Stop Chrome (or any app) from preventing Screen Locking and/or Screen Saver

A minor problem that has plagued me for some time, I would be done for the day, leave the home office, and yet hours later all 4 screens were still left on. I hate paying for the power to leave my screens on all night plus the fact it reduces the screens longevity. Most importantly, its a security issue. I want my computer to lock when I am not at it. Many times I press Win+L to lock but sometimes I forget.

I generally leave my security cams up on the top screen, and I was fairly sure Chrome has a way of telling Windows to not go to sleep because media was playing. Well, I was right.

Detecting the Issue

Simply run this command to see what is holding up the system:

powercfg /requests

Notice there under DISPLAY: that Chrome is playing video?

The Fix

The block Chrome from preventing the computer from sleeping simply run this command (change it from chrome to another app name if its not chrome):

powercfg -requestsoverride PROCESS chrome.exe awaymode display system

Enjoy,

-Eric

Windows Update Stuck on “Searching for Updates” on Windows Server 2012 R2

This one was a nightmare. If you search the internet for “Searching for Updates” you will find a lot of pages but none that I saw had this resolution.

In my case on my server the problem was actually related to Flash updates. After working with Microsoft Support it was discovered that a large number of pending Adobe Flash updates were causing the search to never finish so the fix was to manually update Flash.  This was done by installing KB3214628

Hope this helps someone else out, this took MS Support weeks to figure out.

-Eric

Fix | Windows 10, “the connection cannot proceed because authentication is not enabled”

Ah security, the balance between not allowing access at all and allowing too much access.

In Windows 10 Microsoft changed RDP’s defaults. They modified the default for “SecurityLayer” from 0 to 2. Even if you go into the user interface and disable: “Allow connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication (recommended)” Still doesn’t change that value to a 2.

Simple fix:

  1. Open RegEdit
  2. Navigate to this Key:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations\RDP-Tcp
  3. Change “SecurityLayer” to a zero
  4. Reboot and done!

Installing Windows 8 RTM to Apple Macbook Air (Boot Camp)

Hey everyone, I wanted to make a few notes to help others get Windows 8 running on their Macbook Air without it locking, freezing, or poor network performance.

First we should stop that whole freezing problem or you will get very upset in the middle of a driver install (been there.)

You need to open a command prompt as administrator. You can do this by clicking start, then typing “cmd” right clicking on the cmd icon and selecting “Run as Administrator’”

Once open run this command:

bcdedit /set disabledynamictick yes

For those who want to know what this does please check out this great post: http://www.withinwindows.com/2012/06/28/workaround-for-windows-8-freezing-issues/

Once installed you will need reboot then install the boot camp drivers. This is done by making the install disk in Apple OS (Mountain Kitty). THERE IS NO DOWNLOAD LINK FOR THIS! DARN YOU APPLE!!! WHAT A PAIN! /RANT OFF

Once you have the Boot Camp disk, copy the contents to a folder on your desktop. Right click on the setup.exe, go to the compatibility tab, then click “Change settings for all users” button on the bottom.

On the next screen change the  “run this program in compatibility mode for:” to Windows 7. Additionally check off the bottom box for “run this program as an administrator”.

Then click OK, then OK again, then run the setup.exe

Once installed go ahead and reboot. This should get you part of the way.

Don’t delete that BootCamp Install folder just yet, deep in there we need the following folder. Just be aware, we will use it soon.

\Drivers\NVidia\NVidiaChipset64

Now lets click the start button, type “device manager” and click the settings “thing” on the top right to discover the “device manager” icon from the remains of the control panel.

Once device manager is open we have a few things to do. First lets take care of those two peskey un-drivered devices “coprocessor” and “SM Bus”.

Right click on one at a time and update the driver. Direct Windows to that folder on the desktop for \Drivers\NVidia\NVidiaChipset64 (or 32 if you are running x86). This folder should be able to updated both missing drivers.

NEXT lets go ahead and change the WiFi driver back to the native Windows 8 driver (Bootcamp had replaced it with a lesser driver that has some issues only in windows 8.)

Simply find the Wireless Network Adapter, its something like “Boardcom 802.11n” right click then “update driver software”, then Search Automaticly for updated drivers.

Thank should do it. Go ahead and reboot one last time for good measure.

Hopefully that saves some of you some time. IF I have helped you all I ask in return is leave a comment and say so. I get a great kick out of it.

Cheers!

-Eric

Check Windows Machine Account Status / Reset Machine Password

Quick one for troubleshooting domain communications with a local machine.

Checks the domain a machine is registered to:

nltest.exe /parentdomain

Tests Machine Health with Domain Controller:

nltest.exe /sc_query:fqdn.domain.name

Reset Machine Password:

nltest.exe /sc_reset:fqdn.domain.name