Fix for windows clients are searching for updates forever.  According to my investigation, most of times this issue begins after installing  KB2919355 update  & this is affected for wsus clients & both direct download updates from Microsoft web site. This is not an issue with wsus server. once we click on check for updates in control panel windows update, we can see it is searching for updates forever & nothing other than. Checking for updates forever If you are using wsus server to deploy updates to client computers, you can see following errors in the wsus console. This computer has not reported status yet This computer has not reported status in xxx or more days. Solution steps Restart windows update service Download & install following windows update from Microsoft web site  KB3102812 . After reboot client computer stop Windows Update Service & Windows Modules Installer service. delete C:\Windows\SoftwareDistri...

alternative to dedicated vpn services which highly costs. Pfsense open vpn server over the internet squid proxy with squid guard filtering not completed yet.

Best Microsoft Exchange free alternative is Zimbra collaboration  https://zimbra.org/ . Microsoft Exchange server ranked as world best & most used email collaboration software. But every organization cannot use it because of its price.  Zimbra installation can configure to get very equal features which you get from Microsoft Exchange server. But you have to have some resources to get this success. If you are a lazy admin this is not for you. go back & stay with Microsoft Exchange. This guide is for dynamic guys who likes to make a change. There are many guides you can find on how to install & configure zimbra & other components. Here in this guide I mention most important components you can integrate with zimbra & get maximum of features. search google & follow guides to install each part of software or configuration method. If you wish, I also can help you, put a comment. You should have enough resources to install zimbra server. I prefer vm b...

Protecting windows networks from modern ransomware viruses is a big challenge for IT professionals. even if missing a small thing can destroy all data within few hours.  Below mentioned very basic checklist saves your life by eliminating virus & attacks. If you have performed at least following tasks, then you are protected for a considerable level. Here we discuss about Microsoft Windows domain network protection. 1. Do not assign any local admin rights to any standard users. Admin rights are required only for IT professionals & standard users should not have such dangerous weapon. Restricted admin rights to user also effects to reduce the power of virus & malware attack. Because usually it is difficult to make changes to the system without admin rights until virus go through a system vulnerability. you can easily use following free gui tool to query local admins of a domain network.  http://www.cjwdev.co.uk/Software/GetLocalAdminsGUI/Info.html there a...

Removable media (usb storage devices) is a headache for IT staff If you are managing many computers in a domain. Usually users plug same usb device for many computers. Eg: to home PC, personal laptops, friend's & colleague's computers & etc... even if your corporate network is protected from antivirus software, still those devices can infect from outside. to get rid of this hassle many organizations completely block removable media devices for corporate networks while those are required for some day today works (flexibility) here I show you a small method which prevents executing every executables from usb storage. we use group policy to deploy this to all computers. its very simple, we specify some drive letters & all the executable content within any folder structure will be prevented from running. usually in any microsoft windows system C drive is for OS, D is for optical drive & e, f for next hard drive partitions. usually issuing drive letters fo...

If you are managing over 100 computers network, this will be a cool idea to make your life easier. we know well, once a hard drive makes failure, how we struggle to get data back. but how it is cool if we can acknowledge it before hard drive failure.  according to my experience hard drives not fail suddenly & before it get in to series, for many days & weeks it writes to event viewer that it is failing. usually we cannot read every machine's event log for hard drive failures. this is the reason we miss this important message. If you manage a windows domain network, using GPO we can configure to receive email notifications when drive errors occur. I am going to show you an amazing way to do this trick. you may apply for this for another goal also. If you use this successfully, you may feel what a wonderful trick is this because there is no time waste in your Sys Admin life. We use Group policy to do this Brief of tasks we are going to do. we use small query to fi...