Deploy Google Chrome silently with no shortcuts

Deploying applications is as easy as ABC when there is no need to repackage them. But then you get a request that requires some changes that should be easy. To deploy Google Chrome silently with no shortcuts is one of them and is not as easy as you might think.

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Posted in Applications, SCCM | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

KB3159706 breaks WSUS

Apparently KB3159706 breaks WSUS for some of my customers. I’ve had a few calls where they say that WSUS doesn’t work any longer or that the Software Update Point in Configuration Manager is generating errors.

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Analytics Plus – Reports for SCCM

A while back I wrote a post on how to install and configure Analytics Plus from ManageEngine and how to get data from the System Center Configuration Manager database to create reports and dashboards.

In this post I will share with you SQL queries that might come in handy when you are about to hand in reports or when you are creating your own dashboards for monitoring. Continue reading

Posted in ManageEngine, SCCM, SQL | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Analytics for your System Center Configuration Manager data

The most common question I get from my customers who are using Configuration Manager is without a doubt; “Can I get a report on this?”, “Is there a dashboard for this?” or other analytics.

Well, as most of you know, the reports straight out of System Center Configuration Manager isn’t always the best and there is no simple way of creating a dashboard either, at least not for the customer to use directly.

In this post I will be working with Analytics Plus from ManageEngine and show you how you can read data from the database directly and create a dashboard with three of the most common requests.

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Simple function for logging PowerShell script

When writing larger scripts, logging is a must, so in this post I will share a simple function for logging PowerShell script.

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Create blob storage in Azure with PowerShell

In this post I will show you how to create blob storage in Azure with PowerShell.
Azure blob storage is great for storing large amount of  data that is accessible from all around the world through HTTP or HTTPS.

I mainly use it for storing scripts that I use often at different customers instead of storing them locally on my computer or on one of many USB-sticks that I have a tendency to lose or misplace every other month. (Thank god for encryption and common sense not to save certain files and documents this way)

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Posted in Powershell | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Create a scheduled task with PowerShell

Sometimes during OSD I need to create a scheduled task with PowerShell so that the clients runs another script once the user has gotten the client.

In this short post, I will show you how to create a scheduled task that runs a script at logon, all through PowerShell.

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Posted in Powershell | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Check if the network cable is unplugged through PowerShell

In a recent script I did for a customer I needed to check if the network cable is unplugged through PowerShell on clients before continuing to execute the rest of the script.
With PowerShell you can get a lot of information about the network card, but depending on the client you may have more than one card, WiFi for example.

I decided to create a function to check if the cable is connected and send the adapter to this function. Continue reading

Posted in Powershell | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Configure a SMTP server in Azure

Sometimes in my scripts I need to send the result in a mail, but I don’t always have access to a SMTP server, so I decided to configure a SMTP server in Azure that I can use.

I will use SendGrid Email Delivery for this since I will get 25.000 free emails each month, more than I will ever use.

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Posted in Azure, Powershell | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

Get users in an AD-group and mail the content

Today I got a question if could write a small script to get users in an AD-group and mail the content to the service-desk. (Easy way to keep track of licenses for O365 for example)
The complete script can be found in the bottom of this post.

This script can easily be added to a scheduled task that will run once every week or more often depending on your needs.

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