Mike's questions

I know that the old (Office 2021 and earlier) Outlook client stored signatures in %AppData%\Microsoft\Signatures.

Where does the new (post-2023) Outlook desktop client store its signature files?

I have an instance of SQL Server 2016 Reporting Services service running under DOMAIN\reporting$ containing a data source that needs to query a database using the stored credential DOMAIN\database$. Unfortunately when I store the gMSA credential and click Test Connection I get Log on failed. Ensure the user name and password are correct. It seems to work correctly if I use non-gMSA domain accounts. Is there any way I can use a gMSA as a stored credential in a SSRS data source?

Is the OST cache file created by Outlook encrypted? I understand that Outlook won't open the file unless it can connect to the user's Exchange account, but I'm wondering if there's a possibility that 3rd-party tools would be able to sift through it and recover anything. Should I store it on an encrypted drive for better security? Has anybody found official Microsoft documentation on this?

Our credit card processor recently notified us that as of June 30, 2016 we will need to disable TLS 1.0 to remain PCI compliant. I tried to be proactive by disabling TLS 1.0 on our Windows Server 2008 R2 machine, only to find that immediately after reboot I was completely unable to connect to it via Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). After some research, it appears that RDP only supports TLS 1.0 (see here or here), or at least it's not clear how to enable RDP over TLS 1.1 or TLS 1.2. Does anybody know a way to disable TLS 1.0 on Windows Server 2008 R2 without breaking RDP? Does Microsoft plan support for RDP over TLS 1.1 or TLS 1.2?

Note: There appears to be a way to do it by configuring the server to use the RDP Security Layer but that disables Network Level Authentication, which seems like trading one evil for another.

UPDATE 1: Microsoft has now addressed this issue. See the answer below for the relevant server update.

UPDATE 2: Microsoft has released a tutorial regarding SQL Server Support for PCI DSS 3.1.

I've set up a simple Azure Virtual Network (VN) consisting of a single domain controller and a few clients. Now I need to know how to configure the VN's DNS Server List. Here are the two options I've tried:

1. Make the DC the only IP in the list of DNS servers. Initially this seems like the most obvious way to configure the VN, but it appears to block outbound DNS, making the Internet basically inaccessible. From the command line of any VM in the VN, nslookup works against the DC but fails against any other DNS server, including Azure's built-in DNS. For all intents and purposes outgoing DNS appears to be blocked in this configuration.

2. Set the DC's IP first in the list, then Azure's built-in DNS. This approach allows outgoing DNS to Azure's built-in DNS from any VM in my VN, but it feels strange to set up my clients with two DNS servers, one of which is my DC and one of which is external to my network. Is this the way a domain should be configured?

Ideally, I'd like all the VMs in my VN to use my DC for DNS, and for the DC to forward unknown domains to Azure's built-in DNS server, but I can't seem to find a way to do that.

I have been running SonicWALL Global VPN v4.7.3.0403 on Windows 8 without trouble for more than a year. Today I upgraded to Windows 8.1 RTM and noticed that it disabled my Global VPN connection. I tried to repair the situation by uninstalling and reinstalling Global VPN, but that suddenly caused my computer to lose all network connectivity whatsoever. I uninstalled Global VPN again and connectivity was restored. At this point it appears that Global VPN v4.7.3.0403 is incompatible with Windows 8.1. Has anyone figured out a way to make it work?

Here are some links to others who appear to be having the same problem:

• Sonicwall Global VPN client connection error
• SonicWall VPN Virtual Adapter disabled by Installation of WIndows 8.1 (and cannot be reinstalled to work)

We're currently using Lync via Office 365 but we want the Persistent Chat feature. I don't think Office 365 supports this -- is it possible to add this capability by installing our own Lync server and somehow connecting it to Office 365 for authentication? Is this what a Lync Hybrid Deployment installation is for?

I'm getting the following event log entry from Sql Server 2012:

SQL Server Scheduled Job 'Replication agents checkup' - Status: Failed - Invoked on: 2012-08-04 10:00:00 - Message: The job failed. Unable to determine if the owner (AD\Administrator) of job Replication agents checkup has server access (reason: Could not obtain information about Windows NT group/user 'AD\Administrator', error code 0x6e. [SQLSTATE 42000] (Error 15404)).

I assume this is happening because Sql Server 2012 is using a Virtual Account that can't retrieve the active directory information it needs. From the Sql Server 2012 documentation:

Virtual accounts in Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 are managed local accounts that provide the following features to simplify service administration. The virtual account is auto-managed, and the virtual account can access the network in a domain environment. If the default value is used for the service accounts during SQL Server setup on Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows 7, a virtual account using the instance name as the service name is used, in the format NT SERVICE\(SERVICENAME). Services that run as virtual accounts access network resources by using the credentials of the computer account in the format (domain_name)\(computer_name)$.

So, the question is: How do I create permissions in my domain controller for the (domain_name)\(computer_name)$ user, and which permissions do I need to grant for Sql Server 2012 to be able to retrieve the information it requires? Or, do I need to switch to a Managed Service Account for this to work properly? Or, should I change the owner of the job to something else?

I am running IIS 7.5 on Server 2008 R2 virtualized on a Windows Core 2008 R2 server on Intel server hardware sitting behind a Sonicwall firewall.

