When Software Attacks!

Six tips when deploying SharePoint 2013 masterpages, page layouts and display templates

I’ve been hat-swapping again since just before christmas (which explains the lack of Azure IaaS posts I’m afraid). I’ve been working on a large SharePoint 2013 project, most lately on customising a number of elements around publishing. Getting those custom elements into SharePoint from my solution raised a number of little snags, most of which were solved by the great internet hive mind. It took me a long time to find some of those fixes, however, so I thought I’d collect them here and reference the original posts where appropriate.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Monday, February 3, 2014

Dealing with AD sync issues in an Azure hybrid deployment

I’ve been building demo environments for Tech.Days Online for the past few days. I had been blogging as I built, but then I hit problems and time pressure meant I had to pause my series on building the hybrid network. I will pick up the remainder of those posts in the near future but in the meantime, I want to give you all the heads up on one of my problems.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Building an Azure IaaS and on-premise hybrid environment Part 2: DC and servers in the cloud

This is part 2 of a series of posts bout building a hybrid network connecting Windows Azure and on-premise. For more background on what the goals are, and for information on how to create the Azure Network and connect the VPN tunnel between on-premise and cloud see part 1. Creating a DC on our Azure Network I’m going to create a new VM on Azure using the VM gallery. One important point when doing this is that you should add a second drive to the VM for domain controllers.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Monday, November 4, 2013

Building an Azure IaaS and on-premise hybrid environment Part 1: The plan and Azure Network Connection

I’ve been meaning to build a test lab to kick the tyres of Windows Azure Networks for a while. Two things combined together to make me get it done, however: First was the need to build exactly that for a customer as part of proof-of-concepts; the second was an invitation to present at Tech.Days Online on the subject. I’ve built and rebuilt said lab a few times now. I am about to build it again in order to have a demo environment for Tech.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Sunday, November 3, 2013

Connecting Azure Network Site-Site VPN to a SonicWall Appliance

I am with a customer this week, building a test Azure Network+IaaS/Azure AD/Office 365 environment. We struggled to get the site-site VPN connection up for a while and there wasn’t a great deal on the greater internet to help, save for a couple of posts in a discussion forum by the marvellous Marcus Robinson. We finally got it working when we found a tech note from SonicWall, published just a few days ago on the 7th October.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Monday, October 28, 2013

Miracast with Surface Pro, Windows 8.1 release and Netgear Push2TV

One of the most useful features of Windows 8.1 for me is the native support for Miracast (which is compatible with Intel Widi) for connecting to a wireless projector or display. Being able to wander around with my tablet whilst speaking is really handy. Sadly, whilst this worked for a little while during the preview, everything stopped with no reason. Searching the internet hive mind suggested that a Windows Defender update during the preview release had borked it, but nobody could confirm.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Take care installing firmware updates on your Surface Pro if it’s bitlocker encrypted

A quick tip, this one. I downloaded the latest firmware update to my Surface Pro this evening. It rebooted and promptly requested my bitlocker unlock code. I don’t keep those to hand – they’re stored in our Active Directory. Fortunately I had another laptop with DirectAccess so I could find the key. Be ready with your recovery key if you too have enabled bitlocker and perform firmware updates.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Sunday, October 6, 2013

Installing .Net 3.5 onto Windows 8 and 8.1 using DISM

This is one of those posts to save me searching the web every time I need to install .Net 3.5 on a Windows 8 (and now 8.1) system. If the automated installation via add/remove features fails then you need the correct DISM command. For those who have not yet encountered it, DISM allows you to perform actions on Windows image files in a process called Offline Servicing. However, it also allows you to perform the same functions online – on your current windows system.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Saturday, August 31, 2013

Editing Windows Server 2012 Group Policies for Direct Access with Windows 8.1 Enterprise Preview

I finally got time to upgrade my Surface Pro to Windows 8.1 Enterprise. One of the things I most want to test is DirectAccess, as I live and die by this on my main laptop. However, despite the computer object for my machine being in the group that the DA group policies are applied to, no DA settings appeared. TIP: On Windows 8.1, use Get-DAClientExperienceConfiguration in a PowerShell window to check your settings.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Installing Windows 8.1 Enterprise on Surface Pro

Windows 8.1 Enterprise preview was released a week or two ago. Being on holiday prevented me trying it out until I returned to the office. Everyone has different methods for installing Windows 8/8.1 on a Surface Pro. It’s actually pretty simple. Windows 8 can be done in the same way as I list here. However, you will need to download the Surface Pro Driver pack from Microsoft – Windows 8 doesn’t automatically find all the hardware; Windows 8.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Tuesday, August 13, 2013