Repair Windows 10 with DISM command in command prompt

Windows 10 while it is running you can check and fix components and the component store. (this goes far beyond of the capabilities of SFC.exe)

Instructions:

a. Start cmd.exe from start menu with right click as Admin (very important!)
b. Or Win + X Command Prompt (Admin)

You see now in the command prompt: C:\Windows\system32\

1. Check if errors are in the registry:

Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth

2. Check if errors are in Windows Components Store

Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth

3. Repair the registry and component store (you need online connection to Windows Update!)

Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

If the repair is done you can double check with no2. again (/ScanHealth option)

If there are still errors you can use the components from the ISO media or the installation DVD:

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth /source:wim:C:\install.wim:1 /limitaccess

ATTENTION you may need to adjust /source:wim:C:\install.wim:1
Probably the C: is  not the drive to the install.wim. It might be e.g. D:\sources\install.wim

Also make sure that you use the same ISO as you have as OS installed.
Simply open winver.exe to check the version of the OS.

If you need the media as you have no media. You may download it here. This also allows you to upgrade to a newer version if you are running an older one.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

 

How to check for generic devices in Windows

When you check your computer management console in devices you may find something like this here:

to get more arround this you should open the properties of this device and check:


1. Click on Details
2. Select under Properties "Hardware IDs"
3. Now you should see something like this here:
(As my own notebook is missing the unknown device I just used the properties of another device. But it is the same procedure and does not matter if the device is known or unknown).

Here the stuff after PCI\VEN is the key. In PCI language this is the manufacturer code of the device. This is what we need:


PCI\VEN_10EC&DEV_5227(ignore the rest for now)


VEN = Vendor ID = 10EC (as example in relation to the picture above!)
&DEV = Device ID = 5227 (as example in relation to the picture above!)


Know you are looking in a web database for its meaning.


Visit www.pcidatabase.com and check seach in the Vendor field for: 10EC or the Vendor in your case which may vary (e.g. 8086)

After you found the manufacturer you can click on its name.

This brings you to this Website where you have a list of all known Device IDs from the manufacturer.

Please Keep in mind that this list is not sorted.

Therefore please use CTRL+F and use the search function of your browser to look for the device ID (in my example I would look for 0x5227  (0x which tells you and the System it is hex-decimal number).

When you know what is the right Vendor and device you have a good Chance to identify the right driver on the vendors support page.


This here is a 90% solution. There is also a chance that the device is either not in this list or the vendor does not provide a Driver for your OS.


Depending on the Driver it might be that a Windows 7 or 8/8.1 Driver might also work on Windows 10. Some Driver types have an unchanged Driver model behind. But it allways depend. Try out the new Driver. Just in case you are able to rollback to the driver before.

Good luck!

Azure transfer of administrative user to organizational user (Azure AD synced account)

I had recently a customer they played around with Azure RMS. We used a trial account with a Microsoft Account (azureadminCUSTOMER@live.com) this becomes in the Azure Default Directory the user azureadminCUSTOMERlivecom.onmicrosoft.com.

No wonder that the customer was not happy with this username to administer his Azure tenant. It created some headache and many discussions with many People at MS.

And dont believe that everybody there is on the same level and topic a subject matter expert. It may take some time to reach out to the right people.

Finally I found the right distribution list to ask excactly for this topic. And guess what. It is definitelly possible to move your Azure admin account to an organizational Account (local AD synced with Azure Active Directory).

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/billing-subscription-transfer/?rnd=1

Azure payment via Invoicing

I had recently a customer they dont want to pay Azure with credit Card. Instead they want to use invoicing. To make this happen, simply follow the steps described here:

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/invoicing/

Biometric Windows Hello also with Surface PRO3 (workaround)

Users of Surface Pro 3 may be very disappointed as they have no chance to use their face for logon simplification. As there is no Windows Hello camera integrated.


But recently MS released the new TypeCover for Surface Pro4 with Fingerprint Reader which gives you a great Chance still to use Windows Hello.

Just to clarify in "Windows Hello ready" devices mostly the Intel Realsense camera is used for 3D face recognition. A normal camera does not work for this feature as you need the 3rd dimension information just cameras like these create.

This is also the reason why "just a picture" does not work.
Also cut off the head does not work either. Just to make clear we did not tried that! :-)


But the Realsense technology take advantage of infrared light processing as well.

When you have a Surface Pro4 then Microsoft uses it's own camera sensor which is comparable with the Intel Realsense camera. There you Can use for Windows Hello logon your face.

But Windows Hello is not limited to this.

You can use also other biometric informations for Windows Hello as well. Here Comes the new keyboard into Play. The Keyboard is compatible for Surface PRO 3 and PRO4.

