Best posts made by G I Jones

Studying for my Networking + certificate with flash cards I made from the lessons. About 5/22 lessons through, with 139 flash cards made so far. Also drawing Fiber Optic connector types in Adobe Illustrator, and adding them to my desktop wallpaper so I have to see them constantly. Anything helps. Shooting for 8 weeks from now for the test.

@pete-s Services>Remote Desktop Services>Properties>Startup Type was set to Manual on all the servers. ::man_facepalming_medium_skin_tone:

Haven't tested it yet, but if I had to guess, that'd be the issue. Thanks!

Hey all, I was referred here from a user on another forum. A Lively bunch over here, I'll tell ya. Love it.

I'm a new IT professional who's gotta whole lot of learning to do, and all the ambition to do it.

Haven't been to school for IT specific studies yet, but am set up to start next semester. In the meantime, learning all I can from this and other forums in conjunction with a couple tasks I've volunteered to lead. If you see the chance to learns me, then learns me, dammit. I need it.

Cheers to all.

@travisdh1 Just confirmed with HP tech support that you do indeed need RAID drivers that don't typically exist on a base Win10 install disk. They are having me download a bootable they sent me.

@pmoncho, @NetworkNerd, @travisdh1, @Dashrender, @DustinB3403, @marcinozga - Thanks for your help. After reading an article on it or two and talking with Dell, We're ditching the H330. Boss just ordered the H730P.

[Solved]

After re-configuring the Server setup to run ESXi via USB internal (for now) and completely CLEARING each drive (because I installed ESXi on the RAID 5 array initially and if you do that, it ruins everything and your drives disappear), I re-allocated the drives to RAID 5, and re-installed ESXi DELL OEM 6.7 Update 2 to the USB on host. I was able to build the Guest and everything worked fine except Network Shares. I was back at square one on that front. Turns out it was a bad switch (Netgear 8 port) the host was plugged in to.

Figured it out. Both DC's had inconsistencies between configurations and they basically weren't replicating or failing to serve DNS requests because the Interfaces were all over the place.

I used this opportunity to take a crash course on Configuring DNS to understand all of the settings, and I was able to fix it by thoroughly sweeping the settings and correcting as I went.

I've never seen the Security log so empty before. It's a great feeling. Also, I learned a bit about DNS so win-win.

New AD/DC built. Took 3.5 hours to write owner permissions to the NAS. Today I tackle adding the rest of 200+ computers to the network, and if I get time... start rebuilding Group Policy.

Thanks for clearing that up guys. I'm with you now.

@emad-r Yeah, I learned that there isn't any specific software he needs, so I'm just going to literally copy his user folder and maybe the Pictures, Documents, and Music folders onto a thumb drive, give him a newer tower with a fresh 7 install and just drag and drop that over. Was still nice getting all these avenues of approach.

If you haven't already seen it:

Youtube Video

I've been using C:\Windows\System32\oobe\info\backgrounds\ to drop in my custom Ctrl+Alt+Del Lock page wallpaper on about 60+ machines so far. Every time it applies instantly. I've come across one machine, however, that will not apply the change.

I was looking into alternative ways to do this with the Registry, involving a navigation to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background, and selecting the OEMBackground value and changing the hexadecimal to 1 from 0 to kick things off... (I thought maybe, just maybe this instructor had somehow figured out how to set this, and that it would take precedence over my change), but when I double checked this value on the machine that will not apply the wallpaper, this value is still 0.

Now, I know I could still use this last method, but not knowing why it's not applying is killing me.

Anyone have any experience with this issue and might be able to explain why it wouldn't take?

Also, I have tried restarting, shutting down, logging off, switching users to admin and trying, but none of these things have worked so far.

Happy Friday.

EDIT: I noticed the desktop wallpaper that's been assigned via right-click>set as desktop background kept dropping off to the default Windows 7 wallpaper upon reboot, so I set that in local Group Policy to pin it down for now. There is something fishy going on here. Ran sfc /scannow with Admin privileges but came up negative.

Having issues with DNS records for an Exchange 2013 server build in Windows 2012 environment. My boss gave me a 5 minute crash course on DNS and then I was left to my own devices. I watched some videos, read some articles, but ultimately my inexperience led me to make these records, and I'm not sure they are correct as the Exchange services are not functioning. I'm not so concerned with getting help to make the Exchange server work, I'd just like a little insight from the bright minds of MangoLassi on if and how I messed up here. The goal here is to get a better understanding of DNS.

*EDIT: AD and DNS reside on same server. Exchange is separate.

