MS Office: снятие защиты с файла Word, Excel, PowerPoint

Как известно современные файлы из пакета MS Office (docx, xlsx и т.п.) являются переименованными zip архивами, содержимое которых легко можно просмотреть. Поэтому есть достаточно простой способ снятия защиты с документа/листа. Пример для Excel можно посмотреть в этом видео:

PS. Надеюсь в следующей ревизии это исправят.

Azure: solving KMS license activation problem on virtual machines

For about a month I had a lot of work with Microsoft Azure. This cloud is best I worked with, however even it has some bugs. I fpind that sometimes newly created Windows Server or Window 10 virtual machines can not be automatically activated. After several iterations of commucation with MS tech support we found the solution of the problem. Follow the steps:

1. First of all you should check the availability of Azure KMS server with the following cmd command:
   

   nslookup -type=srv _vlmcs._tcp
   

2. Set a proper key for your Windows version:

   slmgr.vbs -ipk 
   

   The list of keys can be found here. For example for Win2k12 it will be

   slmgr.vbs -ipk W3GGN-FT8W3-Y4M27-J84CP-Q3VJ9
   

3. Set a correct KMS server:

   slmgr /skms kms.core.windows.net:1688
   or
   slmgr.vbs -skms http://kms.core.windows.net:1688
   

4. And finally perform activation:

   slmgr.vbs /ato

Some steps can be overkill with your particular case, but sometimes you should repeat a command to get it working. Hope it helps.

MS SQL Server: How to decrease ldf size

Not so long a go I found that one of my MS SQL DB Servers ran out of disk space. The source of the problem was very huge ldf file size of one of the databases. I needed to free disk space so I wanted to make ldf smaller. Neither database nor files shrink did help. Nevertheless I found a simple way to do the job:

• Open 'Options' of the database with big ldf.
• Change recovery model to Simple. Full is set by default.
• Try to shrink your log files again.

After these steps you will have you ldf decreased. Now you can change the log file growth policy (I recomend it to grow by Mb not percentage) and change recovery model back to Full if needed.

Решения для архивации почты для MS Exchange Server

Список решений для архивации почты для MS Exchange Server:

• GFI MailArchiver
• Symantec Enterprise Vault
• Trend Micro Message Archiver
• HP Email Archiving software for Microsoft Exchange
• EMC SourceOne Email Management for Microsoft Exchange
• IBM CommonStore for Exchange Server
• Open Text Email Archiving for Microsoft Exchange 

Visual Studio 2013 RTM released

All hail the new version of MS VS!
New version of Visual Studio can be downloaded from here.
Need to try it right now... :)