Windows Power Essentials Tips & Tricks
April 13, 2012 Leave a comment
Those of you following me on Twitter will no doubt have seen or ignored more than a few tweets from me recently about how much i like PowerShell.
Not least because it makes you look clever if you have a script open on one of your monitors.
I have said it before, Command line stuff just impresses people, its a scientific fact. Read more of this post
March 5, 2012 4 Comments
I have been spending some time answering questions in the SBS Essentials forum over at TechNet recently, and i noticed that there is still a lot of outstanding questions and issues with the Remote Access wizard for SBS Essentials, especially surrounding installing an SSL Certificate.
One of the big headaches comes when you have a domain with one of the ‘supported’ registrars, Enom or GoDaddy. Read more of this post
February 27, 2012 Leave a comment
A client called me today to say ‘we cant get on the internet’, I asked what happened when they loaded up the browser, and they got a 503 Service Unavailable.
January 25, 2012 4 Comments
PowerShell is pretty cool. There does not seem to be much you can’t find out with it, or configure with it.
Not being a developer i struggle to build complex PowerShell scripts
December 20, 2011 3 Comments
Right now i am dealing with an SBS 2008 Server that was missing the Terminal Services Gateway service. This meant that RWA was not working. Users could login to the RWA, choose which computer to connect to, but then they got an error saying that the Terminal Services Gateway service was not running and to call and shout at their Administrator Read more of this post
November 29, 2011 16 Comments
During a recent SMB MVP Community Roadshow event in Edinburgh, a member of the audience asked us about Email restore in SBS 2011.
Although i knew this could be done, i had never actually done it. So i decided to work out how it was done with SBS 2011.
I found a lot of great resources online that helped me with the process and i have linked to them at the end of this post.
I’m focusing on a situation where we are restoring from a backup, rather than what is available through the Exchange dumpster (aka Recover Deleted Items) although i do cover that briefly below.
November 3, 2011 3 Comments
I currently have a number of books on my desk that i use for reference, you may have heard of them, read them, bought them, stolen them, sorry, borrowed them etc, Anyway they wont be a new idea to you, i don’t mean books in general i mean these particular books. I am of course referring to the Administrators Pocket Consultant series from Microsoft Press.
All of them unnervingly seem to be written by the same person, Mr William R Stanek. Anyway there is a point to this.
I have been answering questions in the forum recently and i find myself asking the OP, hey do you have XYZ update installed?
They usually reply, how do i check?
Of course i refer them to their Administration journal, which clearly shows the date and time any update had passed testing and was approved for installation, the name of the tech who logged onto the server, the colour of his socks he had on whilst he installed it. Of course it could have been a her.
Knowing many of you don’t keep such a journal only saddens me, i like to know what colour socks i had on, on a given day and i frequently go back and check.
I turned of course to my PowerShell Administrators Companion, and found the following command.
Never again shall you be left red faced by the question, do you have XYZ update installed? Not only will you be able to answer with confidence, you will be able to give all sorts of other detail that will really impress me.
Loading up PowerShell, you can simply type…
Get-Hotfix
This will list all of the Updates, Hotfixes and Service Packs that have been installed onto the system, it will also list the date, and who installed them.
But how does that help you find a specific update? Simply add the KB number you are looking for.
Get-Hotfix –id <KB Number>
For example if i want to know if i have installed SBS Essentials Update Rollup 1, i can type..
Get-Hotfix –id KB2554629
If the hotfix is not installed you will get an error.
As easy as that.
By the way, I’m not selling these books nor do i earn commission out of their sale, but i have one of these books for pretty much every Microsoft Server/Client OS i support. They are cheap and are just full of brilliant tips such like the one i just ripped off and turned into a blog post.
Title (Required) 