Windows Update Error 0x8024402C in Windows 7, 8, 2012, 2008 R2, Vista

Windows Update Error 0x8024402C in Windows 7, 8, 2012, 2008 R2, Vista

Windows Update Error 0x8024402C occurs when running windows update and you try to connect to the Windows or Microsoft Update Website.

Please see this post for an overview of how to troubleshoot Windows Updates: How to Troubleshoot Windows Update Issues

if you view the logs located at: %windir%\windowsupdate.log you may also see this error present like this:

FATAL: SelfUpdate check failed, err = 0x8024402C

2013-05-11 11:41:27:095 1208 2344 Agent  * WARNING: Skipping scan, self-update check returned 0x8024402C

2013-05-11 11:41:27:095 1208 2344 Agent  * WARNING: Exit code = 0x8024402C

This issue is commonly caused by Firewall Settings not being correctly set within Internet Explorer. There are 3 ways in which you can attempt to correct this error:

Method 1:

Download and run the Microsoft Windows Update Readiness Tool located at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947821 . If this fails to solve the issue then please try one of the other methods.

Method 2:

This Method is for if you ar ein a corporation or campus that uses a Proxy Server.

1. Open Internet Explorer and go to Tools -> Internet Options
   
2. Click on the Connections Tab, select LAN Settings and choose OK
   
3. Choose the Advanced Button
4. Clear any entries under the exceptions window and choose OK
   
5. Open a command prompt:
1. In Windows 7, Vista, 2008 either:
1. Go to start  chose run and type in cmd and press OK . Or:
2. Type command prompt into the search bar in the start menu
   
2. In Windows 8 
1. Go to the Start Screen and type command prompt. This will open a search screen where you can then select command prompt from the right hand side
   
6. in the command prompt window, enter the following pressing Enter After each command
1. netsh winhttp reset proxy
2. net stop wuauserv
3. net start wuauserv
   
7. restart the computer and try and install updates again

Method 3:

1. Open Internet Explorer
   
2. Go to Tools -> Internet Options
   
3. Click on Connections -> LAN Settings
   
   
   
   
4. Select Automatically Detect Settings 
   
5. Choose OK
6. close and re open Internet Explorer and try installing updates again.

Delegate Authority in AD to add and remove computers

Delegate Authority in AD to add and remove computers

Delegation of Authority in AD is a good idea to manage the level of access given to technicians. Normally, authenticated users within the AD environment (i.e users) can add up to 10 machines to a domain. after this, the privilege is revoked.

When configuring these settings, it is advisable to set only on the OU's that you wish to delegate the authority on. Many times, its too easy to just want to save time and effort and set this at the top level of the domain, however this will come back to bite you big time if your help desk lackey deletes your domain controllers......

In order to configure the delegate authority to add and remove AD computers do the following:

1. Open up AD users and computers and navigate to the OU that contains the workstations / servers that you wish to delegate. 
2. Right click on the OU and select Delegate Control
3. click Next past the welcome screen
4. select the group  you wish to delegate access too, e.g. a group named helpdesk or level1_techs etc.
5. choose create a custom task to delegate and choose Next
6. select only the following objects in the folder and then select Computer Objects as well as the tick boxes Create selected objects in this folder and Delete Selected objects in this folder. Choose Next
7. In the Permissions window, select:
1. Create all Child Objects
2. Delete all Child Objects
3. Read All Properties
4. Write All Properties
5. Change Password
6. Reset Password
7. Validated Write to DNS Host Name
8. Validated Write to Service Principal
8.  Note that several other sub settings will be enabled after choosing the above settings. Leave these as they are and choose Next
9. Choose Finish to finalize the settings.

And that's it! As always, you should now thoroughly test these settings prior to distributing to them the required users to ensure that they have the required level of permissions (ie not too many and not too few). an easy way to test this would be to get the user to add or re add a workstation to the domain.

of course there are several other things you can do with delegation of authority including assigning permissions for user creation many other settings.

The above article discusses how to delegate authority in a Windows Active Directory domain for adding and removing workstations or computers.

