ADFS Web Proxy Service Won't Start

 I've seen lots of articles across the web on this.  Here's a fast way to get this fixed so you can move on to other things.  Sadly, I hit this too often when renewing certificates on ADFS servers.

NOTE:  This does not require a server restart.

Source: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/rmilne/2015/04/20/adfs-2012-r2-web-application-proxy-re-establis.... 

1)      Launch regedit.

2)      Navigate to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\ADFS\ProxyConfigurationStatus.

3)      Change ProxyConfigurationStatus from “2” (configured) to “1” (not configured).

4)      Launch the Remote Access Manager snap-in.

5)      Select Web Application Proxy.

6)      Select Run the Web Application Proxy Configuration Wizard.

7)      During the wizard it will prompt you to select a certificate. Select the certificate you were using before. Enter in some Domain Admin credentials (I don't think they're saved? Just used to authenticate?). Finish the config wizard.

9)      Web Application Proxy now works again.

Works for me every time.  Good luck!

Upgrade to ESXi 7.x: Missing dependencies VIBs Error

I have been getting this error frequently lately while doing upgrades from ESXi 6.5 and 6.7 to 7.x regardless of the hardware vendor.    

If you add an upgrade baseline to the cluster or host, and you try to remediate the host, the task fails with a dependency error. When taking a closer look into the tasks details, you were getting told that the task has failed because of a failed dependency, but not which VIB it caused.

You can find the name if the causing VIB on the update manager tab of the host that you tried to update. The status of the baseline is “incompatible”, and not “non-compliant”.

To resolve this issue you have to remove the causing VIB. This is no big deal and can be done with esxcli. Enable SSH and open an SSH connection to the host. Then remove the VIB.

You need to reboot the host after the removal of the VIB. Then you can proceed with the update. The status of the upgrade baseline should be now “not-compliant”.  Just start the upgrade again and it will complete properly provided there are no other issues.

Good luck!

Fixing Windows Updates Failed with Error 0x80244022

 If you have a workstation failed to Windows Update with the error 0x80244022 from a WSUS, the fix is pretty simple and straightforward.

The reason why the error occurs is because the Application Pool that runs the WSUS service stopped.

Go to the WSUS server and open IIS Manager. Click Application Pools, select WsusPool and click Start to restart the Application Pool.

This takes care of it the bulk of the time.

Good luck!

Mount ISO in Windows Server

 I ran into an interesting issue today.  Windows Server 2012 R2 had no options to mount an ISO file.  I tried a couple of 3rd party programs to do it but they would not work either.  I found a command that can be used with PowerShell to mount an ISO and it worked perfectly.  Here's the text of the command.

Good luck!

Mount-DiskImage -ImagePath 'D:\Path\To\Image.iso' -StorageType ISO -PassThru | Get-Volume