Azure Functions - Learnings from executing PowerShell from C# 7 minutes readOur SaaS (ARGOS Cloud Security) is developed in C# and 95% of our application runs on Azure Functions. As ARGOS is about to get its latest new feature, the c...
Azure - Save Money by Changing Disk Type 1 minute readHere’s a quick tip to save money on your Azure VMs by changing the disk type. Especially over the holidays, when you might be running VMs for development or ...
Azure Functions - Migration Learnings 3 minutes readFor the last 4 years we have been running ARGOS Cloud Security, the cloud assessment product for Consultants, on Azure Functions. ARGOS has always been a dot...
Where are my Azure Portal Menu Items? less than 1 minute readQuick one here. Annoyed by Microsoft’s recent Azure portal change that collapses all the menus? One morning I logged into the Portal and was surprised to see...
Continuous Access Evaluation in Entra ID 2 minutes readWhat is Continuous Access Evaluation in Entra ID Traditional methods issue access tokens to APIs for a duration of typically 60 minutes (1 hour) and allow a...
Azure Policy to Allow Only Known Images 3 minutes readManaging cloud resources effectively and securely is a top priority for any organisation leveraging cloud services. With Azure’s massive ecosystem, it’s easy...
Logging, Monitoring and Observability - Same same, or different? 3 minutes readUnderstanding the nuances of system management is crucial for maintaining efficiency and reliability. Three key concepts – monitoring, logging, and observabi...
Automating Role Assignment Cleanup in Azure with PowerShell 2 minutes readAs an Azure administrator, maintaining a clean and secure environment is crucial. One aspect of keeping Azure organized is managing role assignments. Over ti...
How to use terraform to quickly deploy a decent Azure network 2 minutes readWhile I still #heart Pulumi, I still come across terraform in most engagements with customers. Here, I want to give you a quick way of deploying a decent “Ge...
Azure Static Web App - Build Production 1 minutes readFor a side-project I am using Azure Static Web Apps (SWA). They are intended to simplify the deployment and management of serverless applications, ensuring t...
Azure MFA - Enhanced Context with Number Matching 1 minutes readMulti-factor authentication (MFA) is one of the best ways to protect your identity in an online world. Microsoft even claims that using MFA blocks 99.9% of a...
Azure Static Web Apps - What happened to my Storage? 2 minutes readI recently started developing a new SaaS application and while I was looking for hosting options for this application people pointed me towards Azure Static ...
Azure Service Bus PowerShell Module 1 minutes readI recently worked with Azure Service Bus again. Service Bus was the messaging system of the microservice we were building for a customer. As part of that des...
Cosmos DB - Defender for Cloud 1 minutes readFor our cloud security product ARGOS we use Azure Cosmos DB as our backend database. Of course, I made sure we had all the common security practices applied....
How To Update Millions of Azure Cosmos DB Documents 3 minutes readWhen working with large data sets you sometimes end up having interesting issues. For example, at ARGOS Cloud Security we recently had to add a property to a...
Advanced Insights on Azure Functions - meet Genie 2 minutes readI feel like this feature that I am going to talk about here is a real hidden gem and I am not sure how I missed this. I honestly cannot tell you how long it ...
Testing ARM and AWS Templates 2 minutes readAre you already using infrastructure as code (IaC) templates like Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates or AWS CloudFormation to describe your cloud infrast...
What if I deployed this Azure ARM Template 4 minutes read “What happens if you deploy this change?” Sounds familiar? I guess every person that has written some sort of code has been asked this question before. ...
Using Microsoft Graph in Python 3 minutes readMicrosoft announced that it was going to deprecate the “Azure Active Directory Graph” APIs eventually. This week (June 2020) they announced a date: Start...
Managing Deployment Secrets with Azure Key Vault 3 minutes readSecrets (API keys, passwords, server names, access keys, user names, etc) are always part of any infrastructure / application deployment and always you get t...
How to not use master as default git branch 1 minutes readAs most people will be aware, GitHub, Gitlab and Azure DevOps announced that they will change the default behaviour of their git implementations. Instead of ...
Query Azure Subscriptions using Resource Graph and Functions 2 minutes readI have been working on a pretty big project lately where I need to query information about many, and I mean many, subscriptions and their resources and then ...
Azure Cloud Shell - For Real! 3 minutes readA lot of people have published articles about Azure Cloud Shell and how to master it was covered by Microsoft’s Thomas Maurer and by many others at conferenc...
