We recently enabled Bitlocker in the install process of all laptops in the company I work for, and everything seem to work fine..
However one of our local IT supporters had a problem preparing a new pc, the thing is that Bitlocker encrypts in the background so the installation continue even while bitlocker is encrypting – and here the problem arose, see Bitlocker is clever – it know that it is a waste to encrypt empty space so what it does is to start by reserving all but 6gb of diskspace (as seen below), Bitlocker now encrypts the USED part of the disk and then proceed to write garbage on the reserved portion of the disk (the “free” part) – once done it again free the reserved part and the entire free disk space is again available to the user.
Well it so happens that our IT Supporters sometime need to install additional software after the initial installation of windows, and then it may become a problem with the only 6gb free space.
What to do, well it is actually quite easy you just pause the encryption process which will free up the reserved part, and once done preparing the pc you restart the encryption process.
To pause the Bitlocker encryption you goto an elevated command prompt and type;
manage-bde –pause driveletter :
once done with whatever you needed done you restart the process with this command;
manage-bde –resume driveletter :
https://technet.microsoft.com/de-de/library/ee449438(v=ws.10).aspx#BKMK_FreeSpace
So you have installed a Microsoft KMS server, but it tell you that it cant serve your clients as the count is too little!?
See the thing is that Microsoft has decided, that in order to make a KMS server only work for corporations, a KMS server need to recieve a certain number of activation requests before starting to issue licenses. The idea is (from my understanding) that if some home user got his/her hands on a KMS server key he/she could not make the KMS server work as he/she did not have 25 machines (25 being the number of Windows 7 requests needed to jumpstart the KMS server for Winows 7), and hence a KMS server would only work for companies.
Well, in a perfect world (like the one Microsoft dream up) you would just wait, and eventually the count on your KMS servers would go up and the KMS would start activating clients – however if you like us have 2 kms servers and want to be sure both are working, well the wait approac was not my first choise as I would then need to revisit the process later to check up on it.
So what to do, well I googled it and found;
http://blog.thinkdigitalsolutions.com/manually-increase-kms-count/
They have a neat tool that seem to take care of this problem.
http://thinkdigitalsolutions.com/blog/files/IncreaseCount.zip
https://readmydamnblog.com/downloads/IncreaseCount.zip (Mirrored file)
The tool will actually submit enough key-activation requests to your server that it will start the activation process.
Now a cautious person may thing uhhh do I want to run some third party tool on my KMS server, hmm I would not – so I ofcause ran the tool on a non-admin workstation after checking on VirusTotal.com (it had a few hits on VirusTotal but I would expect this from a tool like this and no direct links to any know malware was found, so I my stomack said ok as long as it was run on a test machine as a non-admin).
https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/3b3eea879b5a35ac78afebb70406b6a95c42256d237ca49c5f7892ec73ecbd60/analysis/1430123999/
Worked like a charm, I could test both our KMS servers instead of having to wait.
Furthermore, check this site for some valuable debugging tips;
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee939272.aspx
Alternate solution (Script);
I afterwards found a different approach, a script that does more or less the same – quite clever if it works (I did not test this), but I dont see why it should not..
http://woshub.com/how-to-increase-kms-server-current-count/
Script below;
In the place where you run the script place two empty files;
7B296FB0-376B-497e-B012-9C450E1B7327-5P-0.C7483456-A289-439d-8115-601632D005A0
7B296FB0-376B-497e-B012-9C450E1B7327-5P-1.C7483456-A289-439d-8115-601632D005A0
— <SCRIPT – You need to modify it so it reflects your KMS server and the directory run in> —
@echo off
set skms=kmssrv1.woshub.com
for %%i in (. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .) do call :Act %skms%
slmgr /ato
sc stop sppsvc
goto :end
:Act
sc stop sppsvc
xcopy “7B296FB0-376B-497e-B012-9C450E1B7327-5P-0.C7483456-A289-439d-8115-601632D005A0” “%systemroot%\system32\*” /H /R /K /Y
xcopy “7B296FB0-376B-497e-B012-9C450E1B7327-5P-1.C7483456-A289-439d-8115-601632D005A0” “%systemroot%\system32\*” /H /R /K /Y
sc start sppsvc
cscript.exe “%systemroot%\system32\slmgr.vbs” /skms %1
cscript.exe “%systemroot%\system32\slmgr.vbs” /ipk FJ82H-XT6CR-J8D7P-XQJJ2-GPDD4
cscript.exe “%systemroot%\system32\slmgr.vbs” /ato
sc stop sppsvc
:end
Lync 2013 to become Skype for Business this month.
The Windows client for Lync will presumable be updated this month to Skype for Business as part of the regular Office 2013 updates. The update will add new functionality to Lync (Skype for Business) but will more importantly come with a slightly updated (and more Skype like) interface, acording to this blogpost. You may want to considder if you wish to control the deployment of this new client/layout as to not totally confuse your users in a corporate environment.
You should also be able to force a “Lync 2013” look-a-like look for Skype for Business, read more here;
https://technet.microsoft.com/library/dn954919.aspx
You can basically create a new “GroupPolicy Preference” that blocks the SkypeUI, and this sounds like the right approach as this would work from first launch where as the server patch will “only” display a user dialog offering users to switch back to the LyncUI.
Blogposting;
http://blogs.office.com/2015/04/01/whats-new-in-skype-for-business-and-how-you-can-take-control-of-updates/
YouTube video;