Brand new install of Windows 2016 Server Evaluation without any updates installed, specific build 14393.rs1_release.161220-1747 (also 14393.447)  Attempting to remote desktop to the server from a Windows 10 client resulted in an error:

An authentication error has occurred.
The function requested is not supported
Remote computer:x.x.x.x
This could be due to CredSSP encryption oracle remediation. For more information, see https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=866660

Note: For Windows 7 clients, the last line above in red color will be omitted from the error message.

This happened for both Datacenter and Standard installs of the same build. The fix is to simply install all available updates from Windows Update, rebooting in between as necessary. After all updates have been installed, try the remote connection again.

QuickCam 4000 shows up as “Unknown device” in Windows 7 Device Manager
(USB\VID_046D&PID_08B2)

Download the 64-bit driver from Logitech
ftp://ftp.logitech.com/pub/techsupport/quickcam/qc1051enu_x64.exe

Unpack this .exe file to a folder using 7zip, WinRAR, etc.

In Device Manager right click the device, update driver, Browse my computer and point it to this folder containing the unpacked files.

Group Policy options will let you disable the button for error reporting to Microsoft (Check online for a solution and close the program) but there is no option in Group Policy to disable the debugging button. To disable the “Debug the program” button that is shown in the Windows Problem Reporting window after a program crashes, there are two registry entries that must be modified. One controls it for 64-bit program crashes and the other for 32-bit program crashes:

64-bit
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AeDebug]

32-bit
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AeDebug]

Under each of these keys, you will see a string titled Debugger.  Rename it (e.g., Debugger.bak) and the debug button will no longer show up.

Strange issue with Windows Update occurred. In this case Windows Server 2012 R2 was trying to install 2 updates for Office 2010 but was failing.

KB4461579 failed with Code 780
KB2553332 failed with Code 780

First it turned out that a 64-bit version of Microsoft Access database engine 2010 had managed to get installed which does not play nice with 32-bit versions of MS Office on the same machine.  The 64-bit engine was uninstalled and then replaced with the 32-bit version.  When the 64-bit version was uninstalled, it also removed the 64-bit version of the Office Source Engine service from the system that was showing up in services.msc. However after this change, the 2 Windows updates listed above were still failing.

Also installed on the system was Microsoft Access 2010 Runtime.  Within Programs and Features of the Control Panel, performing a Change->Repair option on it completed fine, but wanted a reboot.  After rebooting, the two Windows updates listed above were then able to complete successfully.

Background information:  swapped out a CPU during an upgrade (old CPU DDR3-1333, new CPU DDR3-1600).
After that the system was booted using an Ubuntu Live CD without any obvious problems, but ESXi installer was crashing with Pink Screen of Death (PSOD). Next step was to test with MemTest86 (in this case V8.1 build 1000). The system would repeatedly freeze on Test 0 [Address test, walking ones, 1 CPU] with no errors reported. To fix, all that was needed was a CMOS / BIOS reset (to defaults). After that MemTest86 and ESXi installers ran through without any problems.

Ubuntu Server 17.10 was randomly freezing / locking up after periods of time, even if left idle.  The solution for this VM was to change the type of network adapter assigned to the guest. By default, ESXi 6.5 will assign an adapter type of VMXNET 3 for a new guest VM. Switching it to E1000 in the VM settings seems to have resolved the problem.

If running Ubuntu Server you may need to perform the following steps to enable the new adapter after changing the adapter type for the VM:

First get a list of all adapters currently detected. Make note of the interface name (e.g., abc12)

ip l

Then enable the interface using the interface name recorded above

sudo ifconfig abc12 up

Then enable DHCP client for the interface

sudo dhclient abc12

You can now check if the system has obtained an IP address by using the following command:

ifconfig

To make this change permanent so that it persists with every reboot follow these steps:

Edit the following file:
/etc/network/interfaces

Then add the following lines. They may already be present referencing the old adapter name so you can simply update the name of the adapter.

auto abc12
iface abc12 inet dhcp

This is an example for downgrading from MongoDB version 3.6 to version 3.4 in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, but it can be adapted for any combination of versions.

Remove old versions. Since this was done for a compatibility issue with UniFI Controller, the first step is optional

sudo apt-get remove unifi

sudo apt-get remove mongo*
sudo apt-get autoremove

Install MongoDB v3.4 Community Edition using the guide below. They also provide guides specific to other versions that you may need.
https://docs.mongodb.com/v3.4/tutorial/install-mongodb-on-ubuntu/

If you are doing this for UniFi Controller (optional), download latest controller package for Ubuntu
https://www.ubnt.com/download/unifi#

Install it (optional)

sudo dpkg -i unifi_sysvinit_all.deb

Fix any broken packages

apt --fix-broken install

This guide details how to change the certificate deployment level of a Windows Server 2012 R2 RD system from “Trusted” back to the default configuration of “Not Configured.”    The main problem is that the Windows GUI does not allow you to simply delete the trusted certificate and reset it back to the default “Not Configured” state for the deployment certificate level. Instead the GUI will only let you choose a different certificate (whether trusted or self signed). The steps below will get around this limitation and allow you to reset the deployment level.

