Dennis Schnell

Cannot connect to Windows Store (Windows 8.1, 8, RT and Pro)

denpsch — Sat, 26 Oct 2013 11:04:00 GMT

While updating the last of my devices to Windows 8.1, I received the following message when accessing the Windows Store. We weren't able to connect to the Store. This might have happened because of a server problem or the network connection timed out. Please wait a few minutes and try again. I attempted to perform the tasks (as referenced below) but none worked for me, so in line with my last post on accessing the internet, here's a few alternatives to the many out there on connecting to the store.

1. Choose Settings on the Charms menu
2. Choose Change PC settings "In Your account the following may be displayed"

If it requires account verification, click verify to enter current password

If verification is not displayed, choose Disconnect.

Note: Be sure to backup your recovery key before switching to a local account

3. After backing up your recovery key, choose skip backup.
4. Enter Current password and select Next

You'll be asked to create a local account, enter the following:

User name

Password

Reenter password

Password hint

5. Select Next
6. Select Sign out and finish

Your computer will prepare and sign out, sign in with the information you entered in the local account.

7. Go back to Accounts and select Connect to a Microsoft account under Your account. It would ask you to Sign in to your Microsoft account, Click Next.

You may have to enter a code to verify identity, ensure your phone number and/or email is correct on your Microsoft account profile

8. Select Next on SkyDrive

9. Select Switch to switch to a Microsoft account from a local

References:

https://gshaw0.wordpress.com/2013/08/22/fixing-the-windows-8-1-we-werent-able-to-connect-the-store-error/

https://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-8/fix-windows-8-we-werent-able-to-connect-to-the-store-error/

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-windows_store/

Update 01/07/2014: For those who are having problems check this KB if it applies to you https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2787623/EN-US leave a comment to reach out to me.

How to switch to Yammer social from SharePoint social (Office 365)

denpsch — Sun, 08 Sep 2013 09:29:00 GMT

As everyone knows (unless you did not get the memo), Yammer can be added onto Office 365.
The way it works with Office 365 is that newsfeeds are still available but you won’t be able to post
to everyone as Yammer is now the default. But not a lot of information exists on how it is setup, so
I’m going to walk you through the process from start to finish. The default settings is to utilize the
SharePoint Newsfeed which is pictured below, notice how you can select ‘Share with everyone’.

The first step is to change the ‘Enterprise Social Collaboration’ settings to use Yammer.
This setting is in the SharePoint admin center > settings > select ‘Use Yammer.com service’

Once the change is complete, you’ll notice that the same Newsfeed now says to use Yammer.
Existing posts are also still displayed and have not been removed.

And ‘Newsfeed’ is replaced with ‘Yammer’. Click ‘Yammer’ in the header to be taken to the Yammer site.

A popup window will appear that you’ll be redirected.

You’re now on the Yammer.com homepage and you sign up with the email address of your company.
If you have an existing Yammer account you can sign-in. This process assumes that no existing Yammer
account for an organization has been created.

One signed up a confirmation page is displayed.

Check your email for the confirmation email, click on the link in the message.

Once logged into the Yammer website, you then enter basic information about yourself and select a password.
Click ‘Next’

You’re next presented with a screen to add/invite co-workers, input aliases and/or Click ‘Next’

Welcome to Yammer, I’m not going to dive into the details of how to use it, there’s good how-to videos.
Now that Yammer is setup, let’s add the feeds to SharePoint.

The Yammer app needs to be added from the SharePoint Store. You can access the store by opening
up the SharePoint admin center > apps > Purchase Apps, Search for the ‘Yammer’ app and click on it.

Click ‘ADD IT’ to install the app. Note: You’ll need to sign-in to a Microsoft.com account to complete the purchase.

Success, the app has been installed.

Okay, now that the Yammer application has been installed. It is time to add the ‘Yammer app’ to your
SharePoint site. In my example, I am adding the app to an existing news site under my intranet. Click on the gear
icon > Click on Add an App > Select ‘Yammer App for SharePoint’

Popup is displayed asking to trust the Yammer app, Click on ‘Trust It’

App is being added to you site…

Select the Gear icon, Select ‘Edit Page’. In the Insert tab > Select ‘Web Part’, Under Categories
Select > ‘Yammer’ Select > ‘Yammer Feed’

Edit the ‘Web Part’ and a popup is displayed to Auto Sign-in or to enter your Yammer credentials. Click ‘Allow’ when finished
.

Once signed in, you can select the feed you want displayed on the page.

Congratulations, you can now have conversations on Yammer integrated with SharePoint

If for some reason the integration is not to your liking, you can always switch back. Go back to the
‘SharePoint admin center’ and select ‘Use SharePoint Newsfeed (default).

SharePoint 2013 Gamification Governance

denpsch — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 13:05:00 GMT

As a consultant in the IT Service Management Practice here
at Microsoft, I am sometimes asked about Gamification for SharePoint 2013,
specifically governance. I wanted to provide some guidance and outlines on how
to manage from a people, process, and technology perspective. This doesn’t
cover Yammer, stay tuned.

For those who don’t know what that is, it is basically
driving game-like content for non game-like websites. A bunch of websites
already exist with LinkedIn, Yelp, TechNet Forums, and Foursquare. These
websites sites utilize concepts such as ratings, badges, checkins, and comments
to help identify similar answers, experts, and showcase among peer’s who is a
top contributor. Now, SharePoint 2013 has community driven content that can be
used to drive adoption to an intranet site by using some of these concepts. You
can view what is available by viewing Overview of Communities
in SharePoint Server 2013.

