configuration

PowerShell: Update-Help via Scheduled Task in Group Policy Preferences

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Introduction

If you’re like me, you probably like to ensure that all your computers have PowerShell updatable help updated on a regular basis. You can achieve this using a variety of methods, but since Group Policy Preferences are available out of the box using Windows 7 and later, I figured it would be the perfect tool to keep PowerShell help up-to-date! The following guide will show you how to implement a Windows Scheduled Task to update PowerShell version 3.0 help on a regular basis.

The following operating systems include Group Policy Preferences Client Side Extensions (GPP-CSE) out of the box:

  • Windows 7
  • Windows 8
  • Windows Server 2008 R2
  • Windows Server 2012

You can also deploy the Windows Management Framework Core 3.0, and Group Policy Preferences Client Side Extensions to Windows Server 2008 non-R2 systems, however the equivalent client operating system, Windows Vista, does not support WMF 3.0.

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PowerShell: Updating an Azure Service Display Name

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If you’re like me, you probably like clarity, consistency, and conciseness. Given that, I like to ensure that names of hosted services in Windows Azure are named appropriately. Sometimes developers will give a service a quick name that they understand, but may not relay enough information to other team members, at a glance, as to … Read more PowerShell: Updating an Azure Service Display Name

PowerShell: Automate Windows Azure Service Bus queue creation

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Microsoft Windows Azure Logo

One of the core services provided by the Windows Azure “cloud computing” platform is the ability to create first-in, first-out messaging queues. These queues are considered to be part of the Service Bus feature in Windows Azure. In some cases, it may be desirable to automate the creation of these queues, especially if there are a lot of them to create. By automating this process, rather than performing it manually, you can ensure consistency, repeatability, and speed.

Starting out with Windows Azure automation might lead you to download the official Microsoft Windows Azure cmdlets, or even the third-party Cerebrata Windows Azure module for Windows PowerShell. The latter module appears to have cmdlets that support queue creation, however the former (Microsoft) module does not. If you’d rather not spend the money on the Cerebrata module, can’t get your company to buy it for you, or you’d rather just stick to native Microsoft stuff, you’re still in luck. The Windows Azure .NET SDK 1.6 allows C# developers, and PowerShell script writers, to create queues using the provided .NET types!

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ConfigMgr 2007: Client Installation Problem

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Symptoms

I was getting the following messages in my ccmsetup.log files when trying to do a client push installation to about 50 servers. The servers were a combination of Windows Server 2003, 2008, and 2008 R2.

The HTTP 500 error message seen in the second line indicates an “internal server error” within IIS on the ConfigMgr management point. Based on that, I knew that there must have been some sort of misconfiguration on the IIS server.

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Tomato Firmware as DNS Server

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If you’re a home user, using the Tomato Firmware on a device, such as the Linksys WRT54GL, and you don’t have an internal DNS server, then Tomato might be able to save the day. For myself, I’ve got several computers on my internal LAN, and do not have an internal DNS server. Each of these … Read more Tomato Firmware as DNS Server

PowerShell: Making WebDAV Configuration Edits on Server 2008

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If you’re configuring a Windows Server 2008 system to be a ConfigMgr site system, you may have noticed that you need to make some changes to the WebDAV configuration in IIS. Unfortunately, making those changes through the IIS GUI doesn’t always work quite right. Instead of digging around inside of an XML file though, you … Read more PowerShell: Making WebDAV Configuration Edits on Server 2008