This article can also be located on our sister site DizzyIT.com at http://dizzyit.com/2013/05/23/delegate-authority-ad-add-remove-computers/

Allow Remote Desktop or Remote Assistance Connections through Windows Firewall

Allow Remote Desktop or Remote Assistance Connections through Windows Firewall

To Connect to a remote session, the receiving computer must be able to communicate with your computer. In order to do this, you or the administrator may need to open a port in the firewall to allow this connection to happen. This is a common pain point and something that many administrators forget to do from time to time! When you choose to Enable a remote desktop Connection, the system may do this for you, however this is not always the case. Luckily, its quite simple to allow a remote desktop connection through the Windows Firewall:

1. Open Control Panel and Choose Windows Firewall
2. In the top left hand corner choose Allow a program or Feature through Windows Firewall
3. you are now presented with a list of programs. Scroll down to R where you will see 3 options pertaining to Remote Desktop / Assistance:
1. Remote Desktop - Choose this to allow remote Desktop Services
2. Remote Assistance - Choose this to allow shared screen remote assistance to your machine
3. Remote Desktop - Remote FX - this is a Windows 7 Service Pack 1 / Server 2008 R2 and later feature that provides a rich desktop experience for features like sound and graphics.
4. Choose the options pertaining to you by ticking the box in the connections you will allow this for ( Domain, Home / Work, Public)
5. Choose OK
6. you have now allowed remote desktop and / or remote assistance connections to your computer. to disable this, just un tick the boxes you have ticked in the firewall.

To Connect to a Remote Desktop Computer

To Connect to a Remote Desktop Computer

1. To open a remote desktop connection, either:
1. go to Start then Run and enter mstsc and press OK
2. go to Start, All Programs, Accessories, Remote Desktop Connection
3. In the Computer field, enter the Computer Name or IP Address of the computer you wish to connect to. If you are unsure of what this is, a few simple ways to find out are (these are done on the remote computer)
1. ask your administrator / help desk / remote desktop provider for the address needed
2. Open a Run Command (go to Start and Run or Windows Key + r), enter ipconfig  and look for the IPAddress field. you may need to scroll up to see this. you may also, depending on the configuration have a couple to choose from.
3. open a Run Command (start and Run or Windows Key + r) and when presented with the black DOS screen, enter hostname. This is the name of the computer.
4. You can chose the Options button to set parameters such as connection profile, display properties, whether to run specified programs, connection bandwidth and more, however this is optional
5. choosing Connect will initiate the connection.
6. you may be prompted for the log in credentials of a user on the remote machine that is allowed connection, enter these details here.
7. You should now have established a remote desktop connection to another computer

Enable a Remote Desktop Connection

Enable a Remote Desktop Connection

Remote Desktop allows you to connect to a computer over a network and utilize it as if you were sitting in front of it at the terminal. This is different to Remote Assistance which is a shared interactive experience used primarily for support purposes. In most versions of windows clients, only a single user may connect at a given time to a computer. This is different in Server installations, where a maximum of 2 remote connections are Nativity supported, and Terminal Servers where hundreds to thousands of remote clients can be supported. To enable Remote Desktop in a Windows Client:

1. Open Control Panel, then navigate to System choose Advanced System Settings and choose the Remote tab
2. In the second half of the page, you see Remote Desktop and have 3 options, choose the 1 most relevant to you. Choosing option 2 will be the most "user friendly" solution. If in doubt, consult your organisations security policy.
1. Dont Allow Connections to This Computer - This prevents all users from establishing a remote desktop connection with your computer. This is the most secure setting.
2. Allow connections from computers running any version of remote desktop - This setting is the most generic, and most commonly used. It allows almost all Windows based remote desktop clients to Connect
3. Allow connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication - This setting means that only computer that have Network Level Authentication enabled will be able to connect. This setting is most common in well structured corporate environments
3. Choose Select Users. Here you enter the users that you want to have access to your computer. The user currently logged in is normally automatically added, as are Domain Administrators in a network Environment. Choose the user / group that you would like to have access and choose OK  and OK again to exit
4. you have now enabled remote desktop on your computer. please note that you may need to open a firewall rule in order to access the desktop remotely. 

Enable a Remote Assistance Connection

Enable a Remote Assistance Connection

Remote Assistance will allow select individuals (those that you or your organisation allows)  to connect to your computer to collaborate or solve issues that you may be experiencing. This is an interactive experience in contrast to Remote Desktop, which forms a remote terminal style connection with an individual user having sole control of the desktop environment. To Enable Remote Assistance you:

1. Open Control Panel, then navigate to System choose Advanced System Settings and choose the Remote tab
2. At the top of the page, you will see Remote Assistance. Tick the box  Allow Remote Assistance Connections to this computer then click apply. 
3. Choose the Advanced Button.
4. If you want to allow your computer to be able to be controlled remotely then tick the box Allow this computer to be controlled remotely
5. The Invitations box allows you to choose the amount of time a remote assistance request remains valid. For Security reasons, its better to keep this number shorter than longer.
6. Choose OK
7. you have now enabled remote assistance on your desktop. Please note that you may also need to open a port in your firewall to allow these connections through. 

