Some Notes on the Machines

Here is what I have been using, for speed. It’s probably important to note that I’m running in 8G RAM. The last one might be set to “performance” if I had 12G or more.

Processor Family, set to Native Optimizations

Processor type and features -> Timer frequency, set to 1000

General setup -> Compiler optimization level, set to “size”, for small memory usage

Here’s a great place to do so:

https://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx

And another:

https://www.ultratools.com/tools/spamDBLookup

And another:

http://www.dnsbl-check.info/

And a third, realtime:

http://www.uceprotect.net/en/rblcheck.php

It is often helpful to update the Group Policy templates for a domain. The most current set can be found quite easily via a Google search:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Administrative+Templates+%28.admx%29+for+Windows+10&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1-ab

They install as an MSI which does nothing but dump them into a folder here:

 C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Group Policy

Once you have the above done, we have manual steps. The best way to approach this is probably in an administrative CMD.

First, look in here:

%WINDIR%\PolicyDefinitions

We will be wiping everything there. If there are many files with numbers at the end of their names, you probably have Microsoft Office templates as well as Windows templates, and you will have to replace them too. There are other templates which could be involved, so be warned and be ready.

For now, we are going to write as if you have just Microsoft default templates there. Wipe them all. Then replace them with all of the .ADMX files in the dump folder, plus just the language folder appropriate for you. The dump folder will have all of the language folders, you want just yours.

The second destination folder is:

\\<localdomain>\SYSVOL\<localdomain>\policies\PolicyDefinitions

where is the name of the Windows domain. If the folder does not exist, create it, this is creation of your Central Store. If the folder does exist, replace them as above.

Create a shortcut to this:

explorer.exe shell:::{3080F90D-D7AD-11D9-BD98-0000947B0257}

and name it “Show Desktop”. When double-clicked, it will minimize all applications and show the desktop. This was standard in 7 and before. You can pin this icon to the Taskbar, to the Start menu, et cetera.

Here is a working URL:

http://upgrade01.sky.shoretel.com/ClientInstall

The icons which were used in the “Start Menu” in 7 and before, are still present in Windows 8 through 10, though they are hidden. At the machine level, they are here:

%SYSTEMDRIVE%\Users\All Users\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

At the user level, they are here:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

New methods, reportedly considerably better, have not tested yet myself:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/exchange/exchange-online/exchange-online-powershell-v2/exchange-online-powershell-v2?view=exchange-ps

As of version 2019 (and possibly before), QuickBooks has a new feature: native support of Office 365 webmail and some other major email providers. When users send email via QuickBooks, go to Preferences, Send Forms, and instead of choosing Outlook, choose Webmail, and then set up integration with the user’s Exchange Online account. Works much smoother, faster, more reliably.

To count the total number of folders in use within a mailbox, first connect Powershell to Exchange Online, then:

$MailboxToCountFoldersWithin = Get-Mailbox username
$MailboxToCountFoldersWithin | Get-MailboxFolderStatistics | Measure-Object | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Count

The total number of folders, will be output as a number.

This error often occurs when a longstanding Windows Server network is given a much newer domain controller. The WINS records embedded in DNS, don’t work anymore; when you try to delete them or change them, you get the error message in the title of this article.

The best thing to do, is PowerShell:

Remove-DNSServerResourceRecord -ZoneName dns_zone.local -Force -RRtype "WINS" -Name "@"

Try that (substituting dns_zone.local for your LAN DNS zone!), then right-click on the zone name, choose “All Tasks” and then “Reload”, then press F5 for refresh. The error-causing situation will go away, you can then reconfigure easily. If there are other zones, you’ll want to repeat for all of them. If there is a WINS record in a reverse lookup zone, the RRtype is WINSR instead of WINS, the result being something akin to this:

Remove-DNSServerResourceRecord -ZoneName 1.168.192.in-addr.arpa -Force -RRtype "WINSR" -Name "@"

Sometimes the actions above only take effect, and show up in the servers, if you reload and refresh (often both) the zones.