For governance there is no right or wrong to managing this
type of content as we don’t treat it the same way we treat team site content.
For example team site content normally has a lifecycle policy attached to it
based on its classification, but for community driven content is not the case.
This is because as content is rated, commented, and liked it provides a way to
find information quickly. Now, the argument can be made that even team site or
all site content can have this and it can.

A governance board would need to determine the settings with
the representatives coming from marketing or communications, I’ve found that IT
doesn’t know anything when it comes to reputation settings, sorry, and that it
should be driven by people who know about brand marketing.

Example policy:

Name	Rankings, Ratings, Social, Comments, and Community Management
Purpose	Determine Usage of Social Components
Defined By	Strategy Team
Policy	Enable multiple social components of SharePoint to encourage community driven content across the intranet portal. Allow content on the intranet portal for news articles, pictures, and blogs to be rated. Utilize the ‘likes’ rating for community driven content Enable a member achievements point system with the following values for specified activities: Creating a post = 10 Points Replying to a post = 10 Points Member’s post or reply gets liked or received a rating of 4 or 5 stars = 10 Points Member’s reply gets marked as ‘Best Reply = 100 Points Create an Achievement level points based system with the following levels assigned for points. Level 1 = More than 0 Level 2 = More than 100 Level 3 = More than 500 Level 4 = More than 2500 Level 5 = 10000

Below is the Settings for Community Content for Reference

Windows 8.1 Wifi showing "limited" or "No Internet Access"

denpsch — Sat, 31 Aug 2013 17:26:00 GMT

I finally upgraded one of my laptops to Windows 8.1 and my first immediate problem was the wifi adapter was showing "limited" or "No Internet Access". I know my home wireless is functional cause it works on other devices so I go through the motions of solving it.

1. Troubleshoot Problems with the connection - works only temporally

2. Reset wireless adapter - didn't work

3. Update drivers - no dice

This blog summarizes the 'workaround' from around the forums and other blogs I've seen. https://everythingsurface.org/4-ways-to-solve-your-windows-8-1-surface-pro-wi-fi-issues However my issue wasn't solved after trying them out. I know my wireless settings on my router to accept only Wireless-N connections at 2.4Ghz (don't ask why), but I also noticed in Device Manager for the wireless adapter that it is set to 'Auto' for 802.11n Channel Width for band 2.4. I changed it to 'Auto', restarted and the problem went away. Hopefully this adds to the workarounds for whoever is having problems with wireless connectivity on Windows 8.1

Update: 10/21/2013

I wanted to highlight Kyle's comment that seems to be working for everyone. Comment is below:

Kyle
Sat, Oct 19 2013 12:39 AM

Hi guys, i tried all the above methods but none of them worked for me. However i did find smt that worked, which is to revert your network adapter driver back to an older version instead of the one installed by windows 8.1.

You can do this by going to device manager, right click on your network adapter, go to update driver, then "browse my computer for driver software, then"let me pick from a list of...." , uncheck the "show compatible hardware" checkbox and finally select the older version of current driver (if you dont know which, just use trial and error).

Update 10/27/2013 Lenovo G780

Giving love to @WinGuy

Hey Kyle! You are the man :) Your method lead me to the solution. But to document for: Lenovo G780 with Broadcom wireless adapter. Follow steps of Kyle till let me pick. Now, don't uncheck "show compatible". You see 2 drivers for the same broadcom adapter. One by Broadcom, the other from Microsoft. Choose the Broadcom one. Install. Springs back to life. (turning off heuristics,rebooting router,manual ip assignment none work)

Update 10/27/2013 Lenovo G580

I have fixed mine! What a relief.

I have the Lenovo G580, which has the Broadcom 802.11n Network Adaptor.

By the time I was having problems (don't know about previously) Windows was configured to use the Microsoft driver for this device.

Same fix as others have mentioned but I will provide a bit more detail. Basically I located a Broadcom-supplied driver on my computer, and updated to use that. Immediately wi-fi connected, and all seems well.

Here's the instructions:

# Open Device Manager (search Windows Help if you don't know what this is)

# Select 'Network adaptors' and then open (double-click) Broadcom 802.11n Network Adaptor

# Go to the Driver tab and click the Update Driver... button

# Select 'Browse my computer for driver software'

# Select 'Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer'

# Select the "Broadcom 802.11n Network Adaptor (Broadcom)" entry from the list, and click Next

Well, it worked for me.

Good luck, Matt

--I'll clean it up once other solutions are found, but in the mean time I'll update as confirmation of it working
--Hope this helps the rest who still have this problem. Cheers.

SharePoint 2013: How to Update the Central Admin URL Desktop Icon Link

denpsch — Wed, 21 Aug 2013 10:52:00 GMT

Scenario:

You provision central administration web site on another server and want that server to be the primary. The new website is available however, when launched from the icon it points to the old url.

Resolution:

You need to update the URL in the registry in every server in the farm.

1. Backup registry

2. Go to > HKEY_LOCAL_MACHNESOFTWAREMicrosoftShared ToolsWeb Server Extensions15.0WSS

3. Edit 'CentralAdministrationURL' to the new url

When you launch the Central Administration website, it'll be pointed to the new url.