Exchange Toolbox Snap-in Unavailable

 Sometimes when running Exchange Toolbox I'll get a Snap-in Unavailable message. Specifically:

This snap-in performed a non-valid operation and has been unloaded. To continue working with this snap-in, restart MMC or try load the snap-in again.

Exception Type: System.Runtime.Serialization.SerializationException

Exception Message: Type is not resolved for member.

The problem usually has to do with IIS. Open IIS Manager, expand the 'Sites' folder in the left menu. In the right Actions pane, select 'Bindings...'. The bindings have to be like this screenshot (via Spiceworks), specifically the binding needs to include HTTP to all assigned IPs at port 80 and HTTPS at port 443.

If that is already set, a restart of IIS has helped.

Office error 0xc0000142 (updating, please wait)

 I've run into Office 2016 failing to launch where a windows shows up which says "Updating, please wait", followed by the application (Excel, Word, etc) crashing with the above error.

The solution is to restart the 'ClickToRunSvc' service in Task Manager (under the services tab).

WS-Management service cannot process the request

WS-Management service cannot process the request

In Windows Server, launching PowerShell can sometimes result in an error where the shell can't connect to 'remote server server.contesso.local', even if this is the local computer the shell was launched on. The error message is 'The WS-Management service cannot process the request. The load quota for the system has been exceded'.

The solution is to:

Logon to the specfic Exchange server on the error message.

Open IIS Management Console and navigate to IIS Application Pools.

Restart PowerShell App Pools. 

The cause, via Solarwinds:

This issue is the result of the IIS/Powershell App Pool being overloaded. A restart of it will reset the App Pool back to zeros.  If the server is still having issues, you might see that the system load ends up maxing out again, which can cause issues with polling. Investigation into the load on the server is recommended.

Rebuild search index in Exchange 2013

The search index in Exchange 2013 can become corrupted and will need a re-seed (a re-index), you can check the status by running Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus | FL Name,*Index*

To do this, stop the MS Exchange Search and MS Exchange Search Host Controller services:

Stop-Service MSExchangeFastSearch

Stop-Service HostControllerService

Then find the folder which contains the content index catalog, this is for each mailbox database individually, found at %ExchangeInstallPath\Mailbox\<name of mailbox database>_Catalog\<GUID>12.1.Single and rename it, for instance: C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Mailbox\Mailbox Database 0657134726_Catalog\F0627A72-9F1D-494A-839A-D7C915C279DB12.1.Single_OLD

Restart the services above:

Start-Service MSExchangeFastSearch

Start-Service HostControllerService

Then run Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus | FL Name,*Index* to check the status (this need a couple of minutes to update).

Via: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/reseed-the-search-catalog-exchange-2013-help?redirectedfrom=MSDN#Anchor_2

If this doesn't work, also check this post: http://clintboessen.blogspot.com/2014/12/exchange-2013-fast-search-technology.html

 

 


Switch Windows 10 from RAID/IDE to AHCI

Systems installed with RAID drivers (among others Intel's RST) can be switched to AHCI without reinstalling Win10.

Run MSCONFIG and enable Safe Boot (minimal).

Reboot into UEFI/BIOS and change to AHCI.

Boot into safe mode, run MSCONFIG again and disable Safe Boot.

Reboot.

Corrupted certificate store in Firefox

Browsers usually demand adding an exeption for self-signed certificates, an update to Firefox recently broke this functionality. The solution is to remove the certificate store which forces FF to regenerate it at launch:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/what-does-your-connection-is-not-secure-mean#w_corrupted-certificate-store

Cloning Windows among drives

Cloning a Windows install is usually simple but you can also run into trouble (say with dynamic disks of various sizes). The most resiliant method is here on the ArsTechnica forums, but here's a copy-paste:

• Install Windows 7 onto the SSD, don't bother configuring. This sets up the partions and makes it bootable.
• Boot to a Linux rescue CD, and use gparted to resize the source Windows 7 partition to the same size as the SSD partition. (Windows disk management will not do this resize if you need to shrink past the "unmovable" files in the middle of the partition).
• This fails because gparted cannot resize a partition on a dynamic disk, but it does move the "unmovable" files.
• Now boot back into Windows, wait for the checkdisk run, and use Disk Management to shrink the partition.
• Boot back to a linux rescue CD and use DD to clone the source Windows partition over the top of the destination Windows partition on the SSD (make sure the partition sizes match when resizing). e.g. "dd if=/dev/sdb2 of=/dev/sda1 bs=4096 conv=notrunc,noerror". Don't get them the wrong way around.
• Note that you can use Clonezilla or many other tools (Acronis, AOMEI backupper) instead of DD.
• Boot to a Windows rescue CD (made from the Backup and Restore utility) and use the automated boot-fix step to fix the boot manager.

One thing to note - if a Windows install CD says that "This version of System Recovery Options is not compatible with the version of Windows", when booting up, hit F11, the boot options should specify UEFI boot of the CD (instead of AHCI).