solved with a registry modification. Please note to make a backup of your registry keys and of course don’t hold me responsible of any issues you have if this doesn’t work for you.

Open Regedit.exe
Locate: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netlogon\Parameters

In the details pane, right-click the SysvolReady flag, and then click Modify. In the Value data box, type 0, and then click OK.

Again in the details pane, right-click the SysvolReady flag, and then click Modify. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.

Restart the machine and it will re-create the NETLOGON process including the share.

I encountered the following error after I re-installed a computer from XP to Windows 7. After the installation I went to install a shared printer from another Windows XP and I Get the error “Cant' connect to printer error 0x0000000a“.

To fix this simply:

Open Services.msc
Stop “Print Spool” service
Wait for about 20 seconds
Start the “Print Spool” service
Try to add the printer again

There you have it, Swish it’s fixed.

Though it’s a good security feature to timeout users by default, one can have some issues with people using just OWA to read their mail having to enter the password every 5 minutes. So here’s how to increase the timeout.

By default the Public timeout is 15 minutes where as the Private timeout is of 8 hours.

If you would like to change these simply do the following.

Open registry editor
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesMSExchange OWA
Create new DWORD named PrivateTimeout
Create new DWORD named PublicTimeout
Now, enter the decimal value in the DWORDs created as required.

Note: The DWORDs entries are in minutes