Find DELL service tag while logged in remotely
We have many clients in Oxford and surrounding areas standardized on DELL hardware. I often need to find a DELL PC or laptop service tag while connected remotely. This can be done in DELL Command / Update or DELL Support Assitant software. However, I find it easier and quicker to do this in the command […]
VMware Workstation Pro – Disable Taskbar Preview
VMware Workstation Pro has a feature that I find quite annoying. If you click on the application icon in the Windows taskbar, instead of opening the VMware Workstation app, it displays previews of all your virtual machines that are open in the main application tabs. I find this completely useless as all the VMs are […]
Adobe Acrobat – Request E-signatures option missing
This issue affected a client on Oxford after they re-installed Adobe Acrobat (paid Adobe Creative Cloud version) on a new laptop. Everything was working normally, but the E-Signatures option was no longer present under Sign > Request e-signatures. The resolution looks somewhat random, but all we had to do was go to Adobe Acrobat Preferences […]
Robocopy errors: The specified file could not be encrypted
We provide IT Support Services to a few companies in Oxford and Woodstock (Oxfordshire) where robocopy is being used as a part of the backup system. I recently noticed some errors in the robocopy job log: ERROR 6000 (0x00001770) Accessing Destination DirectoryThe specified file could not be encrypted. I checked the affected directory on the […]
Unlinking Windows local account from child’s Microsoft account
An employee from one of the customers in Oxford contacted us with an IT issue on their personal Windows 11 laptop. They had the laptop set up with a local administrator account (not linked to Microsoft). At some point, a guest was using the laptop and somehow linked the local user account to their Microsoft […]
Microsoft Office 365 – send from email alias in 2024
For a long time, Microsoft Exchange and Office 365 didn’t support sending emails from additional user’s email addresses (aliases). Emails were always sent from the primary email address. Obviously, there were workarounds, such as: Luckily Microsoft finally got around to implementing proper support for sending from email aliases. It seems to have happened sometime in […]
Deploy Adobe Reader via Group Policy
We use below process to deploy Adobe Reader via Group Policy for few of our customers it Oxford and Woodstock (Oxfordshire). Note: The computer on which you perform the following steps cannot have Adobe Reader installed. Windows 10 ProWindows Server 2016Adobe Acrobat Reader
File system error (-1073740791)
An old customer from Buckingham (Oxfordshire) contacted us with an issue. He could not open any Microsoft Excel or Word files on his personal Windows 10 PC. With Excel, it would simply open an empty Excel Window, with Word, it would pop up a not particularly meaningful error message. Multiple reboots weren’t helping. I connected […]
Disable Windows 10 to 11 upgrade in business environment
Until recently Windows 10 computer within a Windows Server Active Directory domain were not pushed Windows 11 upgrade. This has changed around April 2024 and now even users on domain joined PCs are getting various “dark pattern” prompts clearly designed to maximise conversions to Windows 11. While I have nothing against Windows 11, on business […]
Update Windows Server Group Policy Administrative Templates
Microsoft regularly releases new Administrative Templates (ADMX) for Windows Group Policy. For example, certain Group Policy options that apply to Windows 10 or Microsoft Office 365 will not be available in you are running Windows Server 2016. To rectify this, you need to download relevant ADMX template files from Microsoft and copy them to your […]