~ON DNS SERVER
Record Type - Record Name - Record Value (Data)

CNAME - autodiscover - mail.contoso.com
A - mail - ExchangeServerIP
MX - ExchangeServerName - mail.contoso.com
CNAME - owa - mail.contoso.com

~ON HOST (PUBLIC FACING)
Record Type - Record Name - Record Value (Points to)

CNAME - autodiscover - mail.contoso.com
A - mail - OutwardFacingIPofExchangeServer
MX - ExchangeServerIP - mail.contoso.com
CNAME - owa - mail.contoso.com

Mostly what I see on how to deploy a printer to a specific user via Group Policy is to actually use Print Management instead and right click the printer in question and "Deploy with Group Policy", do a little dance, and voila.

My question is where is that change at on that GPO it creates?

I looked under User Configuration>Preferences>Control Panel Settings>Printers but no rule is there.

Additionally I looked under Computer Configuration>Preferences>Control Panel Settings>Printers and nothing there either.

Any ideas?

A coworker and I are having a disagreement about something and I wanted to get you all's expert opinions/experiences.

I've set a DHCP reservation for something important, but that thing is within the scope of the DHCP address pool. (bad setup I know, but I'm gonna fix that). Anyway, he said even if there is a reservation, if that thing goes to sleep, then other things can still snatch up that IP address because it's in the pool. I didn't think that's how reservations worked. Please advise.

Anyone figure out any good way to resolve the visual overlap issue in Printers & Scanner where you can't click any of the buttons because they fall behind the lower printer listing (z-index)? We have some machines that are on 1903 with this issue. Been using Control Panel>Devices and Printers to get by.

Long story short; We recently got hit with Ryuk Ransomeware. We were able to roll back most important things, but we had a select couple of machines (HP Z440’s ) that weren’t protected. Some others as well, but This is about the Z440’s.

I’m going with a clean install, but keep smacking a wall. Upon trying to boot (either UEFI or BIOS) from Windows 10 install disk, there are no drives present.

Diskpart says there is nothing at all and lists the computer as MINWINPC, or after a failed sfc /scannow, MININT-686HUMM. No drives, no partitions, no volumes except the DVD drive. But when I take the HDD out and plug it into my computer, it shows up. I’ve tried Converting it to GPT and even reformatting to NTFS. I’ve tried multiple hard drives, swapped sata cables, and still can’t figure out what is going on here.

Bootrec finds nothing either. Every command fails to see a drive or Windows OS.

The reason I don’t think it’s the motherboard is because this happened to the only 3 Z440’s we have and only to them. The problem is identical across all three and they are in three different buildings. It makes me feel like perhaps the BIOS is corrupted or something specific to the architecture of this build.

Any thoughts? Flash the BIOS? I’m running out of ideas.

Currently Playing: The Order:1886 - Got it on sale in the Playstation Store. Really nice aesthetics.

I was playing Far Cry 5 on PS4, which released Far Cry 3 as DLC, so I played that too, then figured why not and played through Far Cry 4, and Far Cry Primal while I was at it. If I had to choose Primal was the best.

Hosting: Minecraft. The Boss approved us to run a Minecraft Server on an old server we had laying around at work. Usually if we have free time we'll play around in there. 1.13 looks good!

Looking To Play: Spider-Man, Red Dead Redemption 2, Fallout 76 (huge Fallout fan)

Being the new IT guy, I'll try and paint a picture for you about how these knowledge gaps happen, or at least my story.

I attended college at School of Informatics and Computing, with a degree path in "New Media" as they call it. My education consisted of 3-D Animation/Modeling using several programs but with a strong emphasis on Maya. I also took some classes in Web Development (CSS, XHTML). My education stopped there as far as computers go. But I'm comfortable around computers, and I have been ever since I got my first one.

I took a job at a quasi-military academy, working with "at-risk" youth. My first job was simply as Cadre (something like a Drill Sergeant). After about a year, they had an opening for "entry-level" assistant for the MIS department (we're the IT for the organization). I was only TDA'd (Temporary Duty Assignment) initially, but I liked it so much, I decide to interview to keep it and get paid for it. My two years of computer related studies qualified me for the position and I got it.

I honestly came into the job knowing that I knew nothing about most of it, but was confident that I could learn everything I needed. We have a pretty broad range of responsibilities here in my department compared to what I been reading about other IT departments. Some things I do well already, and others I'm working out, but carefully as I do not want to stretch myself too thin.

When I first started, did I know what a Domain Controller was? Not a clue. Active Directory? What's that!? Hell, I even had to learn how to Windows+PauseBreak when my boss told me to add a computer to the network. On the flip side of that, my boss can't code a webpage to save his life. That's where I come in. The rest is time/experience. I feel that knowledge gaps like this aren't as relevant as having the resources to bridge those gaps. I mean, we're supposed to be the best at Googling right? It's in our nature to find solutions. That's the only relevant skill I'm seeing.

@scottalanmiller I've heard that A+ is a waste of my time from other people, namely my own boss. Unfortunately, it's a requirement for my job. I've been reading over the study guide for it, and I feel there are some bits of relevant data in there. Mostly just things I wanted to know, but didn't already.