Add The ‘Group Policy Management Console’
KB ID 0001615 Problem On a Domain Controller you will get Group Policy Management, (by default) listed under administrative tools. But if you have a ‘Management Server’ of a ‘Jump Box’, that you want to install the tool onto, (without making it a domain controller!) Then do the following; Option 1: Install GPMC with Powershell This is the quickest and simplest option! Open a PowerShell Windows and execute the...
Windows Group Policy – Disable The Local Windows Firewall
KB ID 0001090 Problem I’ve got nothing against the Windows firewall, it’s certainly a lot easier to manage now than it was back in the XP SP2 days. But I find a lot of clients still just ‘want it gone’ and, providing they have a decent corporate firewall in front of them that’s fair enough. Solution 1. On a domain controller or a client running the remote administration tools > Windows Key+R >...
Network Profile Switches from ‘Private’ to ‘Public’
KB ID 0001613 Problem This popped up in the forums last night, if you have a Workgroup*, (non domain joined) machine, the profile of the network card keeps switching from Private to Public. *Note: A domain joined machine, automatically will set it’s network profile to ‘Domain’. Option 1: Set the Network Profile using Local Group Policy Hit Windows Ker + R to open Run prompt, and type gpedit.msc Navigate to Computer...
PowerShell: Find Computers Last Logon Date
KB ID 0001612 Problem I had to find the last time a particular server had logged on for a client the other week, so we knew for sure it was dead! Solution The two commands you may need are; Locate Servers Last Login Time Get-ADComputer -Filter {OperatingSystem -Like ‘*SERVER’} -Properties lastlogondate,operatingsystem | Select name,laslogondate,operatingsystem Locate Clients Last Login Time Get-ADComputer -Filter...
Windows – Stop the Welcome to Internet Explorer from launching via GPO
KB ID 0000459 Problem If your’e logging on as a new user and Internet Explorer has not yet been ran, then it wants to run the “Setup Windows Internet Explorer Wizard”. On just one machine with one user that’s fine, but if you are logging in all over the place, with multiple credentials, this can get quite annoying. Also you might not want your domain users having to do this at all, for security reasons....
Group Policy Preferences and Client Side Extensions
Group Policy Preferences KB ID 0000389 Problem Group Policy Preferences (GPP) first came in with Server 2008 and were enhanced for Server 2008 R2, To be able to apply them to older Windows clients, you need to install the “Client side Extensions” (CSE), You can either script this, deploy with a group policy, or if you have WSUS you can send out the update that way. From windows 7 onwards they are already installed....
Management Framework 5.1 Update Not Applicable
KB ID 0001599 Problem Seen while attempting to install Microsoft Management Framework 5.1 on Server 2012 R2, (to upgrade PowerShell). Windows Update Standalone Installer The update is not applicable to your computer Solution Well in the the end it turns out I was being a doofus! I was installing W2K12-KB3191565-x64.msu which is for Server 2012 (Not Server 2012 R2!) Look a bit lower, you need Win8.1AndW2K12R2-KB3191564-x64.msu. The...
Moving Certificate Services To Another Server
KB ID 0001473 Problem If you are retiring a CA Server, or there’s a problem with the server and you want to move Microsoft Certificate Services to another server, the procedure is pretty straight forward. BE AWARE: We are moving the CA Server Name , NOT the Server Name (FQDN), the two things are NOT the same, (you might have called them the same thing!) But a Certificate Authority has a name of its own, and that’s what we...
VMware Horizon: ‘VM With Unsupported Guest OS’
KB ID 0001592 Problem Seen when attempting to deploy Window Server 2016, as an ‘Image’ (Parent VM,) with VMware Horizon View. ‘VM With Unsupported Guest OS’ I double checked, and Server 2016 (Standard and DataCenter) were supported, as was Server 2019 (Standard and DataCenter.) The image also had a new version of the VMware Horizon View agent installed in it? Solution In my case this was an embarrassingly easy...
Load Balance IIS with Microsoft ARR
KB ID 0001573 Problem If you have a lot of IIS servers, and want to load balance between them, then you can either buy a load balancer, or use Microsoft ARR (Application Request Routing). Note: ARR does a lot more than simply load balancing, e.g. it can perform caching, and complex web routing, and even SSL offloading. Here we are just looking at load balancing. I’m going to deploy TWO ARR servers in my DMZ, here I’ve got...