Orchestrator – An Error Occurred Saving Activity to the data store

When trying to check-in a runbook that is being edited in Orchestrator you receive the following error message An Error Occurred Saving Activity to the data store. Please check the Orchestrator Management Service trace logs. This is usually caused by missing parameters in the Send Email activity and happens frequently when importing a runbook that has been …

Apple Calendar Spam

Despite being a Microsoft Engineer I use a Mac for daily tasks and development of scripts etc. thanks to virtualization. Lately I’ve noticed an increased Apple Calendar SPAM invites, on a daily basis I was getting 2 to 5 SPAM invites in my iCloud calendar from chines sites selling everything from watches to Raybans. I’ve …

Install SCOM 2016 Update Rollup 1 – Step by Step

In the previous article I have described the process to install SCOM 2016 , since that article was published Microsoft released update rollup 1 for SCOM 2016. In this article I will ilustrate the process to follow to instsall SCOM 2016 Update Rollup 1 on single or multi system SCOM deployment. [su_note note_color="#ffff96" text_color="#000000" radius="5"]Note: An …

Install SQL Server Tools on Linux

In the last article I have gone through the process of installing SQL Server on a Linux machine and connecting to the instance via SQL Management Studio. Of course SQL Server on Linux comes with a set of command-line tools and ODBC drivers that you can use for managing SQL and database instances, in this …

Install SQL on Linux

Microsoft recently made available SQL public preview of SQL Server for Linux. It is important to make it clear SQL on Linux is not a “light” SQL version but Microsoft’s goal is a fully featured SQL Server. In this article I will explore the process to Install SQL on Linux on an on-premises lab. Install …

Install SCOM Step by Step

Microsoft made System Center 2016 available so it is time to upgrade your lab and start playing with it. In this article I will illustrate how to install SCOM step by step. I will assume you already have deployed a server with SQL that will be used to host the SCOM database. You can refer to …

SCOM Service Accounts Creation Script

I often find myself in the need to install SCOM in my home lab environment and one step which really annoys me is SCOM Service Accounts Creation. I have developed a small script which will take care of the tedious task of setting up necessary service accounts and groups. <# .NOTES =========================================================================== Created with: PowerShell …

There are not enough GCs available – SCOM AD Management Pack

When using System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) to monitor Active Directory with Client Side monitoring the following warning could appear in the console AD Client GC Availability : There are not enough GCs available. There are fewer GCs configured than are specified as the minimum number of available GCs. Available GCs: 1 Minimum GCs: 3 …

Hyper-V VM Load Firmware Failed

I was deploying a new virtual machine in my lab to write an article and was in need of disabling Secure Boot. When I accessed the VM's properties the Load Firmware Failed error message was displayed in the settings page The easy and dirty workaround to this error message is deleting the boot files which but as …

Export Mailbox Content in Date Range with non US Locale

In this  article I have described how you can use PowerShell to export mailbox content in a date range but as correctly user Gavin commented: This doesn’t work if you are using any other regional date format than the US format. The statement is absolutely accurate as in the post I forgot to mention that no matter …