Lost password recovery on Windows 7 (free)

I was handed a laptop with Windows 7 Pro and a single user on the laptop with an unknown password.  I had a 1 GB flash drive.  Ideally, I would have had a 8 GB or larger USB drive that I could put a Windows 7 installer on, but I didn't (would have saved me from needing Linux).

These steps require medium level tech savvy.  If you've never worked in a DOS prompt before or don't know what that means, you won't have much luck with these steps.

Here's what I did step by step:

On another laptop, I did these things:
Downloaded Linux Live USB Creator from here: http://www.linuxliveusb.com\
Downloaded System Rescue CD from here: http://www.system-rescue-cd.org/Download
Made a bootable System Rescue CD on the 1 GB USB flash drive

On the laptop with the unknown password, I ran these steps:
Booted to the Linux distro we put on the USB drive
Started the default Linux version when presented
ran "startx" to start the GUI
opened up a terminal/CLI prompt
ran mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows
** note that /sda1 might not be the location of your C drive where Windows is located, might be sda2 or sda3
ran cd /mnt
ran cd windows
** note that windows is case sensitive so it might need to be "cd Windows"
ran cd system32
** note that system32 is case sensitive so it might need to be "cd System32"
ran mv utilman.exe utilman.bak
ran cp cmd.exe utilman.exe
reboot the computer back into Windows
At the login screen, hit Windows key + U
at the DOS prompt, run "net user USERNAME PASSWORD" where USERNAME is the name of the user and PASSWORD is the new password

** of note if you run just "net user" from a DOS prompt, you'll be presented with the existing usernames on the computer

Creating a battery health report

I found that this command will generate an HTML file that will let you know the health of a battery:

for Windows 7:
powercfg -energy

for Windows 8 and 10:
powercfg /batteryreport

Both need to be run in an elevated command prompt.

You'll get an HTML report that may or may not be able to be opened from where it is stored.  When you open the file, if you scroll to near the bottom, you'll see an area labeled "Battery:Battery Information."  Here's what my "Battery:Battery Information" looks like on my 10 month old laptop:

Battery:Battery Information
Battery ID 1153SanyoDELL YDN874C
Manufacturer Sanyo
Serial Number 1153
Chemistry LiP
Long Term 1
Design Capacity 52592
Last Full Charge 51520


In this case, I see that the capacity of the battery is 52592, but its last *full* charge was only 51520.  So if I divide 51520 by 52592, I get 97.962% - so my battery is nearly 98% healthy.  This means my battery is in great health, whereas most older batteries will be much lower.

Credit for this information goes to these two locations:
http://www.helpwithwindows.com/Windows7/Check-your-laptop-battery-health-in-Windows-7.html
and
http://www.howtogeek.com/217010/how-to-generate-a-battery-health-report-on-windows-8-or-windows-10/

Installing Server OS on a Dell with a DRAC card and without a DVD Drive

Simple process for installing a server OS on a Dell server that came with a DRAC card (which I recommend in all cases).  

Download the ISO for the installation DVD (typically from the MS VLSC) such as the Windows 2012 R2 DVD ISO.

I recommend that you boot up the server and go through RAID configuration using Control - R to set up your RAID array before continuing.  RAID is not configurable inside Windows setup.

Open the DRAC web interface (default location is 192.168.0.120 with a username/password of root/calvin).  

Open a virtual console.

In the virtual console.

Click Virtual Media -> Connect Virtual Media

Click Virtual Media -> Map CD/DVD

Choose the ISO file from your local machine (the ISO file should be located on your phsyical machine - not at all on the server).  I highly recommend you do this over a wired connection.  It'll take 20+ minutes over a wired connection to transfer the contents of a 6 GB ISO file and more than an hour over wireless.

In Next Boot, choose virtual CD/DVD/ISO.

Take ownership of a folder without affecting existing NTFS permissions

I'm not positive of the reason, but sometimes, when I take ownership of a folder (perhaps it has to do with applying ownership to all subfolders) all the existing permissions are gone.  Here's a DOS command you can run in an elevated command prompt on the server to adjust ownership without affecting existing NTFS permissions:

TAKEOWN /A /R /F c:\SomeFolder

Deleting a folder with file names that are too long to be deleted

Simple process for deleting all the contents in a folder that are too long for Windows or DOS to delete.

Create a new folder called "del" with nothing in the del folder..
Let's say the folder with all the data you want to delete is in e:\shares\public

Run this command:
robocopy e:\del e:\shares\public /mir


This process will mirror the contents of e:\del into the folder e:\shares\public

Easy peasy.

Fixing November 2015 issue of iphone users sending calendar acceptances over and over again

In October and November 2015, we found that in some cases, users would send calendar appointment acceptances over and over again to the meeting owner.  We think this is caused by the newest iPhone IOS update.  Here's the fix that Microsoft recommends:

1. Configure affected user's mailbox in Outlook in Online Mode (disable cache).
2. Download MFCMAPI tool from http://mfcmapi.codeplex.com
3. In O365 web portal from the Exchange Admin Center, open the affected user's profile, then select Mailbox Features > Mobile Devices > Disable Exchange ActiveSync.
4. Remove the mailbox from the user's mobile device.
5. On the system with Outlook is configured in Online Mode, run MFCMAPI.
6. Click OK to close the Usage Notes screen.
7. Click Session > Logon.
8. Select the Outlook profile set up for the affected user.
9. Double-click the display name of the affected mailbox.
10. In the new window, expand the Root Container menu.
11. Expand ExchangeSyncData menu.
12. For each listed AirSync device, right-click the item, then select Delete Folder and select the checkbox for Hard Deletion > OK.
14. Once all listed AirSync devices have been successfully deleted, from the main navigation select Actions > Exit.
15. Select Session > Logoff.
16. Select QuickStart > Exit.
17. In O365 web portal from the Exchange Admin Center, open the affected user's profile, then select Mailbox Features > Mobile Devices > Enable Exchange ActiveSync.
18. Add the mailbox to the user's mobile device.
19. The issue should be resolved and may be monitored via the Sent Items folder of the configured Outlook.

Hyper-V VM stuck on stopping

On my Windows 2012 (not R2) Standard server, I run several VMs.  In the process of trying to shut them down, I consistently find an issue where insead of shutting down, the virtual machine get stuck saying "stopping"

In this helpful thread, people say that the problem is actually Routing and Remote Access (RRAS) being on the same server as the VMs.  As such, I had luck restarting the RRAS service on the affected server.  For me, this worked.  I've tried the other suggestions of killing the process - to no avail.

https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/c55f8c8b-958e-449b-95fd-05834c806580/hyperv-vm-stuck-in-stopping-state