Some useful Kaseya VSA commands

via VSA remote shell

To reset a local admin password
net user localadmin TYPEPASSWORD

If localadmin isn’t in administrators group
net localgroup administrators localadmin /add

If localadmin doesn’t exist at all
net user localadmin TYPEPASSWORD /add

Installing Microsoft Defender

My haven’t we come a long way?

Microsoft Antivirus Defender, has matured very well and is now highly recommended.

If you find the need to install the business version of it (which is the only really recommended version right now) then go to this Microsoft site for ways to deploy.

Remote Desktop Server (license issues)

“Cannot connect to RDS because no RD Licensing servers are available”

Ahh but that’s BS cos the licenses are right there! They are installed and activated and even if you try to add again it says, no dude, you already did that (with an implied “duh”).

Before I rant on; GPEDIT is your friend.

To configure the Remote Desktop licensing settings, follow these steps: (p.s. I just used AI for this bullet list from my scratchings and it seems to have done a much better job than me!)

1. Press Win + R on your keyboard to open the Run dialog box.
2. Type gpedit.msc and press Enter to open the Group Policy Editor.
3. In the left panel, navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Remote Desktop Services > Remote Desktop Session Host > Licensing.
4. Double-click on the Use the specified Remote Desktop License servers policy to edit it.
5. Select the Enabled option and add the hostname or IP address of the license server in the provided field. It is recommended to use a dedicated license server for optimum performance.
6. Next, double-click on the Set the Remote Desktop licensing mode policy.
7. Choose the appropriate licensing mode based on your licensing agreement: either Per User or Per Device.
8. Click OK to save the changes.
9. Finally, restart your computer to apply the new settings.

By following these steps, you will successfully configure the Remote Desktop licensing settings on your system.

Now in theory you shouldn’t need to reboot if you restart the right services etc but this worked for me after some trial an error trying to get things restarted and testing, etc, sometimes the whole reboot it stupid comes to mind….

Hope it helps. Saved me a $499 ticket with Microsoft.

Can’t remove that pesky app?

Look no further than “Bulk Crap Uninstaller”

Catchy name, but it gets it done and for free too!!

Here is the site.

https://www.bcuninstaller.com/

Throw them some dollars if you find it useful.

Can’t join Azure AD?

Error: invalid_client

Description: failed%20to%20authenticate%20user

I had this problem today and it wasn’t obvious how to fix.

The issue was resolved by going into Azure admin center then Devices and removing it as a device there. Once that was achieved, I could add the computer.

Simple fix once you know. Otherwise can be frustrating to figure out.

Open ICS files on a Mac with Outlook (Instead of Apple Calendar)

Not obvious, or intuitive, but instead frustrating, and annoying.

Not going to rant here, just going to show you the steps;

Permanently change the app used to open an ICS file;

1. On your Mac, click the Finder icon  in the Dock to open a Finder window.
2. Select any ICS file, then choose File > Get Info. (You can also Control-click the file, then choose Get Info)
3. In the Info window, scroll down until you see “Open with” then expand it’s not already.
4. Click the pop-up menu, then choose the Outlook app. To open all files of this type with this app, click “Change All” button below it.

Setup External email warning in 365

Want to setup an external warning header to your incoming emails to warn you if that email is external or if it’s internal? This can help with preventing fooling some of your users into responding to an email that seems to come from your CEO/CFO/etc but actually is from outside of your organization.

Login to the admin console and then to Exchange.

Click on Mail Flow, then Rules.

Add a rule. Call it, something like “External Email warning”.

Apply this rule if;

The email is received from outside the organization. There are a few tweaks you can add here like only apply this rule for some people in your organization etc.

Do the following;

Prepend the message with the disclaimer “warning! this email came from outside your company” or something similar.

Save it and you’re done. Of course you probably want to test this before rolling out to everyone (which is where the tagging only some of the users for this rule comes in handy)

Windows says it’s offline but it’s not

I’ve seen this many times before and usually a Windows update or some other sort of refresh or driver update fixes the problem. However recently I ran into the off-line issue where nothing else worked and eventually researched and found a solution that did seem to work and so here it is;

1. Open the Device Manager and expand Network Adapters.
2. Right-click on your LAN and select Properties.
3. Go to the Advanced tab.
4. Select IPv4 Checksum Offload and set it’s drop-down box to Disabled.

Error 8018000a

Error 8018000a

Joining AzureAD was throwing this error on this one particular PC. 

We tried everything from renaming the PC, changing Workgroups, joining and dropping from the local domain, deleting any entries in AAD under devices, basically everything we could find to fix the issue.

Eventually I came across an article (referenced below) that talked about deleting enrollment entries in the registry.  I did this (after backing up the registry of course) and even though two entries would not let me delete, it ultimately fixed the issue.  After deleting I rebooted, tried the registry again and it worked this time!

Here is the solution;
Make sure to NOT delete Context, Ownership, Status and ValidNodePaths.
Delete all GUIDs under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Enrollments
Make sure to NOT delete Context, Ownership, Status and ValidNodePaths.

Full props go to jocha - their article https://jocha.se/blog/tech/azure-ad-mdm-intune-error-8018000a

OneDrive using up too much space?

I had this issue a few times – you start using OneDrive with it’s terrabyte of space or more and throw all your stuff in there, ready for it to sync. It does and it’s great but wait, it’s still using up all that space on your computer dang it.

If you don’t need those files immediately i.e. don’t mind downloading them from OneDrive again then when needed, simply right click on the folder or drive and choose “Free up space”.

It will remove the local cache and boom, more space on your local drive!

Sadly, on a Mac that process is not quite worked out and you have to sync or un-sync folders individually to get the same(ish) results. I do wish Microsoft would keep their Windows and Mac products in sync with each other! (See what I did there?)