Thursday, April 25, 2013

Allow Remote Desktop connections from outside your home network


There are six steps you'll need to follow to set this up. Each one is explained in detail below.
  1. Allow remote connections to the computer you want to access.
  2. Make sure Remote Desktop is able to communicate through your firewall.
  3. Find the IP address of the computer on your home network that you want to connect to.
  4. Open your router's configuration screen and forward TCP port 3389 to the destination computer's IP address.
  5. Find your router's public IP address so that Remote Desktop can find it on the Internet.
  6. Open Remote Desktop Connection and connect.

Allow remote connections to the computer you want to access

To access one computer from another computer, you first need to allow remote connections on the computer you want to access, which must be running one of the following versions of Windows:
  • Windows XP Professional edition
  • Windows Vista Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise edition
  • Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate, or Enterprise edition
On the computer you want to access, follow these steps:
  1. Open System by clicking the Start button Picture of the Start button, right-clicking Computer, and then clicking Properties.
  2. In the left pane, click Remote settings. Administrator permission required If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
  3. Under Remote Desktop, select one of the options to allow connections. For more information about these options, see What types of Remote Desktop connections should I allow?
  4. Click Select Users.
  5. In the Remote Desktop Users dialog box, click Add.
  6. In the Select Users or Groups dialog box, do one or more of the following:
    • To specify the search location, click Locations.
    • To specify the types of objects (user names) that you want to search for, click Object Types.
    • In the Enter the object names to select box, type the user name that you want to search for, and then click Check Names. If the user name isn't found, click Advanced to run an advanced search.
  7. When you find the correct name, click OK.
    The name will be displayed in the list of users in the Remote Desktop Users dialog box.
  8. Click OK, and then click OK again.

Make sure Remote Desktop is able to communicate through your firewall

If you're using Windows Firewall, follow these steps:
  1. Click the Start button Picture of the Start button, click Control Panel, type "firewall" in the search box, and then click Windows Firewall.
  2. Click Allow a program or feature through Windows Firewall.
  3. Under Allowed programs and features, scroll down to Remote Desktop and make sure its check box is selected.
  4. Under Home/Work (Private), make sure the check box next to Remote Desktop is selected.
If you're using a non-Microsoft firewall, refer to the instructions that came with your firewall.

Find the IP address of the computer on your home network

Next, determine the IP address of the destination computer—the one you want to connect to.
  1. Click the Start button Picture of the Start button, click Control Panel, type "network" in the search box, and then click Network and Sharing Center.
  2. Next to Connections, click the link for your current network connection (either Wireless Network Connection or Local Area Connection).
  3. Click Details.
  4. Write down the IP address listed next to IPv4 Address. You'll need this address when you turn on port forwarding.

Forward TCP port 3389 to the destination computer's IP address

To allow remote connections from outside of your home network, you need to set up your router to forward remote access requests to the computer that you want to connect to.
  1. On any home network computer that's connected to the Internet, open a web browser and type the internal IP address of your router. This address will usually be 192.168.1.1, 192.168.0.1, or 192.168.2.1. Refer to the instructions that came with your router if you need more information about accessing the router's configuration screen.
  2. Type the router administrator user name and password.
  3. In the router's configuration screen, look for a place to turn on port forwarding (also called port mapping).
  4. Forward TCP port 3389, the default port for Remote Desktop Connection, to the IP address of the home computer you want to access from outside the network.
To access more than one of your home computers from outside the network, you can forward an additional TCP port to each additional computer. For example, you can forward TCP port 3390 to a second computer, TCP port 3391 to a third computer, and so on. Then change the listening port, the port that Remote Desktop listens to for incoming network traffic that matches that port, on each computer to match the number you assigned. When you use Remote Desktop Connection to connect to these computers, type the IP address of the router, followed by a colon and the port number (for example, 208.147.66.254:3390).
Changing the listening port is also helpful as a security measure, since a malicious user might first try port 3389, the default for Remote Desktop Connection. By changing the listening port, the malicious user has to guess which port you've chosen. For information about changing the listening port, see How to change the listening port for Remote Desktop on the Microsoft website.

Find your router's public IP address

While you're still at home and connected to your home network, open a web browser and search for "find IP address" to find a service that will report your router's public IP address. Unfortunately, some computers are given a different IP address each time they connect to the Internet. An Internet service provider (ISP) can use a few IP addresses to serve many customers that way, but it means that your computer's address on the Internet is always changing.
To get around the problem of a frequently changing IP address, try a DNS dynamic update service, which allows you to assign a URL to your router that you can use instead of an IP address. The URL stays the same no matter how often the IP address changes. To find a service, search for "DNS dynamic update" on the Internet.

Open Remote Desktop Connection and connect

Now you're ready to actually make the connection. Follow these steps on a computer outside of your network:
  1. Click the Start button Picture of the Start button, type "remote" in the search box, and then click Remote Desktop Connection.
  2. Type the router's public IP address in the Computer field (followed by a colon and the new port number, if you've changed the listening port; for example, 208.147.66.254:3390).
  3. Log on to the remote computer as you normally do.

