Ying Li at myITforum.com

MDT 2010 Deploy Windows 7 – Join the computer to the domain

2010-06-13T16:18:56Z

I am using MDT 2010 to deploy Windows 7 image and I had some issues to make the computer automatically join the domain after the deployment! By default MDT has this covered and you just need to answer a few question on this page it will add the computer to the default “computer” OU, if you want to put everywhere else, just create a “DomainOUList.xml” file and save it in control folder, you will see a drop down error next to “option” for you to select the path. The DomainOUList.xml looks like below...(read more)

PowerShell Script to Get (Set) Logon Scripts for users of a certain group

2010-06-12T18:53:18Z

I am currently leading an effort to Upgrade our client OS from XP to Windows 7. We decided to move away from logon script (mostly used for drive mapping & printer mapping) to Group Policy Preference. So how we determine what logon script assigned to a particular user? My friend Jeffery Hicks has a blog about this, I like the word “Legacy”, I have long been advocating to get rid of logon script using every opportunity I have! PS S:\> get-qaduser -LogonScript * | sort LogonScript | select name...(read more)

When you P2V a domain controller – be mindful with the “hidden” physical NIC!

2010-05-20T01:54:56Z

We suddenly started to get the below OpsMgr alerts as on some servers we monitor event viewer. Alert: System Event Monitoring Rule Source: whatever.xyz.com Path: Last modified by: System Last modified time: 5/18/2010 12:09:53 PM Alert description: Event Description: The browser service was unable to retrieve a list of servers from the browser master \\DC1 on the network \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{E85097A4-D2FE-4E45-A53E-D47CD0F2DB1B}. Browser master: \\DC1 Network: \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{E85097A4-D2FE...(read more)

MDT 2010 – Create a Task Sequence using PowerShell to Rename Local Administrator Account

2010-05-20T01:23:12Z

I am working on to create a Windows 7 image using MDT 2010, one of the request is to rename the local administrator account in the image. I did this in XP build which I have no problem, rename the local admin account then capture the image. The deployed image will keep my renamed local admin account. But in Windows 7 image, I just can’t do that! I rename the admin account, capture the image. But when I deploy the captured image, the local admin account reverse back to “administrator”. The indication...(read more)

Windows PowerShell Cmdlets - Bing

2010-05-18T02:46:31Z

Windows PowerShell Cmdlets – Bing Just do a PowerShell search using Bing – it’s very cool!...(read more)

OpsMgr – Create a group for SAN attached servers

2009-08-18T03:54:34Z

I need to monitor system event 100 – EMC PowerPath generated error. In my previous blog , I detailed how to setup a monitor/rule to monitor event. The challenge here is that I want to target my monitor/rule to servers attached to EMC SAN. Here is how I did it - First, I need to create a new WMI based custom attribute in OpsMgr. In OpsMgr console – click Authoring, expand Management Pack Objects, right click Attributes, choose Create a New Attribute Click Next, Next to Discovery Type, choose...(read more)

Enable PowerShell Remoting on Windows 7 (RC) Machine is THAT EASY!

2009-07-06T21:56:35Z

I have a Vista SP 2 box and Windows 7 (RC) box. On the Vista box, I have PowerShell V2 installed and PowerShell remoting enabled a while back and I even forgot the exact cmdlet I used. This is in a AD environment and I have domain admin right on both machines. So from Windows 7 to Vista box, I could do this invoke-command –computername pluto {get-process} After a short but noticeable wait as PowerShell does need to establish a remote session(PSSession), to execute the get-process cmdlet on...(read more)

PowerShell Remoting and Sessions

2009-06-22T03:13:45Z

As we all know that Remoting is a big thing in PowerShell V2, you may not know that the key thing to PowerShell Remoting is the “Sessions”. Session is actually not new at all to PowerShell, it exist in V1 and it doesn’t have to be remote! Let’s see the below cmdlet get-service i* It is running locally but it is a (hidden)session It is equivalent to the below cmdlet Invoke-command {get-service i*} To extend that to a remote computer “whatever”, you do this - Invoke-command –comutername whatever –command...(read more)

PowerShell (V2) remoting

2009-06-08T04:41:36Z

As we already know that Windows 7 will become generally available on Oct. 22, 2009, and Windows Server 2008 R2 will be broadly available at the same time . For PowerShell funs, PowerShell V2 will be integrated with Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2! That is, you don’t have to install (XP/Windows 2003) or enable the feature (Vista/Windows Server 2008). It’s installed and enabled for you! I have been using PowerShell CTP2/3 and running Windows 7 RC recently, therefore effective using PowerShell V2. PowerShell...(read more)

How to setup a Configmgr hierarchies between two AD Forests without trust

2009-05-29T02:47:03Z

Here is a document for setting up Configuration Manager in multiple Active Directory Forest with or without trust. It kind touch on everything but lacking the detailed instruction as to how to set it up! Let’s say you have a production AD forest which have Configmgr hierarchies in place, you have another AD forest setup for commercial facing websites or whatever reason. The security requirement is NO TRUST between the two forests. How are you going to setup the site to site communication between...(read more)

The wait is over – OpsMgr 2007 R2 hits RTM

2009-05-28T00:53:23Z

Yesterday, the OpsMgr 2007 R2 finally hits RTM, you can download the evaluation copy here . The production version will be available until July 1st. But you can install the evaluation copy now and upgrade later....(read more)

OpsMgr 2007 SP1 – Creating a rule to monitor logon event

2009-05-18T04:55:00Z

At times some people use service account to logon to machines and it has the potential to lockout the service account and therefore bring down the service which is not acceptable to the business and we would need to create a monitor or rule to monitor this behavior. We can create a monitor or rule, the process is pretty much the same except the monitor will affect the availability of the business application and the rules do not. Another thing need to pay attention is how you reset the monitor once...(read more)

Antivirus Software Hijacked my Virtual Machines!

2009-05-10T16:35:38Z

It cost me a few hours the other day to do a mini – DR for one of my Hyper-V host! Hopefully this post will save you some trouble in the future. The trouble starts when I try to build a new VM through VMM 2008, I got the error like below - The requested operation cannot be performed on a file with a user-mapped section open. ( 0x800704C8 ) Then I thought what about try to create the new VM using Hyper-V manager, I got this error - VMName’ Microsoft Synthetic Ethernet Port (Instance ID {7E0DA81A-A7B4...(read more)

PowerShell 1.0 is now available as an optional update

2009-03-26T01:01:12Z

Great News! On Tuesday (3/24/09),Microsoft published PowerShell 1.0 on Windows Update! PowerShell 1.0 through MU is only offered: · As an optional update · If you don’t have any other version of PowerShell installed (including V2 CTPs) on your machine · .NET 2.0 is installed on the machine · OS is one of: XP-SP3, W2K3-SP2, Vista-RTM, Vista-SP1 With PowerShell 1.0 on Windows update, it will now reach a broader audience, (3.5 million downloads so far). This will help the user community to get...(read more)

PowerShell Script to Create Multiple Exchange Mailbox and Set Primary SMTP Addresses

2009-02-20T04:11:01Z

I am working on a request to create ~800 user's Exchange 2007 SP1 mailboxes from an excel file. The file with the following headers filled with user's information. Name, FirstName, MI, LastName, Email, OU The Alias will be in firstname.mi.lastname if there is a MI or otherwise in firstname.lastname format. I come up the following script: $Password=Read-Host "Enter Password" -AsSecureString Import-CSV c:\users.csv | foreach {new-ma ilbox -firstname $_.firstname -initials $_.MI -Lastname...(read more)