Unexpected error occurred while communicating with Administration Service

Scenario:

I ran into the following issue when attempting to access  Fast search features such as:

1. FAST Search keywords

2. Fast Search site promotion and demotion

3. Fast search user context

Solution:

I checked my Administrators group in the SP server. Fast Search ADMIN account configured is added in the Administrators group. Though I am unable to access these features.

Then found the resolution from a TechNet article.

1.   Create a group named FASTSearchKeywordAdministrators in the SP server (this group is not automatically created during default installation).

2.   Add the Fast Search ADMIN account (account configured for fast search) to this group.

Then tried accessing the features and everything works as expected.

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Sign in as different user in SharePoint 2013

In all the versions of SharePoint, we have option for signing in as different user which helps us in various scenarios. Also, it helps in testing purposes.
But in SharePoint 2013, we do not have this option. 

In this article we will know how to achieve this:

1. When you log in to a SharePoint site, you don't have sign in as different user option which is shown as below:

2. To overcome this limitation either we have to sign in to the IE as different user and then we can log in to the SharePoint site as different user.
3. To achieve this in SharePoint (which is like option in older versions of SharePoint), we need to modify the welcome.ascx which is present in the 15 hive of SharePoint server.
4. Navigate to the below path and find the welcom.ascx file.
C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\15\TEMPLATE\CONTROLTEMPLATES
5. Open the file in the visual studio or in the notepad and add the following code above the tag which has ID_RequestAcess as shown below:

<SharePoint:MenuItemTemplate runat="server" ID="ID_LoginAsDifferentUser" Text="<%$Resources:wss,personalactions_loginasdifferentuser%>"

Description="<%$Resources:wss,personalactions_loginasdifferentuserdescription%>"

MenuGroupId="100"

Sequence="100"

UseShortId="true"

/>

 6. Save the file and now refresh the site, you will see the SharePoint page with option "Sign in as different user" option as shown below:

 Hope this helps you. Please free to comment. It helps me to write more.

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Snipping Tool in Windows Server 2012

Snipping tool is very nice tool for capturing the screens which comes with latest versions of Windows. In this article lets see how to enable the snipping tool in Windows Server 2012.

Snipping tool is not installed in the default installation of Windows OS. We have to enable it manually.

Steps:
1. Go to Server Manager -> Manage Features -> Features -> Select DESKTOP EXPERIENCE under user interfaces and infrastructure -> Next -> Feature will be installed and it will ask for restarting the server.
2. Restart the server and log in to the server. Under Windows accessories you will see the Snipping tool installed.
Screenshots for reference:

Hope this helps you!

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