Various Tips and Tricks
Running scripts to start and stop services has been a task long associated with Exchange. For those who pre-date Exchange 2000, do you remember the fun issues with the increased WaitToKillServiceTimeout value? By default in ye olde days HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlWaitToKillServiceTimeout was 20,000 ms (20 secs). Installing Exchange increased that to 600,000 ms (10 minutes). … Read the rest “Script To Start Exchange Services”
In some of the lab environments provided to me, the base Windows image has pre-set WSUS updates servers. When I then move the lab VMs to a different network, the original WSUS servers are no longer available, and I typically point to Microsoft Update or a different WSUS server.
In the case of pointing to Microsoft Update, I wanted to delete the initial WSUS registry values. In my case, these are … Read the rest “Script To Remove Windows Update Server Values From Registry”
In a recent customer conversation, they were excited that PowerShell 5.0 would contain the option to tail a log file. While they were excited to get that feature, they were less excited to hear that PowerShell 3.0 had already added the –Tail parameter to the Get-Content cmdlet. Previously there have been other solutions to get this functionality, but is now native in PowerShell.
As an example:
Update 25-4-2016 - The tool has been updated and should be functional. The feedback pages referenced at the bottom are now closed.
Back in 2012 the Active Directory Replication Status Tool (ADREPLSTATUS) was released. The below is from one of my old labs. It was a useful tool to have in environments which had no connectivity to external networks.
To download the tool click the image below.
ADREPLST… Read the rest “Active Directory Replication Status Tool Expired”
Remote Desktop Connection Manager (RDCMan) is a very popular remote administration tool with Microsoft admins. RDCMan allows us to minimise the number of open windows on the local machine, when connecting to multiple remote systems. At the time of writing, the latest version is 2.7 which can be downloaded here.
On my Windows 10 1511 laptop, some of my Azure VMs were not correctly rendering the di… Read the rest “Remote Desktop Connection Manager Distorted Display”
Yes Virginia there is! *
For those wondering what the download page is for the Azure Active Directory PowerShell module, using your favourite search engine is one choice.
Another is to memorise the below handy shortcut URL:
Which is take you directly to the manage Azure AD using PowerShell documentation/download.
Cheers,
Rhoderick
* – For non-US folks, the “Yes Virginia” response co… Read the rest “Quick Tip: Is There A Shortcut URL To Download Azure AD PowerShell?”
When deploying an Office 365 solution, directory synchronisation is a critical component. This is the tool that will synchronise the on-premises directory data to Windows Azure Active Directory (WAAD). As you can imagine if the synchronisation stops then chances are that you will run into some issues….
Note that this post is intended to cover both DirSync and AAD Sync, hence the generic title.
Whe… Read the rest “Managing Directory Synchronisation – Notes From The Field”
This post is to answer one of the many interesting questions that seem to pop up doing Exchange work! This is for one of my favourite customers in Winnipeg. Next time, let’s arrange the work for summertime so we can go golfing Tyler, eh? For some added nostalgia, let’s use Exchange 2007 as the example here as this will likely be one of the last blog posts to feature Exchange 2007 as it goes of … Read the rest “Using PowerShell To Filter Multiple Different Values”
After finding a killer PowerShell script on the interwebs, you download it and then the excitement dies when you get a lovely PSSecurityException error like the example below:
… Read the rest “Unable To Run Downloaded PowerShell Script”File C:ScriptsScript.ps1 cannot be loaded. The file C:ScriptsScript.ps1 is not digitally signed.
You cannot run this script on the current system. For more information about running scripts and setting execution policy, see ab
Over time a typical Azure subscription will create, delete and manage multiple virtual machines. When removing an Azure VM there is the option to retain the disk.
In a large environment with lots of disks and VMs, how can we easily see what disks are not currently in use?
The portal can show the disks that are attached and not attached.
This is good for a few disks, though if … Read the rest “Which Azure Disk Is Not Attached”