Configuring an Automatic Resolution Policy for Offline Files

Due to the persistent investigations of Aaron Parker at http://stealthpuppy.com/, we have some useful info on this. The following instructions from Aaron's blog give us what we need. For further details, see his full blog entry at http://stealthpuppy.com/configuring-an-automatic-resolution-policy-for-offline-files-in-windows-7/.

An automatic resolution policy for Offline Files is implemented by adding a registry value for each network share for which you wish to control synchronisation, then specifying the policy for automatic resolution.

1. Click Start, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\NetCache
3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click Key. Type SyncConflictHandling, and then press ENTER
4. Right-click SyncConflictHandling, point to New, and then click Expandable String Value. Type the path of the network share as the value name (for example \\servername\share)
5. Right-click the value name, and then click Modify. In the Value data box, enter a value listed in the table below, and then click OK

The possible values for SyncConflictHandling and a description of each value is listed is this table:

Value	Description
0	No resolution. The conflict is unresolved. This allows the conflict to be processed by other handlers in the system.
1	Keep the local state. This overwrites the remote copy with the local copy's contents. If the local copy was deleted, this deletes the remote copy on the server.
2	Keep the remote state. This overwrites the local copy with the remote copy's contents. If the remote copy was deleted, this deletes the local copy in the Offline Files cache.
3	Keeps both copies. Note that this resolution is valid only for sync conflict states where both the server and client copies exist and where at least one of the items is a file. This resolution type is not available when one of the items has been deleted or both items are directories.
4	Retains the state of the latest operation as determined by last-change times of the items in conflict. If the local item was deleted, the time of deletion is used for comparison.
5	Write an entry to the sync conflict log and perform no further attempts at resolving the conflict. The interactive user will resolve the conflict through Sync Center at a later time.
6	Do not resolve the conflict. Do not record an entry in the sync conflict log
7	Cancel the synchronization operation

References:
http://stealthpuppy.com/configuring-an-automatic-resolution-policy-for-offline-files-in-windows-7/

 

RAID Calculator

Here is a handy RAID calculator

http://www.wesworld.net/raidcalculator.html

Outlook Prompting for Credentials

There are many reasons why outlook might prompt for credentials. However, one of the reasons that I often forget is when outlook tries to access an internal address or server via a web proxy, i.e. it does not know to bypass the web proxy when looking for the address or server in question.

Ensure all servers (including aliases) that Outlook should connect with internally are excluded in your web proxy configuration.

For other potential causes/fixes,  Ilan Lanz (Ilantz) has created a great troubleshooting list here.

References:
http://ilantz.com/2011/02/08/authentication-pop-ups-and-annoyances-with-exchange-2007-2010-and-outlook-anywhere/

Enable Manage-Out via DirectAccess when Internal LAN is IPv4 Only

Normally manage-out functionality is not available using DirectAccess if your internal LAN is IPv4-only. E.g. your remote devices will be able to access resources on your network, but you won't be able to connect to those devices from your management servers etc to check status, roll out updates, etc - unless your internal LAN is running IPv6.

However, the following link provides a potential way to get around this:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/jasonjones/archive/2013/04/19/limiting-isatap-services-to-directaccess-manage-out-clients.aspx

NOTE: This may not work in multi-site deployments. I haven't looked deeply enough into it to know why not.

References:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/jasonjones/archive/2013/04/19/limiting-isatap-services-to-directaccess-manage-out-clients.aspx

Step-by-step guide to documenting your network

Step-by-step guide to documenting your network

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2014/051214-guide-documenting-network-281391.html

Prevent Ticket Loops in Spiceworks

See explanation here:
http://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/show/1588-how-to-stop-and-prevent-ticket-loops-in-spiceworks

Essentially, the settings you need to alter are in Go to "Settings-> Email Settings -> Additional Settings".
and you need to add a rule in one of the "Ignore" fields.

These fields use Regular Expressions, so search for that on the web to understand how Regular Expressions work.

Setting up an Active Directory Network in Windows Azure

This article looks pretty comprehensive, but I've not yet tried it.
http://community.adxstudio.com/blogs/shan/2013-07-02-setting-up-an-active-directory-network-in-windows/

The next step would be to configure Direct Access and then join workstations to the domain using Offline Domain Join.

BOOM!