Y-U0003-DEL5 Dell Multimedia Keyboard - Media keys not working

q: Customer called with an issue where the multimedia keys on their Dell Y-U0003-DEL5 keyboard were not working. eg: next, mute, previous, etc.  This is on a new Windows 10 system.

a: We found this article that directed them to delete the "HID Keyboard Device" from Device manager, then either "scan for hardware changes" in device manager or unplug the usb keyboard and plug it back into the system. We performed the latter and they keys immediately started working.

UPDATE: That only worked for a short time. But it seems pressing CTRL or ALT and that multimedia button makes it work now. eg: CTRL+>>| (next)

fast.com helps you test your internet speeds

https://fast.com - alternative to speedtest.net hosted by NetFlix

https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/now-available-globally-fast-com-a-new-tool-to-check-your-internet-speed

Script to zip up logs to date named file

q: How can we run a script weekly/monthly to zip up log files on a windows server, using a batch script and have the file be named the server & today's date?

a: This .bat assumes (1) you have izarc & izarcl installed (2) you have d:\download\ folder (3) your log files are on d:\

REM Final revision
@echo off
For /f "tokens=2-4 delims=/ " %%a in ('date /t') do (set mydate=%%c-%%a-%%b)
Set myfilename=%COMPUTERNAME%-%mydate%
echo %myfilename%
"c:\Program Files (x86)\IZArc\IZARCC.exe" -m -r -P D:\Download\%myfilename%_logs.zip d:\u_ex*.log -$d:\Download

NOTE: again you might want to include this line at the end to empty the recycle bin:

rd /q /s d:\$RECYCLE.BIN

Microsoft releases post SP1 rollup to speed up fresh installs

A great article about Microsoft releasing a cumulative patch which makes fresh installs of Windows 7 faster.
http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-releases-convenience-rollup-update-for-windows-7-and-windows-server-2008-r2

It's available from the Windows Update Catalog (via IE).

Stop the Windows 10 Upgrade Prompts

q: How can we disable the Windows 10 Upgrade prompts?

a: There is a new application call GWX Control Panel that can quickly let you:

1. Disable Windows 10 Prompts
2. Disable OS updates through Windows Updates
3. Clear out the 4-6GB of files your computer probably already downloaded for the update.
4. Clear out your Windows Update Download folder to flush out any left overs.

It's a great app and we're very pleased with it.

Here is the Download page: http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/

Here is an article about how it works: http://blog.ultimateoutsider.com/2015/12/gwx-control-panel-17-user-guide.html

Standalone Executable http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/GWX_control_panel.exe

Online Responder Service failed to create an enrollment request

Q: The customer implemented an internal CA structure with an OCSP server.  After a few weeks they began getting these two errors in their Application Event Logs every few hours.

The Online Responder Service could not locate a signing certificate for configuration ******.(Cannot find the original signer. 0x8009100e (-2146889714))

The Online Responder Service failed to create an enrollment request for the signing certificate template OCSPResponseSigning for configuration *********.(This operation requires an interactive window station. 0x800705b3 (WIN32: 1459))

A: After weeks of arguing with Microsoft support we reached a fourth tech who immediately identified the issue.  It was a simple registry key.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Cryptography\ForceKeyProtection 

ForceKeyProtection has a value of 1.

They suggested we delete the key, reboot, reconfigure the OCSP server and they haven't seen the error since.

NOTE: You might have to check this setting. If there is a GPO used to enable it, you'll have to address that to keep the change permanent.  Otherwise that reg key will come back.

Security Settings>Local Policies>Security Options>"System Cryptography: Force Strong Key Protection for User Keys stored on the computer" 

HOW TO - Encrypt a file with OpenSSL

Q: A customer called today needing file encryption supported by FIPS 140-2.
We found GPG, an open source solution, was not supported according to the Cryptographic Modules list - http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/STM/cmvp/documents/140-1/140val-all.htm but OpenSSL was supported.

A: We suggested following the excellent instructions we found here to perform file encryption using OpenSSL.  We've duplicated the steps below with one minor change.  On the first step we recommended 2048 instead of 1024.

https://www.devco.net/archives/2006/02/13/public_-_private_key_encryption_using_openssl.php


1) Generate a public & private key and store it in private.pem:
openssl genrsa -out private.pem 2048

2) Extract the public key to a file public.pem:

openssl rsa -in private.pem -out public.pem -outform PEM -pubout

3) Create a bit of data to encrypt:

echo 'If you can read this, you've successfully decrypted the file" > file.txt

4) Encrypt the file:

openssl rsautl -encrypt -inkey public.pem -pubin -in file.txt -out file.ssl

5) Decrypt the file:

openssl rsautl -decrypt -inkey private.pem -in file.ssl -out decrypted.txt

6) Display the contents:

type decrypted.txt