Using the Reliability Monitor as a Lie Detector

There are some days that we feel like parents. Our kids come back with something expensive that we gave them and it is broke. They have no idea what happened to it. All they know is that they want you to either fix it or get them a new one. Being the superior support personnel we all are, we ask our usual round of questions only to get vague answers in return. What if I could tell you that you could eliminate the “What did you install/uninstall” question? How about even getting rid of the “Did anything crash” question? With the Reliability Monitor, you can.

Your start the reliability monitor by opening it as an MMC Snap-in. You can also click Start and type rel. At the top of the search results, right mouse click Reliability and Performance Monitor and select Run as Administrator. If you right mouse click Reliability and Performance, you can connect to that other user’s computer. Using the Reliability monitor, you can see when things went south on that client. You can see what crashed, what was removed and what was installed.

In this image of the System Stability chart, you can click on each day to see what went on. We had a pseudo way of doing this in XP with the System Restore Points. What you click through the System Restore calendar you got a little detail about what was changed that caused the restore point to be created. My personal record for dealing with a user who was not truthful is 2.5 days. Once I uncovered the truth, the problem was resolved in 20 minutes. Image the time, money and frustrations that we could have saved with this tool.

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Sticky Key problem between Windows Server 2012 and LogMeIn

This week I instructed my first class using Windows Server 2012 accessed via LogMeIn and discovered a Sticky Key problem every time you press the Shift key. Here is my solution to resolve this. First off, in the Preferences of LogMeIn for the connection to the Windows Server, click General . Change the Keyboard and mouse priority to Host side user and click Apply at the bottom. On the Windows 2012 server, open the Control Panel – Ease of Access – Change how your keyboard works . Uncheck Turn on Sticky Keys . Click Set up Sticky Keys . Uncheck Turn on Sticky Keys when SHIFT is pressed five times . Click OK twice. If you are using Windows Server 2012 as a Hyper-V host, you will need to redo the Easy of Use settings on each guest operating system in order to avoid the Sticky Key Problem. Updated Information: March 20, 2013 If you continue to have problems, Uncheck Turn on Filter Keys .

How to list all the AD LDS instances on a server

AD LDS allows you to provide directory services to applications that are free of the confines of Active Directory. To list all the AD LDS instances on a server, follow this procedure: Log into the server in question Open a command prompt. Type dsdbutil and press Enter Type List Instances and press Enter . You will receive a list of the instance name, both the LDAP and SSL port numbers, the location of the database, and its status.

How to run GPResult on a remote client with PowerShell

In the past, to run the GPResult command, you would need to either physically visit this client, have the user do it, or use and RDP connection. In all cases, this will disrupt the user. First, you need PowerShell remoting enabled on the target machine. You can do this via Group Policy . Open PowerShell and type this command. Invoke-Command –ScriptBlock {GPResult /r} –ComputerName <ComputerName> Replace <ComputerName> with the name of the target. Remember, the target needs to be online and accessible to you.

Jason Yoder, MCT

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