Stefanos Cloud

Case When you apply and run an Acronis Cyber Protect backup against a virtual machine which is part of a guest cluster which makes use of virtual disk shared files of type .vhds (VHD Set), you run across the following error. Activity succeeded with warnings. Activity 'Preparing for backup of virtual machine' succeeded with the following warning 'Windows error: (0xC05CFF0A). The requested operation cannot be performed on the virtual disk as it is currently used in shared mode. Or the error may state something along the lines of: "Failed to open virtual disk file '.vhds'. Unknown format of the virtual disk." The same error as above can occur in virtual machine backup of virtual machines which include a .vdhx shared disk. Solution The above error is by design when you are attempting a virtual machine backup to virtual machine which does not have an Acronis backup agent installed, as per https://kb.acronis.com/content/68573 . According to Acronis, as of July 2...

Case You need to convert an existing physical machine running Windows or Linux to its virtual machine equivalent. This article provides instructions on how to carry out a physical to virtual (P2V) conversion . Solution Windows Disk2VHD If you are running a Windows 7 or Windows 10 physical machine, you should download the Disk2VHD application from Windows Sysinternals . After extracting the contents of the downloaded .zip file the following executables are available. Run the "disk2vhd64.exe" on Windows 64-bit systems. The Disk2VHD user interface lists the available system partitions and offers the following configuration options. Option for MBR partition, does not need the extra bootable partition for the final vhd(x) to be bootable. Option for GPT partition, needs also the bootable partition for the final vhd(x) to be bootable. Disk2VHD has an option for .vhdx for HyperV or .vhd for compatibility with other hypervisors. There is a also a CLI-based equivalent of the GUI. Detai...

Introduction The current post attempts to present an overview of the Azure developer tools services, as of late June 2022. Azure Developer tools services allow administrators and developers to build, manage, and continuously deliver cloud applications using any platform, development runtime or language. Examples of containers services include Azure DevOps, Azure Pipelines, Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, Azure DevTest Labs and Azure Lab Services. Given the dynamic nature of public clouds, this list will most likely change soon in the near future but nevertheless acts as a general point of reference when discussing Azure developer tools services. You find an overview of all Azure service categories at https://stefanos.cloud/blog/azure-service-categories/ . Developer tools services Azure offers the following developer tools services to allow developers and devops engineers to perform a wide range of software development tasks. App Configuration Fast, scalable parameter storage for ap...

Case You have a Hyper-V cluster and you need to migrate virtual machine disk files and other disk-based clustered objects (such as paging files and snapshots) from an old storage repository to a new storage repository. This could mean migration between storage LUNs of the same storage system or between storage LUNs of different storage systems which are attached to the same hypervisor cluster. The migrated virtual machine disks may be of type .vhd, .vhdx, .vhdx shared or .vhds (VHD Set). Solution For best practice designs of Hyper-V clusters, you should review the following article: https://stefanos.cloud/kb/how-to-deploy-a-hyper-v-cluster-with-powershell/ . Also you can purchase my e-book on Hyper-V cluster design best practices. https://stefanos.cloud/blog/windows-failover-clustering-design-handbook/ To migrate virtual machine storage, you should use the Hyper-V cluster storage migration feature. Via Failover Cluster Manager Follow the steps below in the Failover Cluster Manager cons...

In a separate KB article, I am providing basic instructions on how to connect to the Internet by using an LTE modem and router appliance . When utilizing mobile data connections based on 4G (LTE) and 5G protocols as well as satellite-based communications, it is imperative to minimize any unneeded traffic and achieve an overall optimization in your mobile or satellite data monthly charges. These connections are also known as metered connections with a major concern for data usage minimization. Case You have an Internet connection with data caps and pay as you go subscription. You need to minimize bandwidth consumption. This can apply to any mobile data connection (based on 4G or 5G protocols) and to any satellite-based Internet Service Provider (ISP). Solution Follow the steps below to minimize the bandwidth consumption via your mobile or satellite Internet connection. - Configure your network connection as a metered connection, in order to impose bandwidth limit and better track networ...

This article is also available in my podcast and Youtube channel . View this article as a how-to video on Youtube. https://youtu.be/QsZVU_c7yZ4?list=PLYbmn4csggdE9qNg7iIOwLJf1EUHUBvCw Case You need to create, edit or delete Microsoft 365 guest users. In this how-to article, we will show you how to manage Microsoft 365 guest users via the Admin Center portal. Solution To manage guest users of a Microsoft 365 tenant via the Admin Center portal, go through the following steps. - Navigate with your Web browser to https://admin.microsoft.com . - On the left pane, click on "Users", then click "Guest Users". - On the "Guest Users" page, to create a new guest user, click on either the "Add a guest user" link on the top of the page or click on "Go to Azure Active Directory to add guest users" link at the bottom of the page. Both of these links will take you to the Azure Active Directory portal, which is located at https://aad.portal.azure.com ....

