Category: Tech support
-
Microsoft Teams: Dial tone when calling in to meeting
Since starting to use Microsoft Teams, I’ve been encountering an issue when calling in to meetings; when joining a meeting, I’d get a loud buzzing on top of the meeting audio. Said buzzing was reminiscent of dial tones of yore. Digging into it a bit, I found that the buzzing ceased when I exited Skype…
-
Removing duplicate entries from Remote App on iPhone
It’s no secret that I use an iPhone and Apple Watch. With those in the house, adding an Apple TV to the mix made a lot of sense from an eco-system point of view. A while back, I encountered the issue that I had duplicate Apple TV entries in the Remote App on my iPhone.…
-
Outlook: Mark deleted messages as read
A pet peeve of many users of Outlook is the fact that deleted messages that were unread when being deleted are counted in Deleted Items. Like the behavior when going from one unread email to another in the Reading Pane, there is a setting for this. Here’s how to change the behavior: Go to File…
-
Set Outlook to only mark as read when you open an email
A while back, a customer complained that Outlook always marked emails as read when he clicked over to another email, and wanted to know if there was a setting that would change this behavior. As it turns out, there is. Here’s how you do it: Go to File -> Options Go to Mail Scroll down…
-
Look up AD User Password expiration date
A little while ago, I had a user call in and ask when their password would expire. Luckily, this information is readily accessible if you know where – and how – to look. Here’s how: Open a command prompt Enter the command net user %USERNAME% /domain Read the information from the results: In addition to…
-
SCCM: Find client BIOS information
With some regularity, I find myself needing to fetch information from the BIOS of a client computer, preferably without having to go onsite to do so. This may be because I need to know what BIOS version the client is running, the serial number of the computer, or when it was manufactured. If you’re running…
-
Identifying the version of a Windows client
Back in December, I showed you how to install RSAT on a Windows client. As you will have seen, the method depends on what version of Windows the client is running, which means that correctly identifying the version running is somewhat important (although trial and error does work – eventually). I have found that the…
-
Evolution – a critical part of technical support
Improvise, adapt, overcome has for a long time been a mantra within armed forces around the world who, when faced with gruelling challenges and little or no epuipment, have improvised to face the challenge, adapted to the challenge and lastly overcome the challenge. The same attitude is necessary in IT support. Support departments around the…
-
AD: Inspecting object attributes
A little while ago, I was asked about when a specific user last logged in with their active directory (AD) user account. While looking up that information was easily done, finding out how to look up the information was a mite more challenging. There are a number of ways of achieving it; including command line…
-
Installing RSAT on a Windows client
You may, for one reason or another, need to install Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) on your Windows client computer. You may want to perform administrative tasks in Active Directory Users and Computers, administer Certificates in Active Directory Certificate Services, or administer DNS or DHCP in DNS or DHCP Server Tools. Whatever the case may…
-
View message headers
For most users, the message headers of any given email are irrelevant; the email has arrived, and that is all there is to say about that. It does, however, have applications both in IT support and in information security. While those applications are outside the scope of this article, accessing the message header is not.…