Getting a Servers Serial Number (Remotely)
KB ID 0001493 Problem If you have an iLO/iDRAC/EMM, then logging into these will give you the servers serial number, but what if they are not setup/connected, or you don’t know username or password? Then you can use WMI to discover the serial number. Solution From PowerShell; Get-Ciminstance -classname win32_bios -computername {Server-Name} | format-list serialnumber Or if you have RDP/Console access , then from an...
How to Tell if Windows is 32 or 64 bit
KB ID 0000153 Problem If you want to know what version (x64 or x86) of Windows you are running, then this is the simplest way to find out. Solution Under accessories run system information; Under System Type: If it says x86 then it’s 32 bit. However if it says x64 then it’s 64 bit. Windows XP and Server 2003 1. Click Start > Run > sysdm.cpl {enter} > General Tab. Windows XP x32 (x86) and Windows XP x64 Windows...
Windows – Lost / Forgotten Password?
KB ID 0000755 Problem There are many reasons why you might want to do this, someone has managed to change a user password and that person is not available, you might simply have forgotten it. Or you might have been given a machine, or bought one from ebay that has come without a password. Also there have been a few times when a user has looked me in the eye and said “I’m typing my password in, but it’s not...
IIS: Move WWWRoot Folder
KB ID 0001487 Problem I migrated an IIS website I use for hosting files this week, and realised I’d forgotten how to relocate the wwwroot directory from it’s default install location on C:\inetpub\wwwroot. Solution Firstly, I’m assuming you have instilled the IIS role and you already have a wwwroot folder on your C: Drive, (in the above location). If so you can simply copy this folder to your new partition/drive (in...
PowerShell: Bulk Add/Remove Users From Groups
KB ID 0001475 Problem I had to do this a few weeks ago, so I documented it. I had a list of usernames in a CSV file and I needed to bulk-add them to a security group. Bulk Add Group Users Solution Firstly you will need the usernames (sAMAccountNames) in .csv format like so, (Note: As a header Im using User-Name.) I’ve saved the file to C:\Temp on my server. Execute the following commands; Import-Module ActiveDirectory ...
PowerShell: Bulk Enable / Disable Users
KB ID 0001469 Problem I needed to work out how to bulk disable some domain users from a .CSV file this week, so I thought I’d write it up. Disable Domain Users in Bulk from CSV Well firstly, you need to have your users in a CSV file. For the live job I just exported all the SamAccountNames to a CSV, but here for testing I just loaded a few in manually; Then execute the following two commands; Import-Module ActiveDirectory ...
PDC Emulator: Cannot Sync Time From External NTP Server
KB ID 0001464 Problem I was involved in a question on Experts Exchange this week where the asker could not get their PDC to sync time from an external NTP server. He was seeing an Event ID 12 Error; Time Provider NtpClient: This machine is configured to use the domain hierarchy to determine its time source, but it is the PDC emulator for the domain at the root of the forest, so there is no machine above it in the domain hierarchy to...
Scheduled Task Error 0x1
KB ID 0001457 Problem While replacing a server, I copied over some scripts, (batch files) the client was using to back up some data. I scheduled them on the new server, but noticed they were finishing with a status of 0x1. (and not actually backing anything up!) Solution Edit the properties of the job > General Tab > Tick “Run with the highest privileges”. Note: You can also tick “Do not store password. This...
Dcpromo Error: No Other Active Directory Controllers?
KB ID 0001453 Problem I was trying to demote a domain controller yesterday morning, it was a 2008 R2 Domain controller, (in fact it was SBS 2011). I’d already added a nice new Server 2016 Domain Controller to the domain, and transferred all the FSMO roles, so I was surprised when I tried to gracefully demote the old DC and got this; You did not indicate that this Active Directory domain controller is the last domain controller...
PowerShell: Finding Stale User and Computer Accounts
KB ID 0001438 Problem I do this a lot, (usually prior to big migrations), most organisations have no mechanism for removing old users and computers from Active Directory, some don’t even disable the accounts. Find Users Who Have Never Logged On Use the following PowerShell Command; Get-ADUser -Filter { LastLogonDate -notlike “*” -and Enabled -eq $true } -Properties LastLogonDate | Select-Object @{...