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Clean up Windows 10 updates

Microsoft Windows 10 updates are trying it’s best to keep the user system protected, but user system drives are loosing about 5 GB-30 GB of their hard drive space. If you have a smaller drive and need to clean up Windows updates, you can by deleting old system files. You can also clean up old programs you no longer need and empty out recycle bin.

Here is example of about 100 GB drive and 35 GB taking up by Windows, it’s not all Windows update

How to clean up system files

Open Windows Explorer and right click on the system drive (normal default C drive), then select Properties (or you can search for “disk cleanup” or type in run command:cleanmgr.exe )

Then click on Disk clean up

Then click on Clean up system files

Then select the check box Windows update Cleanup then click on ok, that should give you back your hard disk space.

Here is couple different computer Windows 10 update clean up about 6 GB to 10 GB

That’s it, there are other check boxes you can check off to clean up more. You can click on each one it will give you more information about it, most if not all can be checked and clean out, unless you want for logs or recover your system.


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Increase allowed maximum attachment size

On exchange 2010 or may be applied to other versions of on-premise exchange. You have maximum attachment size setting to allow people to send to other users and there are many causes based on settings of, database, mailbox, email spam system, firewall, etc… Also, there is one more on Active sync, which is by default is 10 MB, so it does not matter, if you have allowed bigger attachment. When using the smartphone you will see the server rejected message when your attachment is larger than 10 MB.

You can Open the web.config settings of the Microsoft Active Sync

Then edit the httpRuntime maxRequestLength to whatever you like

After the change is been made, you will need to restart the IIS service to take effect of your new settings. Then you should be able to send bigger attachments from your smartphone. Some other things to be noted, if your mail server allowing bigger attachment that does not mean other mail server will accept bigger attachment. Most spam system scanner inside your attachments and can block if something inside attachment have strange type of content.


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System drivers updates tools from vendor

Most vendors have their own software to update their system drivers. Here I am going to list for Dell, HP and Lenovo. I am sure other vendor may have their own too.

Dell

It’s called Dell Command Update you can download it from Dell website https://www.dell.com

or You can also do via the website: https://www.dell.com
You will need to know your system service tag, then go to drivers
Then let the “Let us analyze your system to find the latest updates.” For you

HP

For HP it’s called: HP Support Assistant you can download from https://support.hp.com

Updated version

It may also have some other feature such as common troubleshooting

Lenovo

it’s called System updates: you can download it at https://support.lenovo.com

https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/thinkvantage_en/systemupdate5.07.0065.exe

There you have it, each vendor has it’s own tools to keep your system driver up to date.


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Clean up dead domain controller Windows 2012 R2

Many small companies have a small network and they have limited IT staff or manage IT services to take care of their network. I have seen old network devices, application, plan for cleaning up but it’s been forgotten which creates a problem in the future. The worse part is when the company doesn’t have a strict policy, budget or just don’t want to change, so things just build up until it reaches to a dead end. The domain controller is very important part of the network, if it keeps up to date and removed the old controller, then it could cause major issues. Here is how to clean up an old domain controller. Make sure you have a good backup and primary domain controller is a good healthy state.

Open Active Directory Users and Computers

Select domain>Domain Controllers>on right side it will list your domain controllers on the right side panel. You will see DC Type GC (Global Catalog) and Read-Only, GC Domain Controller.


Right click on the domain controller you want to delete, select delete. You will see confirmation screen select Yes

Select the options to clean up when your old domain controller deletes

Then it’s going to have confirmation and list of operations, based on your selection, once check then click OK

If your domain controller is part of GC, you will see: “This Active Directory Domain Controller is a global catalog“, before you click Yes, make sure you have at least one Global Catalog domain controller.

That will remove your old domain controller, then clean up any other metadata left around. If you have multi sites, open Active Directory Sites and Services: Sites>Delete old site

You will get Confirm Subtree Deletion message, click yes if nothing else is on that site

Then check your primary domain controller health and logs, to make sure everything is fine. Keep your eyes open on any application/services that may have any issues, it should not, but just in case. That’s it


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Encrypt TLS-SNI-01 validation is reaching end-of-life

If you are using Let’s Encrypt certification and have received an email to take action on renewal of your certificate.  That’s because lets Encrypt had announced last October 2018, that they will end support for TLS-SNI-01 validation method on February 13, 2019.  You need to update your ACME client to use an alternative validation method alternative validation method: HTTP-01, DNS-01 or TLS-ALPN-01. If no action taken you may have out-dated certificate for your domain.

To check your certbot version:

certbot –version

If have your server up to update, then the version should be 0.28.  If not you can upgrade your Certbot at https://certbot.eff.org/.   It will ask you to pick your software and system and it will give you detail documentation on how to upgrade, baased on your version of software/system.

To install for Apache, you can run this command:

sudo apt-get install python-certbot-apache

To test do a renewal dry run:

sudo certbot renew –dry-run

If everything goes well you should see Congratulation, all renewals succeeded, if it fails then you need to fix it. Take a look at log, firewall to make sure it’s not been blocked and try again.

Here is a link from Let’s Encrypt Community Support on How to stop using TLS-SNI-01 with Certbot Please update your server certificate to keep it secure.