Virtualization EcoShell
For those of you who manage a VMware environment this FREE tool is a must. It’s all written on top of Microsoft’s PowerShell and is eventually going to be built right into PowerGUI. Very very cool.
Download here
Virtualization EcoShell
Posted in with tags Microsoft, Powershell, Scripting, VMware on February 20, 2010 by Desktop FeedbagNew PowerShell Help Reader
Posted in Powershell, Scripting, Technical with tags Powershell on December 28, 2009 by Desktop FeedbagThis is too cool.
Get the latest Quest AD snappins for PowerShell
Posted in Active Directory, Powershell on August 12, 2009 by Desktop FeedbagPowerShell 2.0 CTP 3 still doesn’t have native Active Directory cmdlets. You can still get into AD and do stuff, but have to use the native ADSI calls. The FREE Quest AD tools just adds a snapin of cmdlets that you can use to do AD stuff. Very easy to build into your scripts for automation. Good stuff for you PowerShell users. If you want to add the snapin to the native PS install, follow my how to here.
Download the Quest tool here.
AD Quest Cmdlets
Add-QADGroupMember
Add-QADMemberOf
Add-QADPasswordSettingsObjectAppliesTo
Add-QADPermission
Approve-QARSApprovalTask
Connect-QADService
Convert-QADAttributeValue
Deprovision-QADUser
Disable-QADUser
Disconnect-QADService
Enable-QADUser
Get-QADComputer
Get-QADGroup
Get-QADGroupMember
Get-QADMemberOf
Get-QADObject
Get-QADObjectSecurity
Get-QADPasswordSettingsObject
Get-QADPasswordSettingsObjectAppliesTo
Get-QADPermission
Get-QADPSSnapinSettings
Get-QADRootDSE
Get-QADUser
Get-QARSAccessTemplate
Get-QARSAccessTemplateLink
Get-QARSApprovalTask
Get-QARSOperation
Move-QADObject
New-QADGroup
New-QADObject
New-QADPasswordSettingsObject
New-QADUser
New-QARSAccessTemplateLink
Reject-QARSApprovalTask
Remove-QADGroupMember
Remove-QADMemberOf
Remove-QADObject
Remove-QADPasswordSettingsObjectAppliesTo
Remove-QADPermission
Remove-QARSAccessTemplateLink
Rename-QADObject
Restore-QADDeletedObject
Set-QADGroup
Set-QADObject
Set-QADObjectSecurity
Set-QADPSSnapinSettings
Set-QADUser
Set-QARSAccessTemplateLink
Unlock-QADUser
FYI: Single-leg network ISA 2006
Posted in ISA on August 12, 2009 by Desktop FeedbagIn order to run the ISA 2006 desktop firewall client you need to configure your ISA Proxy to be a dual-legged network. Fun fun proxy stuff.
Step By Step: Building a Windows Cluster in VMware Workstation 6.5
Posted in Active Directory, Exchange, VMware with tags Cluster, VMware, VMware Workstation, Windows on May 28, 2009 by Desktop FeedbagI needed to do some testing with Exchange 2003 using a Front-End / Back-End setup. I found this step-by-step article with screenshots on how to setup the Windows clustering part. Check it out, it works great. I added some shared storage and was able to successfully fail one node over to the other and vice versa. Cool stuff.
How To Build an ISA 2004/2006 VMware Lab Environment
Posted in Active Directory, ISA, Security with tags ISA, VMware on April 15, 2009 by Desktop FeedbagSo I needed to build an ISA lab to test the firewall client so that I can start controlling outbound FTP through AD groups. Rather than doing this in PROD I decided to build this in a VMware Workstation environment. This link below is a great resource and did the job.
Click here.
Free: MDT 2008 / SCCM 2007 OS Deployment Guide
Posted in BDD, SMS, Technical, Tools, WinPE, Windows Server, Windows XP with tags OS Deployment on April 15, 2009 by Desktop FeedbagThis is a free CD with video’s on OS deployment. Free only until May 16th.
http://www.deploymentcd.com/
Some of the items covered are.
- Installing the deployment server for MDT 2008 Lite Touch
- Installing the deployment server for SCCM 2007 (Zero Touch)
- Creating universal reference images using Lite Touch
- Creating universal reference images using SCCM 2007
- Deploying images using Lite Touch
- Deploying images using SCCM 2007
- Dynamic Settings, using the deployment database
- Assigning applications
- Driver handling and sysprep internals
- Troubleshooting
- Deployment Tips and tricks
DFS Slowness, caused by VMware Workstation…huh???
Posted in Active Directory, VMware with tags DFS, VMware, Windows on April 3, 2009 by Desktop FeedbagIt’s been a while since I posted anything here, sorry ’bout that. I thought I would submit this quick post as it’s been driving me crazy for sometime now. If you are running a Windows DFS environment and all seems well except on a few machines, check to see if you have VMware Workstation 6.x installed. Both my test machines do have this installed which causes long hanging issues when browsing DFS shares. Using the physical node name to connect to the shares works fine.
