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Getting Rid of Apple Software Update

I had to load Quicktime on my PC for one reason or another in the past few months. It's not generally a package I load, but, apparently I needed it for some reason. I of course did the extra legwork to find the Quicktime installer that didn't include Read More...
Posted Friday, May 09, 2008 10:17 PM by Brian Desmond | 2 Comments
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Windows 2003 Forest Functional Level

Thought I'd post an informational post for folks who are moving an AD forest to Windows 2003 forest functional level (aka FFL2) as I realized today this piece of information might not be quite as well known as I might have thought. As an FYI, this change Read More...
Posted Friday, April 11, 2008 12:34 AM by Brian Desmond | 1 Comments
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Upgrading my MCSE

So I have an MCSE: Messaging 2003. Took something like 7 or 8 tests to get that way back when and it's still good. Being the good consultant that I am I decided I'd figure out what I need to do to get whatever the new equivelants are on Windows 2008 and Read More...
Posted Wednesday, April 02, 2008 12:38 AM by Brian Desmond | 2 Comments

Forcing a Blue Screen via iLO

Sometimes one of the most useful resources at your disposal when troubleshooting a hang or other issues is the memory dump file Windows will write out during a blue screen. If a system is hung and you are not able to get to it locally, pressing Ctrl+ScrollLock, Read More...
Posted Thursday, March 27, 2008 12:03 AM by Brian Desmond | 1 Comments
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Loading VMWare 6 Tools on 2008 Server Core

Normally in VMWare when you go "VM>Install VMWare Tools..." with a Windows guest, autorun kicks right in and the installer launches. On server core this isn't the case. You need to launch the MSI by hand. To do this, swich to your CD drive (e.g. "D:"), Read More...
Posted Saturday, March 22, 2008 11:37 PM by Brian Desmond | 0 Comments
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How to Sysprep in Windows 2008

I thought I'd document how to setup the new sysprep process equivalent on Windows 2008 since the old setupmgr file for making sysprep.inf's doesn't exist anymore (and neither does sysprep.inf). The first step is acquiring the Windows Automated Installation Read More...
Posted Saturday, March 22, 2008 10:43 PM by Brian Desmond | 6 Comments
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Windows 2008 - Windows System Image Manager Error

I'm working on adding Windows 2008 to my lab and the first step of this for me anyway is making templates. The whole sysprep process in Vista and Windows 2008 has been completely re-engineered so I'm learning on the go here. Turns out you need to load Read More...
Posted Saturday, March 22, 2008 6:04 PM by Brian Desmond | 0 Comments
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At DEC This Week

I'm heading downtown in a bit for DEC 2008 and will be around all week. Please do say stop by and say hello and join in the conversations if you're there! If you're looking for suggestions on local things I can try and help since I'm from Chicago too. Read More...
Posted Sunday, March 02, 2008 1:50 PM by Brian Desmond | 0 Comments
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Exchange 2007 SCC Install Error

Apparently when installing a new Exchange 2007 SCC cluster, you can't give the resource group containing the physical disks the same name as what the cluster virtual name will be. For example if your mailbox virtual server will accessible via shortname Read More...
Posted Saturday, January 12, 2008 3:47 PM by Brian Desmond | 0 Comments
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Active Directory Site Links – Naming & Costing

There are a few things that you really have to consider when you're setting up your site links – the naming convention, cost relative to the underlying WAN transport, frequency of replication, and schedule (that is when replication can even occur). Naming Read More...
Posted Thursday, November 29, 2007 9:04 PM by Brian Desmond | 2 Comments
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Attachment(s): Link Costs.xlsx

Script to Reset Local Administrator Passwords

I realized I hadn't posted this one answering a newsgroup post this morning. The attached script will iterate through a list of workstation names in a text file, ping them, and if the ping returns then reset the local administrator account password to Read More...
Posted Saturday, May 05, 2007 11:11 AM by Brian Desmond | 1 Comments
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Attachment(s): ChangeLocalAdminPasswords.zip

WSUS 3.0

Microsoft recently released WSUS 3.0. WSUS is their free product for managing Windows Update content on Wintel machines in an organization. You can grab a copy of it here . Searching the Microsoft download site for "WSUS 3" or something similar yields Read More...
Posted Tuesday, May 01, 2007 9:06 PM by Brian Desmond | 2 Comments
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Script to Collect Local Administrators Membership from List of Machines

Another script I wrote the other day, this one will take an input file called workstations.txt and produce a CSV which is easy to view in Excel and look at the local administrators group membership for the list of machines. The script could easily be Read More...
Posted Thursday, April 26, 2007 8:30 AM by Brian Desmond | 8 Comments
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Attachment(s): DumpLocalAdministrators.zip

Script to Collect Basic Inventory Data From Machines

This is another useful script I sometimes use when I need to collect some basic inventory data from a list of machines. The attached vbscript takes an input file called workstations.txt and produces an comma separated output file called workstationinventory.txt. Read More...
Posted Thursday, April 26, 2007 8:25 AM by Brian Desmond | 4 Comments
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Attachment(s): CollectWorkstationInventory.zip

Script to Create Home Folders for OU

I thought I'd share the script attached at the end of this post as it's something I've seen requests for below. The script will take all of the users in a given OU (or really any subtree), and create a home folder for them and stamp the path and drive Read More...
Posted Thursday, April 26, 2007 8:14 AM by Brian Desmond | 2 Comments
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Attachment(s): CreateHomeFolders.zip
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