Set up Remote Desktop Connection in Windows

Set up Remote Desktop Connection in Windows

Remote Desktop Connections allow you to connect to a computer from another, and interact with the desktop and installed software as if you were sitting in front of the remote computer. This article will show you a few ways to enable this in both Windows 7 and Windows 8

Enable a Remote Assistance Connection

Remote Assistance will allow select individuals (those that you or your organisation allows)  to connect to your computer to collaborate or solve issues that you may be experiencing. This is an interactive experience in contrast to Remote Desktop, which forms a remote terminal style connection with an individual user having sole control of the desktop environment. To Enable Remote Assistance you:

1. Open Control Panel, then navigate to System choose Advanced System Settings and choose the Remote tab
2. At the top of the page, you will see Remote Assistance. Tick the box  Allow Remote Assistance Connections to this computer then click apply. 
3. Choose the Advanced Button.
4. If you want to allow your computer to be able to be controlled remotely then tick the box Allow this computer to be controlled remotely
5. The Invitations box allows you to choose the amount of time a remote assistance request remains valid. For Security reasons, its better to keep this number shorter than longer.
6. Choose OK
7. you have now enabled remote assistance on your desktop. Please note that you may also need to open a port in your firewall to allow these connections through. For information on how to do so, click here:

Enable a Remote Desktop Connection

Remote Desktop allows you to connect to a computer over a network and utilize it as if you were sitting in front of it at the terminal. This is different to Remote Assistance which is a shared interactive experience used primarily for support purposes. In most versions of windows clients, only a single user may connect at a given time to a computer. This is different in Server installations, where a maximum of 2 remote connections are Nativity supported, and Terminal Servers where hundreds to thousands of remote clients can be supported. To enable Remote Desktop in a Windows Client:

1. Open Control Panel, then navigate to System choose Advanced System Settings and choose the Remote tab
2. In the second half of the page, you see Remote Desktop and have 3 options, choose the 1 most relevant to you. Choosing option 2 will be the most "user friendly" solution. If in doubt, consult your organisations security policy.
1. Dont Allow Connections to This Computer - This prevents all users from establishing a remote desktop connection with your computer. This is the most secure setting.
2. Allow connections from computers running any version of remote desktop - This setting is the most generic, and most commonly used. It allows almost all Windows based remote desktop clients to Connect
3. Allow connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication - This setting means that only computer that have Network Level Authentication enabled will be able to connect. This setting is most common in well structured corporate environments
3. Choose Select Users. Here you enter the users that you want to have access to your computer. The user currently logged in is normally automatically added, as are Domain Administrators in a network Environment. Choose the user / group that you would like to have access and choose OK  and OK again to exit
4. you have now enabled remote desktop on your computer. please note that you may need to open a firewall rule in order to access the desktop remotely. for information on how to do so, click here: 

To Connect to a Remote Desktop Computer

1. To open a remote desktop connection, either:
1. go to Start then Run and enter mstsc and press OK
2. go to Start, All Programs, Accessories, Remote Desktop Connection
3. In the Computer field, enter the Computer Name or IP Address of the computer you wish to connect to. If you are unsure of what this is, a few simple ways to find out are (these are done on the remote computer)
1. ask your administrator / help desk / remote desktop provider for the address needed
2. Open a Run Command (go to Start and Run or Windows Key + r), enter ipconfig  and look for the IPAddress field. you may need to scroll up to see this. you may also, depending on the configuration have a couple to choose from.
3. open a Run Command (start and Run or Windows Key + r) and when presented with the black DOS screen, enter hostname. This is the name of the computer.
4. You can chose the Options button to set parameters such as connection profile, display properties, whether to run specified programs, connection bandwidth and more, however this is optional
5. choosing Connect will initiate the connection.
6. you may be prompted for the log in credentials of a user on the remote machine that is allowed connection, enter these details here.
7. You should now have established a remote desktop connection to another computer

Allow Remote Desktop or Remote Assistance Connections through Windows Firewall

To Connect to a remote session, the receiving computer must be able to communicate with your computer. In order to do this, you or the administrator may need to open a port in the firewall to allow this connection to happen. This is a common pain point and something that many administrators forget to do from time to time! When you choose to Enable a remote desktop Connection, the system may do this for you, however this is not always the case. Luckily, its quite simple to allow a remote desktop connection through the Windows Firewall:

1. Open Control Panel and Choose Windows Firewall
2. In the top left hand corner choose Allow a program or Feature through Windows Firewall
3. you are now presented with a list of programs. Scroll down to R where you will see 3 options pertaining to Remote Desktop / Assistance:
1. Remote Desktop - Choose this to allow remote Desktop Services
2. Remote Assistance - Choose this to allow shared screen remote assistance to your machine
3. Remote Desktop - Remote FX - this is a Windows 7 Service Pack 1 / Server 2008 R2 and later feature that provides a rich desktop experience for features like sound and graphics.
4. Choose the options pertaining to you by ticking the box in the connections you will allow this for ( Domain, Home / Work, Public)
5. Choose OK
6. you have now allowed remote desktop and / or remote assistance connections to your computer. to disable this, just un tick the boxes you have ticked in the firewall.