Archive Mailbox In Exchange 2010


Archive Mailbox is one of the many welcoming features in Exchange 2010 Server. This feature solves issues related to PST files which gives headache for any exchange admins.

Let me explain how archive mailbox feature will address the existing problems.
  • There is no company which doesn’t have staff using PST files. Archive mailbox gets rid of PST files by giving the user an additional mailbox.
  • PST files are local to the user’s machine, gets corrupted easily and is hard to include the files in backup. Archive mailbox sits in the same mailbox database as the user’s main mailbox and can be included in the backup easily.
  • Archive Mailbox is available in Outlook as well as Outlook Web App (OWA), which is a huge improvement. Users can access their email archive irrespective of where they are.
  • Archive Mailbox is included as part of the Exchange Enterprise CALs and hence no extra cost is required (for those who have ECALs).
  • Retention policies can be set for emails/folders in the archive mailbox.
  • User has the option to search for emails in archive only or both primary & archive mailbox.
  • Archive Quota can be set separate to the primary mailbox.
  • Emails in existing PSTs can be dragged into the archive mailbox very easily.
  • Users get Conversation View scoped to archive mailbox as well.
  • The archive and primary mailbox share the same user account.
  • Only one archive mailbox can be configured for a user.
  • Archive mailbox gets created on the same mailbox database as the primary one, which is a drawback. Future service packs might bring the option to create the archive mailbox in a different database.
  • The default quota warning for the archive mailbox is 10GB, which can be changed.
  • All in all, it is good news for admins as they don’t have to worry about issues like a lost laptop with PST files in it, corrupted PSTs etc.
How To Configure Archive Mailbox?
Configuring an archive mailbox is very easy. You can configure an archive mailbox while the user account is created. Just check the box in the wizard!
Archive0
To configure archive mailbox for an existing user, launch EMC & navigate to Recipient Configuration, right click the user and select “Enable Archive”.
Archive1
A windows prompt reminds that an enterprise CAL is necessary. Click OK and an archive mailbox is configured for the user.
Archive2
Note that the icon denoting a user with archive mailbox is different to the normal users.
Archive3
Select the properties of the user and navigate to the “Mailbox Features” tab. You can see that the archive mailbox feature is enabled and selecting the properties brings up a box to give a name for the archive mailbox. The default name is “Online Archive – Username”. You can give a different name if you want to.
Archive4
In order to change the default quota warning, navigate to “Mailbox Settings” tab, select Archive Quota –> Properties.
Archive5
Launch Outlook 2010 and you will see that the archive mailbox is displayed. You can create new folders, move emails, set retention policies etc.
ArchiveOutlook
Launching Outlook Web App (OWA) gives the same look and feel & your archive mailbox is available for sure!
ArchiveOWA

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Windows Update error 80072ee2


Problem: When you try to update a Windows 7 or Windows 2008 computer, you get the Windows Update error 80072ee2

Solution: The possible solutions are written below. After every solution, check whether Windows Updates is working again or not.

Solution 1:If you use a proxy server, first make sure you have the correct settings in your Internet Explorer on the client. Make sure you can reach any URL without being prompted for a username or password. If this is the case, try to create a rule in the firewall that allows all traffic to Windows Update without using the proxy. Then remove the proxy settings from Internet Explorer on the client and try again to receive Windows Updates. If Windows Update now discovers the updates, install them. Don’t forget to revert all changes you made. Windows Update should now work flawlessly with your proxy server.

Solution 2:If you have spyware on your computer, or if you HAD, your Internet Explorer may be set to use a proxy server. With a single command, you can set this back to the original IE settings. Type CMD in your Search bar of your Start Menu, and ENTER the command:
netsh winhttp import proxy source=ie
image thumb All solutions for Windows Update error 80072ee2

Solution 3:In some rare cases, the MTU setting of your computer are set incorrectly (I had this problem when I tried to log on to MSN Live Messenger).
To adjust the MTU setting of your router, type REGEDIT in your Search bar of your Start Menu. Then navigate to the following key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\
Interfaces\[Adapter ID]]

Create a new DWORD value, or modify the existing value, called “MTU” and set it to a decimal value like 1492. Try Windows Update. If it did not help, change the MTU to 1500 and try again.
image thumb1 All solutions for Windows Update error 80072ee2

Solution 4:
Try to register some dll files, that may have become unregistered, somehow. To do this, Type CMD in your Search bar of your Start Menu, and ENTER the following commands:
regsvr32 oleaut32.dll
regsvr32 jscript.dll
regsvr32 vbscript.dll
regsvr32 msxml.dll
regsvr32 softpub.dll
regsvr32 wintrust.dll
regsvr32 initpki.dll
regsvr32 cryptdlg.dll

Every command should return a popup, that the registration completed successfully.