Global Protection suggesting Windows VPN Settings...

As a GlobalProtect installation and configuration should usually work quite smoothly I hit by a little roadblock... 

After GlobalProtect is installed I should usually get the dialog to enter the VPN connection settings. Instead I got the following message:

"To establish a VPN connection, select the GlobalProtect VPN configuration from Windows NETWORK & INTERNET VPN Settings." 

So GlobalProtect basically wants me to use the local Windows network settings instead of its own. Initially I couldn't really follow, but I figured that I may went too quickly through the installation.

Once I downloaded the Global protect the installer went straight to the Windows Store and I mistakenly confirmed that following message:

So "accidentally" I installed it the Windows Store version which didn't work in my case as I used a special download before.

Correct would be: "Continue installing from outside the Store".
And then the application worked the way it should...

Just a little thing you easily overlook trying that just before going to bed after a long day...

TheSuperAdmins #008: Home Office Support

Following the Coronavirus pandemic and subsequent "lockdowns", many office workers are forced to work from home. Therefore it's important for the admins to set proper VPN connections for everyone..

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With Will residing at his lakehouse watching Netflix, Mike faces several users with wrong VPN settings...

Ethernet Adapter times 79! Way too many!

This computer had an incredible amount of Ethernet Adapters listed! Something I've never seen before.. 

As being confronted with IT issues almost daily there are sometimes cases you haven´t seen in years or you aren´t sure if you have seen them at all! Recently I was asked to check a Danish Windows 10 laptop because despite having WiFi connection the Internet browser couldn´t open any more sites and video streams stopped working.

I checked the network adapters and was quite surprised! There were Ethernet Adapter numbered until 79! And sometimes even numbers were missing and the user had no idea about that! Then I went to the Device Manager to check and "TAP-Win32 Adapter Adapter OAS #22" was one of the many examples I found there. And the list almost did not stop flashing all the time...

Anyway, I had to delete them all manually. All at once didn´t work. Once that was done the Internet connection worked fine again. Wonder why^^. 

I suggest a proper virus and malware scan afterwards just to be sure there`s nothing going on anything. A bit online checks mentioned it could might be through some VPN software or even an Office KMS activation...

How to activate Microsoft Office via command line

I recently had a situation where the 2013 Office Suite was unable to be activated. But then I found a great solution...

It was within a bigger environment where a KMS server is active. Usually the activation should run just by plugging your computer into the network for having a connection with the domain. But there was one case where it didn't work once the user was in the company for a few hours.

The user was even working remotely via VPN. But I remember that there was a command to manually force your Office activation through a command. Was a long time ago and I had to look it up. It's this one (run as admin):

cscript "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office15\OSPP.VBS" /act

Just make sure that you select the correct path, because it's depending on your Office version and operating system. It's also working with Office14 (version 2010), but not with Office 2007 (Office12).

After you executed this vbs script the confirmation that Office was activated appeared pretty quickly after that. Just make sure you are executing this Visual Basic Script while every program of the Office Suite is closed. Is better for the success of the process.

In my case it was quite efficient and it avoided that the user had to return to the office again and could return working from remote.