Deployment Tips – Extracting All Microsoft Office Updates in a Folder

Because you may need to create a new source installation of your Microsoft Office and gather all the necessary security updates, here’s a quick tip extract all *.exe Office updates to the Updates sources folder.

This is particularly useful because most of the time you’ll download the updates on *.exe format and has you may know, the automated install will look for *.msp files inside the Updates folder instead.

So, here are the necessary steps to do it:

For this example we’ll use the folder D:\Temp\10\Office where you’ll put all your downloaded *.exe files and you should create also D:\Temp\10\Office\Updates where the files will be extracted.

1. Download all your *.exe files and move them to D:\Temp\10\Office
   
   
2. Open a command-line as Administrator
   
   
3. On the command-line, navigate to D:\Temp\10\Office
   
   
4. Know just execute the following command:
   for %g in (D:\Temp\10\Office\*.exe) do %g /extract:D:\Temp\10\Office\Updates /quiet
   
   
5. All *.msp files will be extracted to D:\Temp\10\Office\Updates and now you just need to copy them to your “OfficeSource\updates”.

And you’re done!

Getting Older versions of Visual C++ Redistributable

Did you ever needed a specific version of Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable to run an application?

I had this issue with VMware Horizon Client 4.7.0 that needed some Visual C++ specific versions to be installed. If not, the installer would install them for me but…rebooted the machine without any kind of warning.

So, thanks to a Jags Blog, we can get the direct links to download a bunch of versions of Visual C++ Redistributable!

Here’s the link:
Microsoft Technet Blogs - Jags Blog - Where can I download Visual C++ Redistributables?

Sysinternals Suite 2018_02_13 Available

Sysinternals it’s one of the best known suite of tools developed since 1996 by Mark Russinovich.
This set of tools will help you manage, troubleshoot and diagnose Windows systems and applications.

This new version, available since February 13, 2018 brings updates to:

• Autoruns (v13.82)
  This Autoruns release shows OneNote add-ins and fixes several bugs
• Process Monitor (v3.50)
  Now includes a /runtime switch to control headless capture duration, correctly shows picoprocesses, displays details for file system APIs introduced in Windows 10, and includes numerous minor improvements and bug fixes.

Download the complete suite here:

Sysinternals Suite 2018_02_13
Sysinternals Suite 2018_02_13 for Nano Server

Tips&Tricks – Attention When Changing Windows Defender Firewall Default Log Path

Although nowadays you could (err…should) configure event viewer (or centralized logging) for your Windows Defender Firewall, here’s a tip for something I’ve noticed when changed the default Windows Defender Firewall location.

When applying a GPO to do this, you must keep in mind that MpsSvc service account is responsible to write down the Windows Firewall log, so, if you change the default location (%windir%\System32\LogFiles\Firewall) you need to give it the right NTFS permissions.

So basically what you need to do:

1. Change the default location for the Windows Firewall log
2. Go to the new location
3. Right-click the folder and then Properties
4. Click the Security tab and Edit
5. Now, click Add
6. Make sure that you’ve select the local computer and not the domain (in “Locations…”)
7. Now type NT Service\MpsSvc and click OK
8. Make sure MpsSvc has Write Access and click OK again

And…you’re done!

Tips&Tricks – Adobe Reader DC – Disabling Automatic Updates

Here’s a quick tip to completely disable Adobe Reader DC automatic updates.
On this examples, we’ll use a registry configuration for Windows x64 machines:

First things first. There are 3 ways to disable automatic updates. You can choose one of them but…I use all 2 just because we never know if Adobe changes they’re mind about it and one of the ways stops working on next Adobe Reader DC release:

bUpdater	Disables the Updater and removes associated user interface items
Check	Specifies the default time interval in days to check for updates.
Mode	Specifies the Updater’s update mode (manual | automatic)

Now, for the registry keys (that you can apply using Group Policy Preferences for example) here’s what you need:

bUpdater

Path
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Policies\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\DC\FeatureLockDown\

Value Name
bUpdater

Value Type and Data
REG_DWORD = 0

Mode

Path
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Adobe\Adobe ARM\Legacy\Reader\{AC76BA86-7AD7-1033-7B44-AC0F074E4100}

Value Name
Mode

Value Type and Data
REG_DWORD = 0

Windows 10 v1803 Enterprise ISO Available Now Through Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center

There’s always a gap between Windows 10 Feature Updates launching and the availability of the ISO on VLS but Microsoft made available today through Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center Windows 10 v1803 Enterprise ISO.

So, go ahead and get it! :)

GPOs – Administrative Templates for Windows 10 v1803 (April 2018 Update) Available

And here are the new admx files for Windows 10 v1803 (April 2018 Update).
Administrative Templates (.admx) for Windows 10 April 2018 Update (1803)

Furthermore, you can find all you can configure with this admx and previous one’s using this guide:
Group Policy Settings Reference for Windows and Windows Server

Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) for Windows 10 Version 1803 Available

With the release of Windows 10 v1803, Microsoft also made available a new version of Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 10.

Before install it’s important to read “System Requirements” and “Additional Notes”.
Just to highlight some:

• You should uninstall previous installed RSAT version you have.
• If you find yourself with the DNS tools missing, you should install WS_1803 or WS2016 RSAT package.

So, go ahead and download the new RSAT for Windows 10 v1803 here:
Microsoft Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 10