How to deploy auto upgrade of Symantec Endpoint Clients?

Or, Schedule auto upgrade of SEP clients after upgrading the SEPM server.

Or, How to upgrade Symantec Endpoint Clients centrally across organization after upgrading SEPM server?

Scenario Descriptions: You want to upgrade Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1 clients after upgrading the Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager Server.

See Also: Upgrading Symantec Endpoint protection Manager 12.1.6 RU6 MP4 to 12.1 RU6 MP5

Steps:

1. Login to SEPM server > Go to Admin tab > Click on Install Packages

2. Click on Client Install Package > Select the Latest Package and version of the package you need (in my case, its Windows 64Bit) > Click on “Upgrade Clients with Package”

3. Click Next

4. Select the Appropriate package (Make sure its latest one) > Click Next

5. Select the AV Groups you want to cover in this auto upgrade (I have deselected my Server’s Group, as I will be doing it manually for some internal reasons) > Click Next

6. Check on “Download from the management server” > Click on “Upgrade Settings” > Do the settings you wish as per your organizational requirements > Click Next to proceed further.

7. If upgrade warning appears like below, Click on Yes > Click on Next

8. Click Finish

Cheers friends, Please write me back if you have any query or feed on this.

How to move pagefile from C:\ drive to other drive in Windows Servers?

Or, Moving pagefile to other drives in Windows Server 2012 R2.

Steps:

1. Go to Computer’s Properties

2. Click on Advanced System Settings

3. Click on Advanced Tab > Go to Settings

4. Click on Advanced Tab > Go to Change option

5. Remove Check Mark from “Automatically manage paging file size for all drives” > Select C:\ drive > Check Mark on “No Paging File” > Click on Set option > OK > Click on another Drive (D:\ or E:\ drive) > Check mark on System Managed size > Click OK > Reboot the server/system.

That’s it, you are done moving page file from C:\ drive to another Drive.

Decrypting BitLocker encrypted drive.

Or, How to Decrypt BitLocker encrypted drive?

Or, BitLocker Drive Decryption Process.

Steps:

Go to Control Panel > Open BitLocker Drive Encryption Console > Locate to C:\ drive > Click on “Turn off BitLocker”.

Follow the process as shown in below screenshots sequentially(for your reference):

How to change BitLocker AES 128Bit encryption method to AES 256Bit encryption method?

Or, How to change Default algorithm Supported by BitLocker Encryption.

Or, How to change Default encryption algorithm supported by BitLocker.

Or, How to change encryption algorithm or method supported by MS BitLocker?

Descriptions:

Microsoft BitLocker supports XTS-AES 128Bit encryption method by default.  Yes, it can be changed to AES 256Bit if you want it to be. The point you should note is, when you are making the changes to change the encryption method, this change will affect only to newly encrypted drives that has been encrypted after making the changes. Drives which were already encrypted will continue to use default encryption method.

If you wish to change the encryption method on already encrypted drive, you must first decrypt the drive and then perform the encryption again after making the changes in encryption method through local computer policies.

To change the encryption method from AES-128Bit to AES-256Bit, Please follow the below steps.

Steps:

Go to RUN > gpedit.msc > Computer Configuration > Administrative Template > Windows Components > BitLocker Drive Encryption > Choose the appropriate option as per your requirement (as highlighted in below screenshot):

Click on Enable > In the “Select the encryption method” option, Select AES 265-bit

Cheers, If you have any query or feedback, please write me back..

What is default encryption algorithm or method supported by MS BitLocker?

Or, Default encryption algorithm supported by BitLocker.

Or, Default algorithm supported by BitLocker Encryption.

Descriptions:

Microsoft BitLocker supports XTS-AES 128Bit encryption method by default. To see the encryption method you are using on your computer, you can run the below command:

--------------------------------------

>manage-bde -status

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Below is the reference screenshot, how its looks like:

How to schedule a windows service automatic restart?

Or, Schedule windows service restart.

Or, Windows service restart using Windows Task scheduler.

Descriptions:  To schedule a windows service restart, you first need to create .bat script suitable for windows task scheduler and then schedule this .bat script execution schedule using Windows Tasks Scheduler

My Scenario: I want to schedule automatic restart of windows update service.

Below are the steps:

1. Create a .bat file for service restart, please refer the article “http://www.techiessphere.com/2016/06/windows-service-restart-script-suitable.html” for creating this .bat script.

2. Go to Start > Search > Task > Task Scheduler

3. Click on Create Task

4. In General Tab, Name the task > Select the option “Run whether user is logged on or not” > Change user to Local Admin

5. In the Triggers Tab, Click on “New”

6. Select the settings and configurations as per your requirements

7. In the Action Tab, Click on “New”

8. In Action drop-down menu, Select  “Start a program” > Browse and select the script that you have created > Click on OK

That’s enough for creating a task schedule for restarting the service you need, but if you still want to look for any additional parameters to be defined in this task schedule, you may refer the “Conditions” and “Settings” Tab for more.

Windows service restart script suitable for Windows Task scheduler.

Or, How to create a Service Restart .bat script?

Or, .bat script for windows service restart.

Descriptions: To create .bat script suitable for windows task scheduler, first you need to have the service name and then write a small script for that service to be stopped and started.

My Scenario: I want to create a .bat script for restartig windows update services which should compatible to be executed manually by command prompt, by double click or by pointing in Task Scheduler Windows Task management console.