Introduction Microsoft has announced the deprecation of Basic authentication in Exchange Online. Basic authentication will be permanently disabled in Exchange Online on October 1st, 2022. More specifically, Microsoft is removing the ability to use Basic authentication in Exchange Online for Exchange ActiveSync (EAS), POP, IMAP, Remote PowerShell, Exchange Web Services (EWS), Offline Address Book (OAB), Outlook for Windows, and Mac. The SMTP AUTH option will also be disabled in all tenants in which it's not being used. All new Microsoft 365 tenants are created with Basic authentication turned off, since this is part of the Security defaults configuration. Basic authentication, also known as legacy authentication, means the application sends a username and password with every request, and those credentials are also often stored or saved on the device. Traditionally, Basic authentication is enabled by default on most servers or services, and is simple to set up. Modern authentication...

This article also appears in my podcast and Youtube channel . Case You need to delete or restore one or more Microsoft 365 users. This article provides step by step guidance on how to delete and restore Microsoft 365 users from the Admin Center portal and from the Powershell msonline module. Solution Option 1: Via the Microsoft 365 admin center To delete a user from a Microsoft 365 tenant via the Admin Center portal, go through the following steps. - Navigate with your Web browser to https,admin,dot,microsoft,dot,com. - On the left pane, click on "Users", then click "Active Users". - Under the "Active Users" section on the main area, tick the check boxes next to all users which you would like to delete and click "Delete Users". - The deleted users are kept for 30 days in the deleted users container. If you need to restore any of the users within this 30-day period, navigate to the "Deleted users" section, tick the checkbox next to the ...

Case You need to perform an overall hardware health check in a Windows machine, running either a Windows client or a Windows Server operating system. This article provides guidance on the steps to carry out to perform hardware health checks in Windows. Solution Carry out the steps below. - Thoroughly check all Windows event logs (Application, System, Security) for any warnings or errors which may be related to issues you are experiencing with your Windows machine. - Check the device management mmc console by running devmgmt.msc. Ensure that you choose to show all hidden devices from the View menu. If you notice any exclamation marks next to any device, you will need to re-install its driver from the respective manufacturer to ensure that there afterwards no warnings in the device management console. - Check the health of all your disks , either HDD or SSD. Follow instructions in the following KB article for steps to follow to check your disk health: https://stefanos.cloud/kb/how-to-ch...

Case You are facing a Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (RDS) licensing issue and your RDS users do not get an RDS Client Access License (CAL) allocated. This article provides guidance on how to troubleshoot Microsoft RDS licensing issues. This guidance applies both to on-premises Remote Desktop Services (RDS) installations as well as to Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD). Solution You have two MMC-based management consoles to assist you in RDS licensing related issues. The RD licensing manager console is the first. The RD licensing diagnoser console is the second. To troubleshoot Microsoft RDS licensing issues, carry out the following steps. - It is a good idea to review the following article ( https://stefanos.cloud/blog/microsoft-rds-licensing-demystified/ ) to familiarize yourself with the requirements and limitations of using the Microsoft RDS licensing server and better understand the concepts and components involved. - As always, check the Windows logs related to the RDS licensing serv...

This article is also available in my podcast and Youtube channel . The current articles provides guidance on how to reset the password of a Microsoft 365 user, in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. To reset the password of a Microsoft 365 user, go through the following steps. - Navigate with your Web browser to https://admin.microsoft.com . - On the left pane, click on "Users", then click "Active Users". - Under the "Active Users" section on the main area, click on "Reset Password". - Search for the users whose password you wish to reset and tick all applicable users' checkboxes. - Click the highlighted "Select" button at the bottom. - Tick the "Automatically create a password" and the "Require these users to change their password when they first sign in" options. Also tick the "email the sign-in info to me" option and fill-in the email of an administrator user to receive the new temporary password. Or,if...

Case You need to convert existing Microsoft RDS per-user CALs to RDS per-device CALs or vice-versa. Refer to the following article if you need to troubleshoot RDS licensing issues: https://stefanos.cloud/kb/how-to-troubleshoot-microsoft-rds-licensing-issues/ Solution You can convert RDS per-user to RDS per-device CALs or convert RDS per-device to RDS per-user CALs by utilizing the RDS licensing manager console (MMC console). Follow the steps below. - In the RDS licensing manager console, expand the record which corresponds to the existing RDS licenses you wish to convert and right click on this record. - Choose "Convert licenses". - Choose between full and partial conversion and click "OK". - Confirm the requested conversion by clicking "Continue". - RD Licensing manager will provide a confirmation message for successful RDS CAL type successful conversion. https://stefanos.cloud/kb/how-to-convert-rds-per-user-to-rds-per-device-cals/

Case You need to deploy Microsoft .NET on your Linux machine. In this how-to article, we will show you to the .NET framework 6 on Ubuntu Linux LTS 22.04. Solution Go through the following steps: - Run the following commands in your Linux Ubuntu Powershell core terminal. wget https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/22.04/packages-microsoft-prod.deb -O packages-microsoft-prod.deb sudo dpkg -i packages-microsoft-prod.deb rm packages-microsoft-prod.deb - Install the .NET SDK (instead of the runtime only) by running the following commands sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install -y apt-transport-https && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y dotnet-sdk-6.0 - To verify the .NET installation on your Ubuntu machine, run the following commands: dotnet --list-sdks dotnet --list-runtimes dotnet --info References https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/install/linux-ubuntu https://stefanos.cloud/kb/how-to-deploy-microsoft-net-in-ubuntu-linux/