Introduction It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about naming conventions. For most it’s not an interesting topic, and for many, it’s the last thing on their mind. While I would never say I get joy out of creating a good naming convention, I do get a sense of satisfaction and pride. For this blog post, I want to...

PowerShell: Find orphaned disks in Azure and their cost Version: 1.0.1 Introduction: Just wanted to get something super simple out there. I was curious how many unattatched disks our Azure portal had and what it was costing us. This little script will give us the basic answer to that question. The script This will loop...

PowerShell: Remove a failed domain controller Version: 1.0.1 Introduction: Let’s face it, removing a domain controller via the GUI is easy, but sometimes you just want to know how to automate something. In my research there was a lot of resources on how to cleanup using the GUI, or via NTDS. Nothing about utilizing...

Functions released in this module: Get-ECSWSUSUpdateReport

This is the easiest way to install all my modules in one shot. Sub-modules released in this module: ECS.WSUS 1.1.0

We migrated to Office 365 last year and were are in the process of cleaning up some items left behind. One of the many things we’ve needed to clean up is stale activesync devices. I wanted to share a very simplified example of the code I used to delete the container in case it helps anyone in the future. <pre...

This is the initial release of my WSUS module. This is a module I put together to properly organize a lot of my one off WSUS functions. I have found these functions useful for reporting n the status of computers in WSUS in mass. Querying the DB directly, while not recommended, is much faster than using the API, and you...

This is the second release of my LocalGPO module. Mostly code enhancement, but a few property changes as well. Functions released in this module: Add-ECSLocalGPOUserRightAssignment Get-ECSLocalGPOUserRightAssignment Remove-ECSLocalGPOUserRightAssignment Show-ECSLocalGPOUserRightAssignment You can learn more about the...

This is the second release of my all encompassing module. This is the easiest way to install all my modules in one shot. Sub-modules released in this module: ECS.LocalGPO v2.1.0 ECS.WindowsGeneric v1.1.0 You can learn more about the module here.

This is the first release of what I hope to be more Powershell modules. As mentioned in my earlier posts, I won’t go into details of the module in my posts, instead I’ll direct you to my GitHub page where you can read about the modules, it’s functions and release notes. Functions released in this module: Convert...

I created a function while ago that utilizes the VMDK serial number to map which VMDK is used for a Windows volume. Starting with Windows 10 / Server 2016, I noticed that I could no longer see the serial number of a VMDK insides the OS. After reaching out to VMware, turned out to be a really simple fix. First let me...

Introduction: I hate the WSUS reports built into the console. They’re slow, and when it comes to doing something useful with the data, it’s basically impossible. That’s why I wrote this function. I wanted an ability to gather data on a given WSUS computer(s), and work with it in Powershell. This function gives me the...

Introduction: If you don’t know by now, I’m a huge PowerShell fan. It’s my go to scripting language for anything related to Microsoft (and non-Microsoft) automation and administration. So when it came time to automating post exchange cumulative update setting, I was a bit surprised to see some of the code examples from...

Introduction: If you remember a little bit ago, I said I was trying to work around the lack of driver management with vendors. This function is the start of a few tools you can use to potentially make your life a little easier. VMware’s drivers are VIBS (but not all VIBS are drivers). So the key to knowing if you have...

Introduction: If you’re not in a DevOps based shop, or living under a rock, you may not know that Microsoft has been working on a solution that by all accounts sounds like its poised to usurp GPO / GPP. The solution I’m talking about is Desired State Configuration, or DSC. According to all the marketing hype, DSC is...

Quick Powershell post for those of you that may on occasion want to retrieve data out of a SQL table via Powershell. I didn’t personally do most of the heavy lifting in this, I simply took some work that various folks out there did and put it into a repeatable function instead. Firstly, head over to here to my GitHub...

Building off my last function Get-ECSPhysicalDiskToLogicalDiskMapping: which took a windows physical disk and mapped it to a windows logical disk, this function will take a VMware virtual disk and map it to a windows logical disk. This function has the following dependencies and assumptions: It depends on my windows...

I figured it was about time to knock out something a little technical for a change, and I figured I’d start with this little function, which is part of a larger script that I’ll talk more about later. There may be a time where you need to find the relationship between a physical disk drive and your logical drive. In my...