Below are the steps:

1. Go to Run > Services.msc > Search for the service Windows Update > Go to Properties of this service > Copy the name of the service as highlighted in red in below screenshot:

2. Now open a Notepad > Type the commands as shown in below screenshot.

{Net Stop “wuauserv”}

{Net Start “wuauserv”}

3. Go to File > Click on Save As > Give any name you want with .bat extension > in my case its “WindowsUpdateServiceRestart.bat”.

5. The .bat file script will look like below.

Now you can use this script as per the scenario explain above in this article. Let me know if you still need any help on this.. Cheers!

How to install VMware PowerCLI on Windows 7/10 computers?

Or, Installing VMware vSphere PowerCLI 6.3 on Windows 7 / Windows 10.

Or, Download VMware PowerCLI (VMware vSphere PowerCLI 6.3 Release).

Descriptions: To install VMware vSphere PowerCLI 6.3 on your windows 7 computer, you need have Windows Management Framework 3.0 installed first. Windows Management Framework 3.0 is not required to be installed separately if you are already on Windows 10 OS platform.

Prerequisites:

For Windows 7, you must install Windows Management Framework 3.0 before you proceed with PowerCLI 6.3 Installation.

For Windows 10, you can directly proceed with downloading and installing VMware vSphere PowerCLI 6.3.

PowerCLI Download URL:  

https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/get-download?downloadGroup=PCLI630R1

Steps (Windows 7 Computers):

1. Download and install Windows Management Framework 3.0

    You can download Windows Management Framework 3.0 from below Link:

    https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/download/details.aspx?id=34595

2. Download and Install VMware vSphere PowerCLI 6.3 Release 1

    To download vSphere Power CLI 6.3 (VMware vSphere PowerCLI 6.3 Release 1), please                   download it from below VMware Link (VMware portal login credentials required):

    https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/get-download?downloadGroup=PCLI630R1

    Run the Setup and Install PowerCLI.

Steps (Windows 10 Computers):

1. Download and Install VMware vSphere PowerCLI 6.3 Release 1

    To download vSphere Power CLI 6.3 (VMware vSphere PowerCLI 6.3 Release 1), please                   download it from below VMware Link (VMware portal login credentials required):

    https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/get-download?downloadGroup=PCLI630R1

Now you can open PowerCLI by going start > Select VMware vSphere PowerCLI > Run as administrator

Windows 7 Supports BitLocker Encryption?

Or, Does BitLocker work on Windows 7?

Or, How to use BitLocker on Windows 7 professional?

Or, BitLocker Drive Encryption option not found in Windows 7 Professional OS.

Descriptions:

BitLocker is not supported on Windows 7 Professional Operating System. To use BitLocker encryption, you must be using Windows 7 Ultimate or Windows 7 Enterprise.

You may refer below KB of Microsoft to know more about about BitLocker compatibility and configurations prerequisites.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd835565(v=ws.10).aspx

How to configure Automatic Scheduling for Disk Defragmentation in Windows Computers?

Or, Disk Defragmentation Schedule Configurations in Windows Computers.

Or, Set Automatic Disk Defragmentation in Windows computers.

Guys, there is way to configure Automatic Schedule of Disk Defragmentation Task in windows machines. Instead of doing it manually every time, you should go for this option to save your time and avoid missing the defragmentation task.

Steps:

Right Click on the Drive > Go to Properties > Tools > Defragment Now > Configure Schedule > Configure the Schedule at per your requirement.

Below are the reference screenshots given sequentially to help you with GUI view.

How to change Date/Time Format in Windows?

Or, How to change date or time display format of Windows computers digital clock?

Steps:

1. Go to notification bar area and click on the time section.

2. Click on “Change date and time settings”

3. Click on “Change date and time”

4. Click on “Change calendar settings”.

5. Select the appropriate date/time format and click on OK.

Any query or feedback, please write me back.. cheers!!!!

How to Delete Offline Files Cache Windows7?

In Windows 7 or Later Version there is no user interface to delete Offline Files cache (CSC cache).  The only way to delete cache is using registry key. Detail steps are given below.

1. Open Registry editor (Execute Regedit from Run window)
2. Traverse to the path path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Csc\Parameters 
3. If Parameters key does not exist under CSC you can create a new node with that name.
4. Now in the Parameters node create a new registry value with the name FormatDatabase of type REG_DWORD (i.e. DWord 32-bit value)
5. Set the data in this new registry value to 1.
6. Close registry editor.

Reboot the machine

The above steps can only be done from an administrator's account. We can do the above steps from command line too. For this you just need to run the below command from elevated administrator command prompt.
reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Csc\Parameters /v FormatDatabase /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

If you run the above command from a normal administrator command prompt you will get "Error: Access is denied" message.
Note that the 'Delete temporary files' button under the 'Disk Usage' tab in ’Manage Offline files' window is not meant for deleting offline files cache. Some people have the misconception that this deletes offline files cache. This is not true.

How to Clear Failed Update History of Windows Machines (Win7 Win8 etc...).

Steps:

1.       Open command prompt> Click Start, type cmd in the Start Search box and do “Run as Administrator”.

2.        If prompted by User Account Control, click Continue.

3.       Type "net stop WuAuServ" (without quotations) and hit Enter.

4.       Go to Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Datastore

5.       Locate the DataStore.edbfile. Right-click on the file, and "Rename" to "DataStoreold" (without quotations)

6.       Open command prompt again with administrative rights and do "net start WuAuServ" (without quotations) and press Enter to restart the Automatic Updates service. 

7.       Updates failure history is cleared (that’s all).

Cheers, your suggestions/feedback are always welcome!!