Category: Tricks

  • Windows 10 start menu search can’t find applications

    So I got Windows 10 and right out of the box of a fresh Windows 10 install, Cortana would not display any applications in a start menu search. I am able to locate the applications by clicking Start > All apps, but clicking on the start menu and typing say, Calculator, Excel or Outlook yields…

  • Skype for business no audio device?

    You want to use Skype for Business/Lync to just listen to a training session or presentation, but you get an error stating Skype for Business/Lync is unable to connect because no audio device could be found even though your computer may well have working audio and speakers. [the problem] Skype for Business shows the following…

  • The procedure entry point could not be located…

    Recently dealt with an issue where a user received errors when launching a large number of both third party and native Windows 7 applications including notepad.exe. Turns out this started after the user installed an application from the internet that required the Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015 without having the Visual C++ Redistributable…

  • Find a string and copy its whole line to new file

    The other day I got a zip archive of a hundred xml files. The task was to identify a single key word/phrase (STR_RESTORING_FILE_FAILED) in each xml file that indicated a failure to restore a file (part of a larger job) and create a new file with just line in each xml file that matched the…

  • Deploy Adobe Flash Player using Active Directory GPO

    In this article I’ll be covering how to deploy Adobe Flash Player using a Windows active directory environment. [requirements] Windows Server (2003/2008/2012) Active Directory at functional level 2003 or higher. Windows Professional (XP/VISTA/7/8/8.1) Basic understanding of Group Policy Objects (GPO) and group policy management. Basic understanding of Active Directory, Windows Server and Windows Professional.  …

  • Reinstall Microsoft Office 2010 on a Dell

    If you purchased a Dell with Microsoft Office pre-installed in the past few years, chances are all you got in the box was a Operating System recovery DVD and small paper card with the Microsoft Office product key on it. Should you find yourself in the situation where the systems hard drive has failed and…

  • Restoring a Windows 2008 R2 domain controller from a Windows Server Backup BMR image

    This article is designed to showcase the process of restoring a primary domain controller running Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 server standard. In a previous article I described a cost effective way for small businesses to approach a data loss prevention (DLP) and/or backup disaster recovery (BDR) plan. Implementing any DLP/BDR strategy without testing is risky…