When you connect this great new keyboard with Fingerprint Reader with your Surface Pro3 (at least the typing experience alone is worth the money compared to the old one!) then you have all you need to run also Windows Hello.

And now you just need your finger to logon. :-)

Just to clarify. I was not sponsored from MS to write this blog. Nor I get an typecover upfront for writing this article. :-)

FIX: Startmenu and Cortana not working

Last weekend one of my friends had trouble with Startmenu and Cortana. Both were not working. He tried all the different fixes he found in the internet. None of them where working. There was one of them with a powershell command to re-register the Startmenu but even this was not working after a reboot either.

But we found the ultimate solution which is also very easy to implement.

Its important to know the root cause for this issue. For some reason the user profile got corrupted during a wrong situation (e.g. through powerloss in the wrong moment, AV scanner issues, etc.)


(If it reappears after this fix here the chance is high you have issues with your AV scanner. Remove it and use another one. If you did not use any other AF than Windows defender will kick in after 3 days to make sure that your machine is at least protected with him. And Windows Defender is now better than its reputation).

The good message its easy to recover without data loss. (This here worked at least in V1511 (Build 10.10586))


#### UPDATE 1 from March 19th 2016 ####

There are a couple other considerations arround I found:

1. Also 3rd Party add ons may corrupt Start Menu (check taskbar)
    Some found e.g. that dropbox application ("which officially was stated as Win10 compatible") caused this and they had to remove it!

2. Also other antivirus solutions may cause this (as referred above)

3. Let run in admin cmd: sfc.exe /SCANNOW to check for OS integrity

4. Also just try a regular reboot through: shutdown.exe /f /r /t:0
    (This was once the key on my wifes Dell Venue pro 8. My 2nd Account solution here did not worked with her. The 2nd Account also did not Show up the start menu right away. Simply the reboot fixed it. It seems there was some os config pending in the Background waiting for a regular reboot.)

#### UPDATE 1 END ####


1. Do a backup of your profile documents you want to keep.
(e.g. C:\Users\USERNAME\documents, videos, music, favorites, etc.) 
VERY IMPORTANT as we will delete your whole profile !!!
WIN key + E opens the explorer

If your current user is setup with the Microsoft account and you let the express settings then all your profile setup is synced to OneDrive. This helps a lot! Your settings get automatically reapplied when logging in first time when your account get recreated. You still need to backup your personal files!

2. Create a second user which has admin rights (now it becomes a little bit tricky, how to access the settings when Start, Cortana and Action center wont work)

  A. Right click taskbar on an empty space --> Click on "TASKMANAGER" to open it.
  B. In Taskmanager --> Click File --> Click "RUN NEW TASK"
  C. In Run new task type in: lusrmgr.msc and press ENTER
  D. Click on "Users"
  E. Right click in the middle pane to add a "New User ..."

4. Then add to this new local user the administrators group.

  A. Double click on the new created user
  B. Click on "Member of" tab.
  C. Click on "Add"
  D. Type in "Administrators"
  E. Click on "Check names"

Now you should logout and login with the new user.

5. Now we need to delete the old user.

  A: Open elevated Command Prompt.

  B: Type the following Command and hit enter key:

  net user username /delete

  wait until the command finished successfully

(replace “username” with the user account name which you would like to delete)

6. Reboot the system and login again with the new local user

7. Recreate the original user

  A. Right click taskbar --> Click on "TASKMANAGER" to open it.
      (Alternate shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + ESC)
  B. In Taskmanager --> Click File --> Click "RUN NEW TASK"
  C. In Run new task type in: ms-settings:otherusers and press ENTER
  D. Click in "Other users" on "Add someone else to this PC"
       Here add your original Microsoft account you used before.
       If you used "express settings" initially on the system setup
       then your settings would sync back from OneDrive :-)

8. Reboot and enjoy your recreated profile.
9. OPTIONALLY: Copy back your backup files from step 1 if you made a backup of your documents, videos etc.

And actually that's it!

Enjoy your recreated profile.

Move on to EDGE: How to import IE favorites in Edge

As time goes by Edge gets better and better. Soon the additional addons arrive.
And from speed perspective I really love Edge. He is much faster and smoother then IE.

I know not yet everything works. But from build to build I see more improvements.

That drove me to the descision to move on with EDGE first and only switch back to IE when needed.

You can simply control the default URL handler behaviour with the IE Enterprise Mode that let even control which URL is opened with which browser. But this will be another blog post.

This blog is really about the way to import IE favorites into Edge.
And now it is really simple to do that.

See here the simple steps:

Click on HUB and then on FAVORITES SETTINGS

 

 

Then Click on IMPORT

 

finally you see all the imported favorites.

 

Sometimes it is necessary to close and reopen the browser to see the full list of imported favorites.

Checkout soon for the next Edge related blog