Microsoft

Azure AD Connect 2.0 Won’t Start

Azure AD Connect 2.0 Won’t Start

I recently ran into an issue where an install of Azure AD Connect failed to start. It seems like the root cause was due to the SQLLocalDB Model database becoming corrupt, which caused it to fail at upgrading itself. This is a known issue in versions older than 2.1.1.0 of Azure AD Connect.

While looking at the event logs it looks like the chain of events was that it tried to do the auto upgrade as auto upgrade is enabled but then failed to restart the SQLLocalDB due to the corruption which then caused Azure AD Connect to break.

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Windows Recovery Partition

Windows Recovery Partition

When you install Windows it always creates a Recovery Partition, which runs a very lite version of Windows with a few tools. There’s been a few times where I’ve used those tools to fix a system.

I wanted to know what would happen if I deleted the Recovery Partition. This is what I found down that rabbit hole.

Your Windows partitioning will look something like this.

Disk Partitioning with Recovery Partition
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Windows Admin Center SSO

Windows Admin Center SSO

If you’ve installed Windows Admin Center (WAC) on a domain joined server and you connect to another domain joined system you’ll see a message similar to this.

Having to login multiple times is annoying so here’s how to make the Single Sign On work with WAC using Kerberos constrained delegation.

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Hide Installed Programs

Hide Installed Programs

Have you ever wanted to be sneaky and hide a program that’s installed on your computer from Programs and Features and the Apps & features list? Well search no more, I have all the answers you seek. It’s shockingly simple.

Proper programs will list their uninstall info directly in the registry all we have to do is tweak that slightly.

If the program is 64 bit it will show up in the registry in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall and it will have a key for it’s program sometimes listed by its program ID or the actual program. You may need to search for the application you want to hide.

If the program is 32 bit it will show up in the registry in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall just like 64 bit it will have a key for the program.

The process is the exact same for 32 bit or 64 bit programs.

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Azure IP Downloader v1

Azure IP Downloader v1

My firewall recently blocked Microsoft Azure AD Connect which caused issues with syncing to 365. Turns out the issue was that my IPS (Intrusion Prevention System) flagged it as being “suspected RST injection”.

Normally when something like this happens it’s typically the IPS being overly sensitive and I usually can whitelist the specific detection however the IPS is blocking other things correctly that are also flagged as “suspected RST injection” because this is Microsoft Azure I can’t simply just whitelist the IP or a short IP range because there are so many and they can change fairly often.

Microsoft does list some of the IPs for most of 365 on their website however the IPs that were being blocked from my side of things was 52.239.186.132 and 52.239.149.106. Which aren’t in the main lists as they are part of the Azure side of things.

There’s a link on the same page that will take you to a download page for all the Azure IPs. However they update that file weekly. AWS publishes a JSON file of their IPs here.

It’s been years that people have asked for Microsoft to just publish the IPs in a JSON file like how AWS does. There’s a feedback request from 2016 asking for something like that here. Microsoft did make the JSON file available but in a roundabout way.

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Disable Auto Windows Updates

Disable Auto Windows Updates

Auto Windows updates are annoying especially when left untamed as it will automatically reboot the device be it a workstation or a server. I’ve written a script that can mass disable Windows updates across all devices even if they aren’t domain joined.

Technically you could go in and disabled the Windows Update service but that stops all Windows updates. I don’t think that’s a good idea.

Another way would be to bring up Group Policy Editor and go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Updates > Configure Automatic Updates and set that to be disabled.

However that option will work for domain joined devices but what about the non domain joined devices. It doesn’t make much sense to go to each device and manually edit the setting via the Local Group Policy Editor. To solve this issue I’ve written a script that could be ran across all devices including domain joined device and would leave other Windows updates settings in place.

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