After removing VM Workstation all was well again, very odd. My guess is that because VM is running in the background as a service with the virtual networks that is installed causes it to be confused with Microsoft’s SMB. I ended up creating an entire DFS test environment using production Active Directory servers, lot of time for something so small. Oh well……..I’m okay that it’s just me and some test machines. Anyone else see or hear of this?
FREE: Ubuntu Pocket Guide
Posted in Linux with tags Linux on January 27, 2009 by Desktop Feedbaghttp://www.ubuntupocketguide.com/download.html
BlackBerry: Free Voice Control of your device
Posted in with tags BlackBerry, Mobile on January 7, 2009 by Desktop FeedbagHave you ever wanted to control your BlackBerry device by talking to it. Let’s say you want to add a new task. All you have to do is say “New Task” get milk. After that you will now have a new task labeled get milk. Very cool and FREE.
http://www.vlingo.com/index.jsp
Wikipedia.com now mobile ready
Posted in Technical, Tools with tags Mobile on December 15, 2008 by Desktop FeedbagTried this out on my BlackBerry and it looks very clean.
Be on the lookout for the new GMail themes
Posted in Technical, Tools with tags Gmail, Stuff on November 20, 2008 by Desktop FeedbagNEW – PowerShell: CBT Nuggets
Posted in Powershell with tags Powershell on August 12, 2008 by Desktop FeedbagInternet TV FREE utility, much like RSS and Tivo
Posted in Great Sites, Stuff, Techie Linx, Technical, Tools, VMware, Virtual PC, Vista, WinPE, Windows Server, Windows XP with tags Media on August 12, 2008 by Desktop FeedbagI just discovered this FREE tool the other day. It’s kinda like Tivo and a RSS reader for Internet video. There’s some great techie stuff out there. Take a look, there’s over 4000 channel’s.
Download
http://www.getmiro.com/
Here’s a great Miro Channel
https://miroguide.com/channels/4832
5 Free PowerShell Tools
Posted in Powershell, Scripting with tags Powershell on August 2, 2008 by Desktop FeedbagI saw this online a little while ago, thought I would share.
http://www.networkworld.com/community/five-free-powershell-tools
How to add Quest AD tools to your native PowerShell
Posted in Active Directory, Powershell, Scripting, Windows Server with tags Active Directory, Microsoft, Powershell, Windows on August 2, 2008 by Desktop FeedbagOkay so I got the AD cmdlets working in the standard install of Powershell. I didn’t want to use the Quest PowerShell command line interface, that’s just me though. Also, it’ll be easier to run scheduled scripts through the native anyway.
The first thing you need to do is install Windows PowerShell. I’m using the new CTP 2.0 because of it’s remote capabilities and it comes with a nice GUI scripting interface as well which color codes everything.
You need to install .NET 2.0 and I think .NET 3.0 as well. I have both so it didn’t really matter. You also need to install WS-Management which you can get here.
Now download and install the AD Quest tools, these are FREE by the way. This also gives you another PowerShell command line window. Too many command line windows hence the reason for this blog post.
http://www.quest.com/powershell/activeroles-server.aspx
Now it’s time to create your PowerShell profiles. The first thing you want to do is open up the PowerShell command line editor and run the following
test-path $profile
This will tell you if you have a personal PowerShell profile. A profile runs when you launch PowerShell so you can customize.
So, lets’ create one, run this PowerShell line
new-item -path $profile -itemtype file -force
Now type
notepad $profile
This will open your personal PowerShell launch profile. This is where you can add the Quest AD tools to open with your native PowerShell. Add the following to the .ps1 file and save.
add-pssnapin quest.activeroles.admanagement
Now close out of PowerShell and open again, you should now have the Quest AD snap-ins in your PowerShell. To test, run
get-pssnapins
Now if you really want to get fancy and allow all your PowerShell tools to load these snappins you can remove the add-psssnapin from your profile above and add it to the systems profile. To do this open up PowerShell and run this line.
new-item -path $env:windir\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\profile.ps1 -itemtype file -force
This will create a system profile, this will launch for anyone and for any interface on that system. Now edit the newly created .ps1 file in the SYS32 location above with
add-pssnapin quest.activeroles.admanagement
You’re now good to go. These AD Quest tools are great, no more long WMI scripts with these. Enjoy!
Free PowerShell Commands for Active Directory
Posted in Active Directory, Powershell, Scripting with tags Active Directory, Microsoft, Powershell, Windows on August 1, 2008 by Desktop FeedbagJust stumbled upon this today. I need to write some stuff for AD and thought these might be a good place to start.
VMware releases PowerShell cmdlets for FREE
Posted in Powershell, VMware with tags VMware on July 31, 2008 by Desktop FeedbagGreat news from VMware.
Yes, VMware ESX 3i is now Free
Posted in VMware with tags VMware on July 28, 2008 by Desktop FeedbagESX 3i for Free
Posted in VMware with tags Free, VMware on July 27, 2008 by Desktop FeedbagRumor has it that on Monday July 28th, VMware will release ESX 3i for free. This is a lightweight version of ESX without the RedHat components. Very cool indeed, especially for home and for labs.
http://www.virtualization.info/2008/07/vmware-to-release-esx-3i-for-free-next.html
