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My future vision for datacenter management and cloud interchangeability
The last year I’ve been thinking about lots and lots of articles and blog posts I’ve read. All of them agree on one thing and that is that the future of the datacenter is a dynamic one. Most vendors...
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Tweaks to speed up your Surface Windows 8 RT tablet
Earlier today I had some time to search through the internet for ways to speed up my Surface tablet, or at least the Windows RT operating system that’s running on it. When I tweeted that I had...
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The return of the Start button
Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1 will bring you… the Start button. Woohooo! <RANT> Ever since the introduction of Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 I’ve heard and saw people screaming for...
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Get the version of a file through PowerShell
Every now and then I need to get or compare the version of a file. Although this is a rather basic task, you’ll need to know the exact location of the file. If you have a standardized environment, this...
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Windows RT 8.1 has Outlook
Ever since I got my Surface RT, with Windows 8, I have two (and only those two) things I got annoyed by: 1) No Windows Live Writer. 2) No Outlook. For my first annoyance I quickly found alternatives,...
View ArticleUse PowerShell to install prerequisites for Windows roles
When you’re using PowerShell to configure your servers you may encounter a little thing called ‘prerequisites’. To install the prerequisites for a role, you can simply use PowerShell. Let’s take WSUS...
View ArticlePowerShell – Find disabled Group Policy Objects
Today I was asked to inventory the group policy objects of my customer. Since there were a few hundred of them, we wanted to know which of them were already disabled and maybe could be deleted....
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Starting an App-V applications asks for username and password
Problem When starting an App-V application on a client, a popup is shown asking for credentials (username and password). If the credentials are entered, the application still doesn’t start. In the...
View ArticleBackup Group Policy Objects through PowerShell
Today one of my tasks was to remove some group policies. Before I delete those, I always create a backup. Since the list of GPO’s was quite extensive, I turned to PowerShell. Note that depending on...
View ArticleRemove Group Policy Objects through PowerShell
Yesterday I explained how you can backup Group Policy Objects through PowerShell. Today I’ll show you how you can remove them. Again I’m using the same text file as shown in my previous post with the...
View ArticlePowerShell oneliner to find empty groups in Active Directory
This one goes in the category of a ‘nice & clean’ environment, specifically your Active Directory. Get-ADGroup -Filter {GroupCategory -eq 'Security'} | Where-Object {@(Get-ADGroupMember $_).Length...
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PowerShell function to get time server NTP settings from clients
Some time ago I was asked to write a PowerShell script to do an inventory of the time server (NTP) configuration on clients. Today I was asked the same, so I grabbed my old script, expanded it a little...
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PowerShell – Error when you query Active Directory for the OperatingSystem...
Last week I posted a PowerShell function to get time server NTP settings from clients. Depending on how you use the script, you may encounter an issue which is not the cause of the script but...
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SCCM – Report all software in Add and Remove Programs for all computers
Today I was asked to create a report in SCCM / ConfigMgr that shows all installed products in Add & Remove Programs. My customer wanted to know all applications installed on all computers… Instead...
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Copy Active Directory group membership from user to user
This is something that has been done before, quite a lot actually. What I wanted to do was write a script to copy the group membership of user 1 to user 2. But… I also wanted the option to remove the...
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PowerShell function to get NTFS permissions on a folder for groups and users...
This script is something I’ve been playing with in my head for quite some time now. Today I found some time to do script this So, what are some of the use-cases? Documentation (project, operational)....
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PowerShell function to convert XLS files to XLSX
Migrations… always fun to do when you can automate them. Let’s say that you migrate from Office 2003 to Office 2010. You may want to convert your ‘old’ XLS files to the new XLSX format. But you would...
View ArticlePowerShell function to find orphaned GPT in the SYSVOL
A clean and structured Active Directory is what I always try to work towards. One of the things I find at many of my customers is a legacy in group policies. Sometimes it doesn’t seem that bad in the...
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What does a PowerShell function written by Microsoft look like?
This question lingered in my mind for a long, long time. Becaues my mean method of learning to script is: read script, understand it, know it… I see code, patterns in there, loops, methods, understand...
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I will be speaking at Experts Live on PowerShell DSC
On the 28th of November I will be speaking, together with Stefan Stranger (Microsoft PFE), at ExpertsLive in Zeist (The Netherlands) about PowerShell’s Desired State Configuration. Are you interrested...
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