Kevin Oppihle's Tech Notes

While professionally I only work on business accounts we all have home computers that need attention, many desperately. Backup and Recovery- Home computer backups are more neglected than that windshield wiper on your car’s rear window. People just don’t think about it and don’t want to pay a huge investment on a computer that “just has a few pictures on it” and “I only use for browsing the internet”. Let’s look at this another way. What if you lost all of your pictures, email and personal documents on that PC. How much stress would that cause you? How many of those pictures are your favorite photo of Gam Gam that passed away, or your kids first day at school, ... While a lot of those memories can be shares on social media or cloud storage such as One Drive many people don’t have another copy. Many online services also limit the amount you can store including cloud backup solutions so read the fine print. I recommend you buy an external USB3 hard drive such as a “ Passport Drive ” and t...

Note: Please see references at the end of this document before starting so you have a thorough understanding of this step by step guide. You need the proper Global Administrator/Import Export permissions: Log onto the 365 portal as a Global Administrator. Open Exchange admin center and edit Organization Management as shown below: Select Roles and + to add “Mailbox Import Export” Click Add at the bottom and “OK” as shown below then “SAVE”: Note: It may take up to 24 hours for that permission change to take effect. Note: Make sure the PST’s are in a path on the local server and all PST filenames are basic for example change “ jim.bob@yourdomain.com -PST .pst” to JBob.pst it will save you time and hassles when you are creating the mappings file later in the instructions. Now download Azure AzCopy at the link below and install it on the system with the files: http://aka.ms/downloadazcopy Here is a link to the details of AzCopy: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/stora...

Problem: You installed Exchange 2016 attributes to your local AD but they don’t sync to 365. Solution: If you added the attributes after you setup Azure AD connect you will have to update it by going back into the Azure AD Connect to review your configuration and update it. Note: you should be using the latest releases to get the best integration and features. If you do not have the latest revision please download and update your Azure AD connect: Open Azure AD Connect and Click configure: Select “Refresh Directory Schema” as shown below: Enter in your credentials and proceed through the steps Once it completes the configuration changes your changes to “exchange” attributes on premise should then synchronize to Azure and Office 365 as shown below:

Open up powershell as an Administrator on the Azure AD Sync PC and run the following command: Start-ADSyncSyncCycle It will take a few minutes to process. You can monitor its status by opening the synchronization services manager: "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Azure AD Sync\UIShell\miisclient.exe" If you have not done so already, I would I recommend creating a shortcut on the desktop to the Synchronization services manager and calling it “Azure Sync Manager”  That console is critical to monitoring your cloud synchronization

Sync is working, but are you sure you have the latest Azure AD Connect tool with the greatest features?: Log on as an administrator and open the Admin Center. Click on ADD Connect Status as shown below: If your version is out of date you will see a warning similar to the following: Download and install the latest Azure AD Connect client to get the most out of your Synchronization tools. Note: The Azure AD Connect upgrades are an in place upgrade so should retain your previous version settings, but always verify before re-enabling the sync. Note: This page may take some time to update after you update your client.

Problem: The Essentials 2012 or 2016 console no longers connects to office 365. That tab is not populating with 365 data and user accounts dont show 365 links.Issue appears to be caused by a Windows update. Caution: it’s the registry you break it you bought it… Solution: Use registry editor to go to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Server\Productivity\O365Integration\Settings\ Delete BecEndPointAddress key Then go back into the Essentials console to the 365 summary tab and “change admin account” put in the account again and it will reconnect and restart the console. Your console should now be reconnected to 365 and populating data

Problem: You have an old Dell server that cannot connect to Dells FTP site using the outdated lifecycle controller to download updates, you have limited bandwidth, an OS that wont easily install the updates. or you want to deploy to lots of servers uniformly. Solution: The following Dell site will allow you to download an ISO based on your servers model. It will package all the critical updates you need and is bootable so you simply shutdown the host and boot to the CD and follow the prompts to update. http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/sln296511/updating-dell-poweredge-servers-via-bootable-media-iso?lang=en Note: there is a significant down window as it installs these updates however it is significantly less than if you attempted to download using the lifecycle  controller with the host offline.

Compliance Searches and Exports of Office 365 If your trying to track down who sent out those company secrets or correspondence regarding some legal issue you can use the Office 365 Security and Compliance features. You can also use these features to export that data as a spreadsheet and/or as PST data. First we need to create a content search: Open Office365 using Microsoft Edge logon as an Administrator and Open “Security and Compliance” console: or Drill down to “Search and Investigations” and “Content search” as shown below: Click on the + to add a new search, Name the search and specify locations to search and click “Next” as shown below: Now put in your search keywords and or any conditions. CAUTION! If you put in something too short or vague and don’t qualify it with a condition, you may get more results than you intended. Note: you can change the conditions as needed if you don’t get the results intended. Once you click “Search” it will begin immediately searching your “inde...