First set of steps are to delete any existing Remote Desktop certificates and have Windows generate a new one automatically:

1. Launch mmc.exe on the 2012 R2 server
2. Choose File-Add/Remove Snap in
3. Add Certificates -> choose Computer account -> then Local computer. Click OK.
4. On left hand side browse to Remote Desktop folder -> Certificates folder
5. Delete all certificates
6. Launch services.msc
7. Restart Remote Desktop Configuration service
8. In Event Viewer – System, you should see a notification that a new self signed certificate was created
9. Go back to mmc.exe and at the top choose Action-Refresh.
10. Confirm new certificate is shown in Remote Desktop folder -> Certificates folder
11. Close mmc.exe. Choose No if it prompts to save.

The next set of steps are to change the deployment level:

There is one registry key that needs to be modified:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Terminal Server\CentralPublishedResources\PublishedFarms\[NAME_OF_YOUR_FARM]\DeploymentSettings]

fHasCertificate – REG_DWORD set to a value of 0

Under this same key there is also a CertificateHash – REG_BINARY that contains thumbprint of the old certificate. It can probably be deleted but I have left it in place until it causes a problem.

There is a second key at the following location

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\RCM\

with a key titled CertExpiryTracking and under it a key with a title equal to the old certificate thumbprint with a LastPeriodLogged REG_DWORD decimal value of 15.  The entire CertExpiryTracking key can probably be deleted but I have left it in place until it causes a problem.

Now you will need to connect to the Windows Internal Database:

1. Download and install Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) v17 or higher
2. Launch SSMS
3. Connect to internal database using this server name:
   \\.\pipe\MICROSOFT##WID\tsql\query
4. Navigate to Databases -> RDCms -> and select rds.DeploymentSetting
5. Right click on it then choose Edit Top 200 Rows
6. Rename the following items:
   1. RedirectorCertificate – > RedirectorCertificate.bak
   2. PublishingCertificate -> PublishingCertificate.bak
   3. DeploymentCertificateHash -> DeploymentCertificateHash.bak
   4. WebAccessCertificate -> WebAccessCertificate.bak
7. Close SSMS
8. Close and reopen any Server Manager windows. Then go back and check that deployment certificate level is now showing as Not Configured.

Also if you were using a trusted certificate in IIS you may need to change the certificate for RDWeb by following these steps:

1. Launch IIS Manager
2. Right click Default Web Site, choose Edit Bindings
3. Select https, click Edit
4. Choose the appropriate SSL certificate in the dropdown list
5. Restart IIS

One scenario – booting a system using a USB Windows PE flash drive, the same flash drive then could not be read within Windows PE. This was because the PE image had no USB 3.0 drivers. The solution was to inject USB 3.0 drivers into the standard Windows 7 PE image.

1. Download the desired drivers
2. Extract the folder that contains the .cat, .inf, etc. files for the drivers (e.g., files can be extracted from a .exe using 7zip). Place them in a temporary folder (C:\x64)
3. Create a mount point folder on your local drive (e.g., C:\mount)
4. Open elevated command prompt
5. Get the name of the Windows PE system by pointing dism to the wim file (which could be on a portable media or your local drive). For example:

   dism /get-wiminfo /wimfile:c:\winpe_amd64\iso\sources\boot.wim

6. Mount it. In this example the name determined from previous step was “Microsoft Windows PE (x64)”

   dism /mount-wim /wimfile:c:\winpe_amd64\iso\sources\boot.wim /Name:"Microsoft Windows PE (x64)" /mountdir:c:\mount

7. Inject the drivers:

   dism /image:c:\mount /add-driver /driver:c:\x64 /Recurse

8. Unmount

   dism /unmount-wim /mountdir:c:\mount /commit

1. Download Windows 7 AIK ISO file
   https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5753
2. Burn the ISO or extract it to a folder (e.g., using 7zip)
3. Run StartCD.exe
4. Choose the “Windows AIK Setup” option
5. When complete, navigate to Start->all programs -> Microsoft Windows AIK -> Deployment Tools Command Prompt
6. In the Deployment Tools Command Prompt window, issue the following commands.
   Note: if needing a 32-bit version of Windows PE, replace “amd64 with “x86”

   copype amd64 c:\WinPE_amd64
   copy c:\WinPE_amd64\winpe.wim c:\WinPE_amd64\iso\sources\boot.wim

7. Insert your flash drive
8. Launch diskpart (Start button-> then type diskpart)
9. Locate your flash drive with this commandlist disk
10. Select it, format it and make it bootable (in this case the flash drive was disk 1) using these commands:

    select disk 1
    clean
    create partition primary
    active
    format fs=ntfs quick label=WinPE_amd64
    assign
    exit

11. Determine what drive letter has been assigned to your flash drive
12. The last step is to copy files to flash drive (in this case drive letter of the flash drive was F:

    xcopy c:\WinPE_amd64\iso\*.* F:\ /

13. If you want to create an ISO to use later:

    oscdimg -n -bc:\winpe_amd64\etfsboot.com c:\winpe_amd64\iso c:\winpe.iso