How to fix Google Nexus 6P microphone issues

My friends had been complaining that I sounded very distant or muffled when on calls on my  Google Nexus 6P. A quick google search later I found many posts with similar issues and various solutions that didn't work for me. Funny thing was that speaker calls were fine it was only when using the handset against my ear people complained.

On the first visual inspection, I couldn't see anything wrong with the mic. It wasn't until I put the mic under a strong magnifying glass and a bright LED light that found there are 2 very slender slots that were very clogged with gunk.

The 2 slots (each side of the mic bar located 5mm inwards from the right side of the mic area) are roughly 1 -2 mm across and could only be cleaned with a thin sewing needle. Once properly cleaned a few test calls showed that people thought I had bought a new phone.

I'll try to source some high res photos to explain what slots I mean.

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Update: 16/12/2017 I am no longer able to take photos of my Nexus as it was returned for warranty and has since been swapped to a new phone. If someone could take a photo and leave it in the comments that would be great.

I still maintain that the nexus 6P was one of the best android phones I've had so far. only let down by a crap manufacturer warranty.

Get list of collections that have dynamic update enabled

The following powershell code will connect to your SCCM, export all the collections, and then select only those that had dynamically add new resources checked, then export to a CSV file.

gwmi sms_collection -computer SERVER -namespace root\sms\site_XXX |% {[wmi] $_.__Path}|select-object CollectionID,Name,RefreshType|where {$_.refreshtype -eq 6}| Export-csv c:\temp\SCCMcollections.csv -NoTypeInformation

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How to Disable and Move a list of computers in Active Directory

If you want to disable and move an object in powershell using the pipeline you can if the cmdlet you call supports the -Passthru property. This way you could make a single line powershell that would grab a list of objects, process those objects and then passthru the to the next pipeline.

get-content c:\temp\test.txt | % {Get-ADComputer $_ | Disable-ADaccount -PassThru | Move-ADObject -Targetpath "OU=xxx,,DC=DomainName,DC=COM"} 

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Powershell: Ping List of Computers and Export the results to CSV

This script will ping a list of computers and then output the results into CSV.

Get-Content c:\test\computers.txt | ForEach-Object
    {
        if(Test-Connection -ComputerName $_ -Quiet -Count 1) {
            New-Object -TypeName PSCustomObject -Property @{
                ComputerName = $_
                'Ping Status' = 'Ok'
                }
    }
    else
    {
        New-Object -TypeName PSCustomObject -Property @{
            ComputerName = $_
            'Ping Status' = 'Failed'
        }  
    }
} | Export-Csv -Path c:\test\PingStatus.csv -NoTypeInformation

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How to restart the task sequence wizard in WINPE without having to reboot

If you make a mistake and cancel out the task sequence wizard in WinPE you can restart it without rebooting. Keep in mind this won't work everytime as it depends on where you failed your task sequence

TsBootShell.exe

To find it you might need to goto to the root of your WinPE drive and type

DIR TsBootShell.exe /s

It will normally be found in

X:\sms\bin\i386

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Killnotes.exe doesn't support silent commands. How to kill notes silently.

If you've bee around Lotus Notes as long as I have you learn to hate the fact that when notes crashes you usually have to reboot to clear out all the stuck notes related files. That was until someone at IBM crafted up Killnotes.exe which looks for any notes processes and threads still in use then will kill them off.  This is great for the occasion when you Lotus Notes crashes and you want to reopen without rebooting..

The problem is if we want to upgrade/deploy Lotus Notes and use Killnotes.exe to terminate Lotus Notes before upgrading. We can't do this out without having some user interaction. A better solution instead is to use the inbuilt NSD.exe of notes to shutdown lotus notes.

If you want to script it here it is;

set WshShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
TerminateNotes = WshShell.Run ("c:\notes\nsd.exe -kill -nolog -ini c:\notes\notes.ini",1,True)

If you are running this through a deployment system you will find you need to include the -nolog and -ini options or the script will error trying to locate the notes.ini because its running under  the system account and not the local user.