02.27.08
Posted in PowerShell at 8:38 am by Administrator
Today, my inbox was greeted with a couple of new links for those of you looking at and working with PowerShell. The first is a pretty cool e-workbook on getting started with PowerShell, written by Frank Koch of Microsoft Switzerland. Frank put together this workbook (in English and German, btw) for folks looking to get started using PowerShell and had contacted me about taking a look at SDM Software’s GPMC cmdlets and GPExpert Scripting Toolkit. He’s finished his book and has put it out on the Microsoft download site for those interested. Check it out at:
German version:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/7/1/47104ec6-410d-4492-890b-2a34900c9df2/Workshops-DE.zip
English version:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/7/1/47104ec6-410d-4492-890b-2a34900c9df2/Workshops-EN.zip
The second link is for a video I just did for the folks as SpecOps. They have their new SpecOps Command product, which is a very cool solution for combining the power of Group Policy and PowerShell. Basically they let you use Group Policy to distribute PowerShell (and VBScript) scripts to clients on your network. In the video I created, I show how you can use SpecOps Command in conjunction with SDM Software’s upcoming Get-SDMGPHealth cmdlet to retrieve Group Policy processing health across your systems.
Check out the video here!
Tags: PowerShell, Group Policy, SDM Software, SpecOps
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02.26.08
Posted in AD at 12:48 pm by Administrator
NetPro is hosting their annual Directory Experts Conference next week in Chicago. If you haven’t been to this show, its a great place to mean all the giant brains in the Active Directory world and learn some cool things about AD and related technologies. If you are going, look me up when you’re there. I’m giving two Group Policy sessions on Tuesday of next week, as well as hosting, with Kevin Sullivan of the MS GP product team, a GP "birds of a feather" session on Tue at 4:30pm. My first session will be focused on automating Group Policy management using scripting technologies, including PowerShell. The second session will focus on Group Policy performance, and I’ll be looking at ways to design "performant" GP infrastructures. It should be a good show, and especially because the "Dean and Joe" show is back for another year!
I look forward to meeting old and new friends there!
Tags:
Netpro, Active Directory, Group Policy, Directory Experts Conference
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Posted in General Stuff at 9:07 am by Administrator
One of the members on our GPTalk mailing list just informed me that the Client Side Extension (CSE) packages for the new Group Policy Preference product are now available on the Microsoft download site. These are the installs that allow Windows clients to process the new Group Policy Preference settings. You can find them all, including those for XP and 2003, by searching on "Group Policy Preference". Still no sign of the Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) download but I suspect it will be here soon.
Tags:
Group Policy, Group Policy Preference
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02.11.08
Posted in General Stuff at 11:25 am by Administrator
Well, in addition to my earlier blog post about resources for getting Group Policy help, Microsoft has fired up a new TechNet GP 2008 Forum. Check it out!
Tags:
Group Policy, TechNet
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02.08.08
Posted in PowerShell at 1:58 pm by Administrator
Well, we’ve updated our free SDM Software GPMC PowerShell cmdlets (registration optional)! We are now up to 16 cmdlets! Cool. Here’s what we’ve added:
- Added the –DomainName parameter to all cmdlets as appropriate to allow you to perform operations against domains other than the one the cmdlets run in
- Added 4 new cmdlets, including:
- Import-SDMgpo: provides support for the GPMC Import function that allows you to import a GPMC backup into a GPO. This is often used for migration of GPOs from test to production domains/forests.
- Get-SDMSOMSecurity: provides a list of GP-related permissions on a given SOM (Scope of Management, i.e. site, domain or OU)
- Add-SDMSOMSecurity: lets you add GP-related permissions (e.g. create GPO, link GPO, RSOP logging and planning) to a given SOM
- Remove-SDMSOMSecurity: lets you remove GP-related permissions from a given SOM
If you installed the 1.0 version, just uninstall that and install this new setup. Note that the snap-in name has changed to SDMSoftware.PowerShell.GPMC.
To get a full list of the GPMC cmdlets, type this at a PowerShell command prompt:
get-command *sdm* -type cmdlet
All the cmdlets also include help, so just use get-help <cmdlet name> to find out the correct syntax.
Check it out and let me know what you think.
Tags:
PowerShell, Group Policy, SDM Software, GPMC
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Posted in General Stuff at 8:08 am by Administrator
Every once in a while I like to mention that we have a great resource for asking questions and getting answers related to Group Policy. As you may know if you’ve read my blog for a while, I started the gpoguy.com website several years back as a free resource for GP info, tools and videos. While I don’t get as much time as I’d like to update that site these days, one great resource that is available is the GPTalk mailing list. The mailing list is about 340 people strong at the moment and is a great resource that you can subscribe to for asking questions about GP and getting answers. There are some smart people that hang around the list and its always interesting to see what folks are doing with GP.
Tags:
Group Policy, GPTalk, GPOGUY.COM
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02.04.08
Posted in General Stuff at 7:06 am by Administrator
Just an FYI that the guys over at Centrify are hosting a webinar to talk about their Group Policy implementation for non-Windows systems, including Linux/Unix and the Mac. Fellow GP MVP Jeremy Moskowitz is providing color commentary as well so it should be a good show. Check it out!
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