Set up Windows 11 with local user account
Microsoft is slowly but surely removing all options to set up a Windows 10 computer without an online Microsoft account. Until recently, you could create a local offline account if you didn’t have (or pretended to not have) an Internet connection. This has now changed and unplugging your network cable will no longer work. Windows […]
Slideshow dekstop background keeps switching to Picture
Here is a little strange little issue a customer from a small business in Oxford came to us with – he wanted his Windows 11 laptop desktop background to be a slideshow of personal pictures. He was also using the Windows 11 virtual desktop feature (which allows users to switch between virtual desktops by using […]
Microsoft 365 – Force Mailbox Online Archive
If you enable an Online Archive for Microsoft 365 Exchange user and assign one of the “Move to Archive” policies to any folder, the archiving process can take some days to start. To speed up the process, you can run the following PowerShell commands: The archiving process should now start quicker, however, there is still […]
Windows 11 installer – bypass TPM and Secure Boot
If you try to install Windows 11 from a bootable USB/DVD drive on a computer that doesn’t meet Windows 11 TPM 2.0, Secure Boot, or RAM requirements, you will be greeted by the following error message during the Windows Setup: Luckily, all these requirements are not technical limitations and can be easily bypassed. September 2024Oxford, […]
Open “Devices and Printers” in Windows 11
If you try to open Devices and Printers from the old Control Panel in Windows 11, you will be taken to the new Windows 11 Settings > Bluetooth & Devices page. For now, you can still open the old “Devices and Printers” interface using one of the following workarounds. September 2024Oxford, Oxfordshire
Windows 11 – Enable WebSignIn without Intune
This issue recently came up when setting up some laptops remotely for one of our managed IT services customers in Oxford. When preparing a Windows 10 / 11 device for a user we often have to sign in with their Microsoft Entra ID (previously called Azure ID) to set everything up. If the user is […]
One or more items in the folder you synchronise…
A user from a small business in Oxford recently contacted us with a Microsoft Outlook issue. A recurring event in the Microsoft Office 365 (Exchange) calendar got corrupted and kept popping up reminders every hour or so. The event in the Outlook calendar was displayed with a little diamond icon indicating a conflict. Trying to […]
M365 bookings mailbox forwarding to wrong address
Within the Microsoft 365 Exchange environment, when a user creates a booking calendar, the system automatically creates an unlicensed resource mailbox with an automatically generated username (normally user’s firstname+lastname). Emails sent to this resource mailbox are automatically forwarded to the user’s main mailbox. We recently had an issue with a customer in Oxford where such […]
Microsoft 365 Admin Reports don’t show user names
If you go to Microsoft 365 admin portal > Reports > Usage, by default you’ll see random ID numbers instead of actual user names. This can be easily fixed. Login as a Global Admin, go to Microsoft 365 Admin Center > Settings > Org Settings > Services > Reports and uncheck “Display concealed user, group, […]
MS Outlook – Connect to the server to view them…
When a Microsoft 365 / Exchange account is configured in Cached mode, Outlook only downloads and displays emails for a certain time period (by default 1 year). If you scrool to the very bottom of the email list, you will see the following message: After clicking the link, Outlook will load more items directly from […]