Oct 272017
 

I went to re-deploy some vDP appliances today and noticed a newer version was made available a few months ago (vSphere Data Protection 6.1.5). After downloading the vSphereDataProtection-6.1.5.ova file, I went to deploy it to my vSphere cluster and it failed due to an invalid certificate and a message reading “The OVF package is signed with an invalid certificate”.

I went ahead and downloaded the certificate to see what was wrong with it. While the publisher was valid, the certificate was only valid from September 5th, 2016 to September 7th, 2017, and today was October 27th, 2017. It looks like the guys at VMware should have generated a new cert before releasing it.

 

 

To resolve this, you need to repackage the OVA file and skip the certificate using the VMware Open Virtualization Format Tool (ovftool) available at https://code.vmware.com/tool/ovf/4.1.0

Once you download and install this, the executable can be found in your Program Files\VMware\VMware OVF Tool folder.

Open a command prompt and change to the above directory and run the following:

ovftool.exe --skipManifestCheck c:\folder\vSphereDataProtection-6.1.5.ova c:\folder\vdpgood.ova

This command will repackage and remove the certificate from the OVA and save it as the new file named vdpgood.ova above. Afterwards deploy it to your vSphere environment and all should be working!

 

Oct 192017
 

In the past few days, I’ve noticed that some Sophos UTM firewalls I manage for clients haven’t been sending their daily reports (or other notification e-mails). When I first noticed this, checking my own SMTP proxy, I noticed that the e-mails were being sent from the firewalls, but were being dropped due to an SPF check failure.

Originally I thought this may have just been an overnight glitch with the DNS providers, however I later noticed that it’s stopped all e-mails coming from all the UTMs.

Further investigation, I realized that by default, the Sophos UTMs send their firewall notifications (and configuration backups) from the domain “fw-notify.net”, specifically, the e-mail address “[email protected]”. That’s when I had a brainfart and realized the e-mails weren’t being sent from my clients owned domains, but this fw-notify.net domain.

It appears that recently some SPF records have been created for the domain “fw-notify.net”, which is what is causing this issue. Also, I’m not quite sure if the domain underwent ownership change, or it his was overlooked by someone at Sophos.

I’m assuming numerous other longtime UTM users will be experiencing this as well.

To fix this, just log in to the problem UTMs, and change the notification Sender address as shown below to a domain you own. I changed mine to [email protected] (which has valid SPF since it’s my domains relay).

Oct 182017
 

After installing Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (Windows 10 Version 1709), I’m noticing that on one of my multi-monitor machines it’s showing blue colors as purple on one of the displays.

This is very visible when highlighting text, viewing the blue Facebook logo and banner, or any other blue content. When dragging something across both displays (window is shown on both displays) you can see the color differences. However, one interesting thing, is that when dragging from one display to the other, for the last 10% or so when moving, it’ll quickly change to the proper blue before leaving the display, which means this is software related since it will briefly show the proper blue.

After spending over an hour troubleshooting, it’s totally unrelated to monitor drivers (color configurations), video drivers, etc… and I cannot find any configuration to fix this. Also, searching on the internet I cannot find any other occurrences.

Please comment if you have any information, or are experiencing the same issue!

 

Update: I’ve seen 2 other posts of people reporting issues with colors, but no one is going in to detail. I’ve found that the color differences actually show up in screenshots as well (the color changes depending on which display it’s on).

 

Update October 25th, 2017 – Very odd update… I went ahead and tried using the “Calibrate display color”, and while I didn’t really change any settings, on completion of the wizard the colors are now fixed on my display. I’m thinking this is an issue or bug in Windows 10 Fall Creators Update.

Oct 182017
 

Well, it’s October 18th 2017 and the Fall Creators update (Feature update to Windows 10, version 1709) is now available for download. In my particular environment, I use WSUS to deploy and manage updates.

Update: It’s now May 2018, and this article also applies to Windows 10 April 2018 update version 1803 as well!

Update: It’s now October 2018, and this article also applies to Windows 10 October 2018 update version 1809 as well!

Update: It’s now May 2019, and this article also applies to Windows 10 May 2019 update version 1903 as well!

I went ahead earlier today and approved the updates for deployment, however I noticed an issue on multiple Windows 10 machines, where the Windows Update client would get stuck on Downloading updates 0% status.

I checked a bunch of things, but noticed that it simply couldn’t download the updates from my WSUS server. Further investigation found that the feature updates are packaged in .esd files and IIS may not be able to serve these properly without a minor modification. I remember applying this fix in the past, however I’m assuming it was removed by a prior update on my Windows Server 2012 R2 server.

If you are experiencing this issue, here’s the fix:

  1. On your server running WSUS and IIS, open up the IIS manager.
  2. Expand Sites, and select “WSUS Administration”
  3. On the right side, under IIS, select “MIME Types”
  4. Make sure there is not a MIME type for .esd, if there is, you’re having a different issue, if not, continue with the instructions.
  5. Click on “Add” on the right Actions pane.
  6. File name extension will be “.esd” (without quotations), and MIME type will be “application/octet-stream” (without quotations).
  7. Reset IIS or restart WSUS/IIS server

You’ll notice the clients will now update without a problem! Happy Updating!

Sep 292017
 

There is a new issue starting to be visible in the last couple days that I’ve noticed across 3 fully patched systems (Windows 10 running Outlook 2016 connecting to Exchange 2013).

When using Microsoft Outlook 2016 with Microsoft Exchange 2013, a password prompt becomes visible when opening an attachment in an e-mail. The attachment will open, however the prompt occurs after it’s opened, and only appears if an attachment is opened in the first place. The prompt will not appear if an attachment is never opened or highlighted (selected).

Outlook Password Prompt

When entering AD credentials, the prompt keeps re-appearing. When you hit cancel, Outlook will continue to function. You may also see the prompt shown below.

Exchange Password Prompt

After troubleshooting, I can confirm this is NOT related to any of the traditional “Outlook password prompt” issues that users normally experience due to misconfiguration, and I have a feeling this is related to either an Outlook 2016 update, or an update for Microsoft Windows 10 (and/or Microsoft Windows 7).

I’ve only found one other mention of this occurring on the internet which appeared a day ago, where multiple users are experience the same issue with Microsoft Office 365 with Microsoft Outlook 2016 with multiple operating systems (Windows 10 and Windows 7).

Microsoft Office Version: 1708 (Build 8431.2079)

As of right now I have no information on a fix, but I wanted to post this before other admins start ripping apart their Exchange servers trying to resolve this.

Please see below for a fix!

Update October 2nd, 2017: I’ve read that someone used the downgrade guide from Microsoft and downgraded their Outlook 2016 client to an earlier “Click-to-Run” 2016 version. This stopped the password prompt so it appears this issue has to do with the latest updates for Microsoft Office (Office 2016 and Office 365).

Update October 23rd, 2017: Still not fix, however Microsoft has finally acknowledged this issue. Information on their workaround can be found here. Essentially they’re recommending downgrading to a previous “Click to Run” version of Office.

Update November 3rd, 2017: Our Reader AC reported that Microsoft released a statement saying that they addressed this issue in the most recent flights (updates revisions for a line of products). I updated my Office 2016 Click-to-Run instance, and I am no longer receiving the password prompts. I will update in a few hours to confirm it stays this way!

To Update:
1) Open an Office Product (Such as word, outlook, etc…)
2) Click File
3) Click “Office Account”
4) Click “Update Options” on the right side
5) Click “Update Now” from the drop down

Update November 5th, 2017: I can confirm that the latest updates have fully resolved this issue, but create a new issue as well.