For a number of months now, we've had a trickle of customers (maybe one per week) contact us to say that they can't access the website. When this happens I immediately start diagnosing the problem and here's what I find:

1. I can access the website.
2. Our support staff at other locations can access the website.
3. Presumably (because we don't hear from them), other customers can access the website.
4. The customer can ping and tracert to the server.
5. The customer cannot access other websites on the same server that share the same IP address.
6. The customer can access other websites on the same server that use different IP addresses.
7. iisreset does not resolve the problem.
8. Resetting the customer's router does not resolve the problem.
9. Flushing our firewall's ARP cache does not resolve the problem.
10. Changing the customer's browser and/or rebooting his machine does not resolve the problem.
11. Switching to a different computer behind the customer's router does not resolve the problem.
12. In 15 - 30 minutes the problem somehow magically resolves itself and the customer can once again access the website.
13. When it fails, the customer sees a timeout message and the IIS logs show no record of the request at all.

Other notes:

1. There doesn't seem to be a pattern as to which customers this problem affects.
2. We are not using load balancing.
3. Except for the firewall, there is no other security software/hardware in front of IIS.
4. The IIS VM has all the latest Windows Updates.
5. The Server Core installation has all the latest Windows Updates.
6. The Sonicwall is running the latest firmware.

Things I suspect may be the problem:

1. If the customer's browser was incorrectly resolving the DNS for the website that could cause all of the above problems. Next time it happens I'll use Fiddler to verify the IP address the browser is trying to connect to. Not sure why ping would then be able to resolve it correctly from the command line though.
2. Perhaps the Sonicwall is somehow blocking the connection. If this is the case, it is blocking only a specific source IP + destination IP + protocol, and only for 15 - 30 minutes. I do not have any of the Sonicwall's advanced filtering services licensed/activated. I can potentially test this theory by resetting the Sonicwall while the problem is happening, which is a bit of a scary proposition considering the other users accessing the server at the same time.
3. Perhaps the virtual network connection between Server Core (the host O/S) and Server 2008 R2 (the guest O/S) is somehow blocking the connection for some period of time. Not sure how I can test/diagnose this one.
4. Maybe some weird problem with the NIC drivers on the host machine? Not sure how to test this one either.

We have a SaaS application that we need to be highly available. We already have an expensive, well-maintained Hyper-V failover cluster, but today the datacenter where we host that cluster had a five-hour power outage that knocked us completely offline. So now we're wondering if a better approach might be to use servers at two separate datacenters. Assuming we get all the back-end file replication and data replication working between these two sites, we're wondering how to handle the front-end routing -- no wonder how we approach the problem, we always wind up with the load balancer being a single point of failure.

So the question is ... how can we set up load-balancing between two hosting sites such that the load balancer isn't the single point of failure? Is there a way to use two separate load balancers, one at each site? Should we be considering round-robin DNS?

I just installed Microsoft CRM 2011 on our webserver and I'm trying to get the CRM Outlook Plugin to authenticate to it. When I put in the server URL and click "Test Connection..." I get a dialog box that says "There is a problem communicating with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM server. The server might be unavailable. Try again later. If the problem persists, contact your system administrator." I am unable to proceed beyond this point.

Some background info:

1. The client machine I'm connecting from is not a member of the domain (I suspect this is the problem).
2. I am able to connect to CRM just fine via the web interface by specifying my credentials in the username/password box that pops up.

I have a strange intermittent connectivity problem happening about once every two weeks.

First my configuration: I am running a HyperV failover cluster with two physical hosts (node01 and node02). The hosts are both running Windows Server 2008 R2 HyperV server (the free one) with SP1. On those hosts I am running two VM's each running Windows Server 2008 R2 Web edition with SP1. My storage server is Windows Storage Server 2008 connected via iSCSI. Both hosts as well as the storage server are running the latest network drivers downloaded directly from Intel's website.

Here's the problem: 99.99% of the time, everything works perfectly. About once every two - three weeks, the VMs will both simultaneously lose network connectivity, both incoming and outgoing. When this happens,

1. I cannot RDP into either VM.
2. I can RDP into either host.
3. I can connect to either VM from the Failover Cluster Manager by right-clicking on the node and selecting 'Connect to Virtual Machine'
4. Once I connect to the VM as described in #3 above, I cannot get to any websites or machines on the LAN. Disabling and re-enabling the virtual network connection inside the VM doesn't fix the problem.
5. If I move the VM to a different node, that fixes the problem (for the next two weeks).
6. If I reboot the host and move the VM back onto it, that fixes the problem (for the next two weeks).
7. When this happens, the failover cluster does NOT automatically failover the VM.
8. There are no unusual event log entries on any of the hosts or VMs.

This has happened about 5 times with the same symptoms as described above. I suspect a network driver or network hardware issue, but since I'm already running the latest drivers I'm not sure what to do about it.

This is a real head-scratcher ... any ideas?

Update

I found a very similar case here: Virutal Machine loses network connectivity on Hyper V Cluster

Update 7/29/2011

After installing hotfixes and updating network drivers, I am still experiencing the same problem. In response to the comment asking for hardware details, the server is an Intel SR1670HV, which is 1U chassis containing two independent S5500HV motherboards. Communication is via the motherboards' integrated NICs which are Intel 82574L. The network driver is version 16.2.49.0.