OWA Error - A problem Occurred While Trying to Use Your Mailbox"

We recently ran across a problem where users trying to log on to Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access in Exchange Server 2007 would receive the following error message:

"A problem occurred while trying to use your mailbox. Please contact technical support for your organization."

According to KB941146, this behavior is caused by an attribute – msExchVersion being 0 for the affected user. To fix this error you need to run the following command from Exchange PowerShell.

1. Get-Mailbox <user name>  | format-list ExchangeVersion

2. If the output is less than 1.0 then you need to run

 Set-Mailbox <user name> –ApplyMandatoryProperties

3. Then go to your Active Directory Users and Computers

4. On the View menu, select Advanced Features

5. Then select the user account who is experiencing the issue and click on Properties

6. Click on the Security tab and select Advanced

7. Make sure you check the box on 'Include inheritable permissions from this object's parent'

Windows 7 Check Disk With Chkntfs Command

In Windows 7 when your computer is shutdown in an improper way, the next time you turn it on, the Windows checkdisk will start to check your disk(s) for errors. The chkntfs command lets you manage the dirty flag property for all the hard disks and other parameters for bootup checkdisk in Windows 7. You will need to run as Administrator to run chkntfs command.

Find if a disk drive is dirty : You can find if the dirty flag for a drive letter is turned on at the present time, by giving command chkntfs X:, where the X: is the drive letter you want to check for the dirty flag. 

Find the autocheck time countdown : You can find out the AUTOCHK timer countdown shown at Windows boot up when checking a disk for errors. The default time is 10 seconds. The command line switch is chkntfs /T

Set the autocheck timer countdown : You can change the AUTOCHK timer countdown shown at Windows boot up. The default time is 10 seconds. The command line is chkntfs /T:time where time is the time in seconds. 

Schedule a drive to be checked on next reboot : You can manually set a drive to be checked at the Windows boot up. The command line is chkntfs /C X: where X: is the drive letter of the drive you want to schedule to be checked. 

Restore all settings to default : You can restore all the settings to their default. The command line is chkntfs /D.

Fake Chat Screen Malware

A new malware in the form of fake chat screen is attacking online banking customers to deceive in verifying bogus transactions.  The attack waits until the unsuspecting online banking customers login before telling them that “security checks” need to be performed. On a chat screen operating through a mix of HTML injections and Javascript, the victims will think they are speaking to customer support. In reality they are chatting with a cyber criminal that is attempting to get them to provide names, passwords and other banking credentials. At the same time, Klein claims attackers have meshed Man in the Browser techniques with phishing abilities and the Shylock malware platform to hijack accounts in real time. By asking users to sign off on fake transactions in the background, customers are duped without even knowing it.

How to Manually Remove Security Shield 2012

Security Shield 2012 is the latest version of fake security software malware. An infected PC may damaged its system registry setting and it will install additional malware. Security Shield 2012 will also redirect infected PC search result, slow down PC performance and displaying various amount of popups of fake system notification alerts.

Security Shield 2012 manual removal instructions:


1. Remove all the files in the following directories,

    %AppData%MicrosoftInternet ExplorerQuick LaunchSecurityShield 2012 2011.lnk

    %AppData%SecurityShield 2012 2011

    %AppData%SecurityShield 2012 2011IcoActivate.ico

    %Temp%

    %UserProfile%Start MenuProgramsSecurityShield 2012 2011.lnk

    %StartMenu%ProgramsSecurityShield 2012 2011

    %StartMenu%ProgramsSecurityShield 2012 2011Activate SecurityShield 2012 2011.lnk

    %StartMenu%ProgramsSecurityShield 2012 2011Help SecurityShield 2012 2011.lnk

    %StartMenu%ProgramsSecurityShield 2012 2011How to Activate SecurityShield 2012 2011.lnk

    %StartMenu%ProgramsSecurityShield 2012 2011SecurityShield 2012 2011.lnk

2. Remove all the registry settings from the following,

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\SecurityShield 20122011
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SecurityShield 20122011
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run“[random]”
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run“SecurityManager”
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run“SecurityShield 20122011?
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\SecurityShield 20122011
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SecurityShield 20122011
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\InternetSettingsUserAgentPostPlatform”(Default)”=”
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run”SecurityShield 20122011″
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run”SecurityShield 20122011Security”

Ninite: Update Essential Application

Managing desktop applications in the Workgroup or Active Directory environment can be a daunted task. Ninite can help you to automate the process by selecting all the applications that you need to install or update. Then, Ninite will allow you to install it without any user intervention.

Ninite downloads the apps you have selected and installs them into the target computer. If the computer already has that program, it will check for updates to that program and it will automatically update it.