Enable Fast Startup in Windows 8

Enable Fast Startup in Windows 8

Fast Startup is a Windows 8 feature that allows you to boot your PC / Laptop much faster than was available in Windows 7. This is accomplished by utilizing the hibernation file as a boot source,instead of the system needing to initialize and load drivers, services etc which take considerable more time. The below graphic illustrates this:

As with any new feature in operating system, some  people are reporting that there is some system instability associated with this feature such as hung start ups and BSOD. This is especially true in dual boot set ups. If this is your case then i would recommend that you disable this feature and see if this settles down the behavior. If the problem goes away, then its also possible to re enable in the future and see if the problem re emerges.

Enabling Fast Startup using Microsoft Windows System Settings

1. Log into Windows using an Administrator Account
2. Open The Control Panel and choose Power Options
3. On the left hand side menu is a link labeled Choose what the power buttons do. Choose this link.
4. towards the top of the screen, select/click change settings that are currently unavailable. You may receive a UAC prompt here, if so choose "Yes"
5. Towards the bottom of the page is a heading called Shutdown settings. under this is the option Turn on for fast startup. Select (tick) this check box to enable Fast Startup on the machine. 
6. Choose Save Changes to finalize these Settings.

NOTE: the Fast Startup settings may not appear of hibernate has been disabled. Enabling Hibernate will make the Fast Startup option 

KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR Blue Screen BSOD in Windows 8

KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR  Blue Screen BSOD in Windows 8

The KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR in Windows 8 blue screen tends to occur on a cold bootup, and will cause the machine to loop and reboot.

Commonly, the KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR is caused by a driver issue, or an issue with the MBR and is especially prevalent in systems that have slightly older hardware, such as those that have been upgraded from Windows 7.

To fix this issue, firstly you should consult the manufacturers site of your computer and ensure that you have the latest approved drivers for your system.

After this has been done,  boot the machine into Safe Mode (start pressing F8 when the computer is turrned on, you will be given a menu list, just choose safe mode). from here open a command prompt (easiest way is to go to the start menu and type cmd into the keyboard.

Once you have the command prompt open, you run a checkdisk program to find and fix errors in the MBR. the command to enter into the back command prompt is chkdsk /f /r which should identify and fix any errors on the disk. Often You will be prompted that chkdsk needs to be run on a restart and would you like to continue? choose y to do so

Hopefully this will help solve your KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR blue screen issues!

This article can also be found on our sister site DizzyIT.com at: http://dizzyit.com/2013/05/05/kernel_data_inpage_error-blue-screen-bsod-windows-8/

IE 10 Group Policy Settings in Windows 8

IE 10 Group Policy Settings in Windows 8

If you are running a 2008 or 2003 Domain, the group policy settings for Internet Explorer 10 are missing. In Fact, several Windows 8 options are not present if you look hard enough.

In order to leverage the Group Policy options available in Windows 8 and Internet Explorer 10 you need to Install Microsoft Remote Administration Tools (RSAT) available here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=28972 . After you install this tool, you connect it to your 2008 Domain Controller and the Windows 8 Options will be available to you.

This Article can also be found on our sister site DizzyIT.com at: http://dizzyit.com/2013/05/05/10-group-policy-settings-windows-8/

Remove Burn Button in Windows Explorer

Remove Burn Button in Windows Explorer

You may want to remove the Burn button in Windows Explorer for a variety of reasons including security ( not allowing staff to burn in a secure Windows Environment) through to the fact that it just gets in the road. The Burn icon in Windows Explorer is shown below:

The good news is that its very easy to remove with some knowledge on how to manipulate the registry.

1. open the start menu and enter regedit either in the search bar of Windows 7 or just type it into the start menu on Windows 8. 
2. Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer .
3. right click in the white pace in the right hand window and choose new then Dword
   
4. name the dword NoCdBurning and set the Value to 1
   
5. Close the registry editor and restart the computer.

The above article details how to remove the Burn icon from Windows Explorer.