Set-AzureAutomationSchedule is bugged - "The start time of the schedule must be at least 5 minutes"...

We host our development servers in the cloud, and to save serious  bucks, they only run during office hours (50 hours a week out of the the 168, thats a nifty 70% saving).

There are two azure automation tasks, one shuts down the computers every evening, and another starts them up half an hour before anyone gets to the office.

However, overtime happens, so there is also a script that each developer can run that delays the evening shutdown with a couple of hours. This basicly disabled the evening shutdown Automation Schedule, and the morning startup script turns it back on.

This is the theory.

In practice, Set-AzureAutomationSchedule is a piece of crap and doesn't work half the time. When I try to set the status of a perfectly valid schedule, I encounter the following error message;

Set-AzureAutomationSchedule -AutomationAccountName maintenance -Name "Evening shutdown" -IsEnabled $true Set-AzureAutomationSchedule : The start time of the schedule must be at least 5 minutes after the time you create the schedule.

Mind you, the script works on the first day when you create the schedule, only later does it stop working.

The workaround is simple; instead of enabling and disabling the schedule, I simply drop and recreate it.

Turning on tracing in CRM 2013 with a single powershell command

The following  command turns on tracing in CRM 2013. The directory is automatically created during CRM setup, you don't have to create it yourself.

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.Crm.PowerShell $setting = Get-CrmSetting TraceSettings $setting.Enabled=$True $setting.Directory="C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics CRM\Trace" Set-CrmSetting $setting

Opening a password protected Excel document from c#

I have to write a migration tool for a client whose idea of data security is password protecting the Excel files.

However even if I supplied the Password and WriteResPassword parameters to the Open function, it still gave me a little dialog box asking for a password.

With some trial and error I found that in Read-Only mode the interop will actually open the file silently, so I thought I would share the code snippet.

As usual, your mileage may vary.
using Excel = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel; //.... Excel.Application app = new Excel.Application(); Excel.Workbook workBook = app.Workbooks.Open(fileName, ReadOnly: true, Editable: false, Notify: false, Password: "Password");

Things to do before uploading a VHD to Azure

I recently had to upload several virtual machines into azure. No sysprep, no image creation, just moving a domain consisting of a couple of virtual servers and a DC into the cloud.

After uploading the disks, creating a virtual network, creating virtual machines etc I got the following super annoying message.

Remote Desktop can’t connect to the remote computer for one of these reasons:1) Remote access to the server is not enabled 2) The remote computer is turned off 3) The remote computer is not available on the network

Neither restarting, nor recreating the machines, nor resizing the machines, nor deleting the RDP endpoint and recreating it helped (if you encounter the same error try these steps nevertheless)

After a bit of trial and error I created the following checklist for future endeavours, maybe it will help you as well. 

1. Enable Remoting in System/Remote settings (well duh)
2. Open incoming TCP on port 3389 in the firewall for all network profiles. (Or just turn the whole windows firewall off, Azure doesn't allow any incoming traffic anyway)
3. Install Azure VM Agent (from here for example). It seems like if you don't do this you will be stuck on the "Installing VM extensions" step of creating the virtual machine

My experience had been that I could only log in after the Installing VM Extensions step completed.

The proper way to install AX 2012 RTM on Windows 2012

When installing AX RTM on Windows 2012 the prerequisite validation tool gets stuck on KB2390372, an update that you cannot possible install on Windows 2012. It gives a weird error message, "KB2390372v2 does not apply, or is blocked by another condition on your computer."

In theory CU5 solves this issue, but how can you install CU5, before installing RTM?

I have found contradictory information on the net, so I thought I would share with you guys what worked for me. Not sure if all the steps are neccessary, but..

1. Install the web server and the app server roles, make sure to include .NET and Identity foundation (not sure if this is n
2. Start the AX RTM setup
3. Install the setup support files, and configure most of the prerequisities
4. Download the CU5. 
5. Unpack CU5
6. Start installing CU5, tell it to patch the setup support files
7. Start AX RTM setup again
8. You DO NOT have to copy the CU5 files under the Updates folder of your AX install folder. This is a false piece of information (or at least it was not neccessary for me... but you know... it's AX. Your mileage may vary)
9. Just continue as usual, it should not ask for KB2390372 anymore