Category Archives: Microsoft

SWITCH OFFICE 2016 TO MONTHLY TARGETED CHANNEL

The Office 365 ProPlus update model supports 4 production channels;

  • Monthly Channel (Targeted),
  • Monthly Channel,
  • Semi-annual Channel (Targeted),
  • Semi-annual Channel.

Each channel receives features updates, security and non-security updates on different release intervals.

Consider a scenario where Office 365 ProPlus is installed on a machine from the Semi-Annual Channel.  Now let’s say, a new feature is introduced on the Monthly Channel which you would like to get.  Since you are on the Semi-Annual Channel you will have to wait for a few months before this feature is made available to the Semi-Annual Channel.  But what if you do not want to wait that long?  The answer is, switch to the Monthly Channel.

Switch Channels

Below are the steps to switch channels:

  1. Identify the channel which you would like to switch to. Features and updates by channel are documented here.
  2. Launch Command Prompt as an administrator.
  3. Navigate to “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun\”
  4. Run the following command to change the desired channel, let’s say Monthly Channel Targeted “OfficeC2RClient.exe /changesetting Channel=Insiders” (When running in powershell the command will be “.\OfficeC2RClient.exe /changesetting Channel=Insiders”

or if you want to switch to the Montly channel:

“OfficeC2RClient.exe /changesetting Channel=Monthly”

Note – You can use this command to switch to any channel using the corresponding Channel keyword listed below:

Channel Keyword in CMD or ODT
  Monthly Channel (Targeted)   Channel=”Insiders” or Channel=”FirstReleaseCurrent“
  Monthly Channel   Channel=”Monthly” or Channel=”Current“
  Semi-annual Channel (Targeted)   Channel=”Targeted” or Channel=”FirstReleaseDeferred“
  Semi-annual Channel   Channel=”Broad” or Channel=”Deferred“

To start the switch Channel process, run “OfficeC2RClient.exe /update user” from the cmd prompt path “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun>” This should be followed by a series of windows which will take you through the process of downloading and installing updates for the new channel that you have switch to.

Note:
All credits go to Eric Bierens, this is just a shameless copy-past for personal usage.

Diskcleanup on 2008 R2

Have you ever found yourself missing the “disk cleanup”  tool to clean a server or of its much needed C:\ space. Wait no longer..

First stop could be, to install the Windows Desktop Experience feature, but this requires a reboot and will install also other application, you might not want..

So how about, if you could just copy 2 files and run the application.

 

Operating System Architecture File Location
Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_none_c9392808773cd7da\cleanmgr.exe
Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_en-us_b9cb6194b257cc63\cleanmgr.exe.mui
Windows Server 2008 64-bit C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6001.18000_en-us_b9f50b71510436f2\cleanmgr.exe.mui
Windows Server 2008 64-bit C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6001.18000_none_c962d1e515e94269\cleanmgr.exe.mui
Windows Server 2008 32-bit C:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6001.18000_en-us_5dd66fed98a6c5bc\cleanmgr.exe.mui
Windows Server 2008 32-bit C:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6001.18000_none_6d4436615d8bd133\cleanmgr.exe

Once you’ve located the files move them to the following locations:

  1. Cleanmgr.exe should go in %systemroot%\System32.
  2. Cleanmgr.exe.mui should go in %systemroot%\System32\en-US.

You can now launch the Disk cleanup tool by running Cleanmgr.exe from the command prompt.

 

Sources:
Windows KB page