PowerShell | Title (Required)

Windows Server 2012 Essentials, An Error prevented the Dashboard from opening

April 29, 2013 by Robert Pearman 37 Comments

This is an issue that has caught me out once or twice in my testing and general messing about with Essentials over the last age, and also someone in the forum just posted a question along these lines so i thought it worth a post. I have been struggling with a bit of ‘writers block’* recently and this seemed to be something easy to get back into blogging again with.

* I do not consider myself to be a writer, merely a lazy admin who had nothing interesting to say.

Read more of this post

Filed under Essentials, PowerShell, SSL, WSE Tagged with 2012, Dashboard, Essentials, Registry, SSL

Quick Fix: Reset Windows Firewall SBS & Windows Server Essentials

February 5, 2013 by Robert Pearman 11 Comments

Whilst troubleshooting a problem on a server, have you ever reset Windows Firewall back to Defaults?

It would seem like a logical step in some cases, however it could have unexpected consequences. Read more of this post

Filed under Essentials, General, PowerShell, Quick Fix, SBS E, WSE Tagged with Essentials, Firewall, PowerShell

PowerShell, Make it do something useful!

October 29, 2012 by Robert Pearman 10 Comments

$users = ((Get-ADUser -filter * | where-object { $_.GivenName -ne $null }) | foreach{ $_.Name})
foreach ($user in $users)
{
        $FirstName = (Get-ADUser -filter {Name -eq $User} | foreach {$_.GivenName}).ToString()
        $SurName = (Get-ADUser -filter {Name -eq $User} | foreach {$_.SurName}).ToString()
        $DisplayName = ("$Firstname" + " " + "$Surname")
        $DisplayName
        Set-ADUser $User -DisplayName $DisplayName
        Set-ADUser $User -Description "User Created by Windows Server 2012 Essentials Dashboard"
}

You might be wondering what the hell that means?

Read more of this post

Filed under Essentials, PowerShell, Tips & Tricks, WSE Tagged with Dashboard, Essentials, Power Shell

Quick Fix: Cancel Email Forwarding Exchange 2007/10

October 24, 2012 by Robert Pearman 2 Comments

Had a call from a client who needed to cancel all automatic forwarding of email to one recipient.

Easy you might think. Read more of this post

Filed under Exchange, PowerShell, Quick Fix, Tips & Tricks Tagged with Exchange, PowerShell

On Prem Exchange Windows Server 2012 Essentials: The Script!

October 23, 2012 by Robert Pearman 1 Comment

A few months back, i posted up about how to deploy the On Premises Integration between WSE12 and Exchange.

As part of that post i completely glossed over the method to install the Exchange Server promising to publish the PowerShell script i had written ‘soon’.

Today, my great friends, is that day.

Read more of this post

Filed under Essentials, PowerShell, Tips & Tricks, WSE Tagged with Essentials, Exchange 2010, PowerShell

Enable DirectAccess on Windows Server 2012 Essentials

October 15, 2012 by Robert Pearman 125 Comments

This post is now quite out of date and the instructions within are no longer reliable. Please refer to Microsoft’s own document online for the relevant steps.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj204618.aspx

One of the coolest improvements in Server 2012, is the simplification of DirectAccess. Not just the steps to enable it, but the requirements for your infrastructure to support it. In the past it was beyond most SMBs due to the need to have 2 consecutive public IPs a dedicated DA server, IP 6to4 translation capable equipment, and not to mention Windows 7 Enterprise, which few SMBs deploy. Moving into the 2012 line of products DA has become much more available to SMBs with the reduction in infrastructure requirements. Taking Essentials as an example, we can now run DA using just a standard Internet connected router, and with just our Essentials box as the DA endpoint.

Read more of this post

Filed under Essentials, General, PowerShell, Tips & Tricks, WIN 8, WSE Tagged with DirectAccess, Essentials, Win8

On Premises Exchange Integration Windows Server 2012 Essentials

July 11, 2012 by Robert Pearman 66 Comments

Yes, you heard me right. Hopefully by now the news of the end of development, shall we say, of SBS 2011 Standard has settled in, and you are ready for how to tackle the void left in the market. I know many partners and folks are talking about alternatives, Kerio, Hosted Exchange or any number of other solutions, but i wanted to demonstrate how easy it is to setup the OnPrem (OP) integration with an Exchange server, and how it is possible to access both, using 1 single public IP address.