Cloud Governance - The Best Way 4 minutes readJust recently I was tasked to find a product that, amongst others, does the following things: check infrastructure code for compliance be multi cloud c...
Right Tool For The Job 3 minutes readWhen I started off in IT in 2009 I was straight away introduced to Windows PowerShell, back then that was still PowerShell v1. Version 2 released later that ...
Azure Front Door to Support Deployments 2 minutes readSadly, application deployments that require downtime of your environment are still a common practice, sometimes it is because people do not know better and s...
Speaking at Microsoft Ignite The Tour Johannesburg less than 1 minute read2020 is already starting strong with interesting customer projects, but also my first trip to the continent of Africa to speak at Microsoft Ignite The Tour -...
Installing Azure AppInsights Extension 2 minutes readWithout insights into your environment you are lost guessing what is happening with no data to back up your guesses. One out of the box way to gain insights ...
Top Azure Influencer less than 1 minute read I’m happy to share with you that the UK based recruiting and consulting company Nigel Frank have included me in their recent line up of the top 20 Azure In...
Using Pulumi on Azure Storage Accounts 3 minutes readIf you have never heard of Pulumi then do yourself a favour and read up on their official website and then check out my article here. Caught up on Pulumi and...
Building a Multi Regional Web Application with Azure Front Door 4 minutes readA recent project with a very interesting company and an even more interesting product required us to build an architecture for their app that enabled a globa...
Awarded as Microsoft Azure MVP less than 1 minute readI am very happy and proud to announce that for another year I was awarded with the prestigious Microsoft Most Valuable Professional MVP award. This award reg...
Azure Bastion for RDP and SSH Access 3 minutes readAzure Bastion Service for RDP and SSH Access to Virtual Machines A very common problem to solve in the public cloud is secure access to Virtual Machines (VM...
Biggest Azure challenges you will face when starting out less than 1 minute readBiggest Azure challenges you will face when starting out When starting out with your Azure cloud journey there are a lot of things that one must take into c...
Managing Terraform State on Azure 4 minutes readWhen choosing terraform as your infrastructure as code tool it is important to understand that it is really easy to get going when it is just you and your la...
Getting started with Pulumi on Azure 5 minutes readGetting started with Pulumi on Azure Pulumi? Someone the other day didn’t quite hear me right and asked “Haloumi?”. Well, I can’t blame them, Pulumi is stil...
First steps with terraform 10 minutes readMicrosoft and terraform seems to be THE thing that everybody is talking about lately when it comes to Infrastructure as Code on Microsoft Azure. I have recen...
Bye bye 2018 3 minutes readIt’s New Year’s Eve in Australia already and I thought, like many other people out there, it’d be a good idea to give you a few of my thoughts of 2018 and wh...
Azure AD Logs in Log Analytics - lots of flaws 3 minutes readIf you haven’t heard, Azure Active Directory (AAD) can now route logs to places like Storage Accounts, Event Hubs and Azure Log Analytics. Right now this is ...
How to install Azure Service Fabric SDK 2 minutes readThis is a quick one but it cost me quite a bit of time to solve this little puzzle, which ended up being a not too difficult one after all. I was asked to cr...
Super small Azure toolset 2 minutes readSwiss knife Azure toolset with Linux Run all the containers I do not like installing tools on my laptop, mainly because I do not want to get attached to my...
Configure diagnostics on Microsoft Azure SQL 1 minute readAzure SQL - Logs and metrics Right click - deploy. Copy a file to the server. Lift and shift your on-premises server to the cloud. What do these practice...
Speaking at Techmentor Redmond less than 1 minute readSpeaking at Techmentor in Redmond I’ll be speaking at TechMentor, August 6-10 at Microsoft HQ in Redmond. Surrounded by your fellow IT professionals, TechMe...
Deploy and configure an Azure SQL database with ARM template 1 minutes readDeploying an Azure SQL database I just recently had to deploy an Azure SQL database and was faced with a strange issue, none of the documentation seemed to ...
New beginnings 1 minute readNew chapter - my own boss! After three years with Versent helping customers and colleagues transform (in any shape and form) their Microsoft workloads onto ...
New Pluralsight course on AWS Systems Manager less than 1 minute readAWS Simple Systems Manager for EC2: Getting Started I am happy to announce the availability of my next Pluralsight training course. Who this course is for...
New Pluralsight course on Continuous Integration with VSTS less than 1 minute readBuilding an Azure Continuous Integration Pipeline with VSTS Over the last 3 months now I was busy working on my very first Pluralsight course. I am very ha...
PowerShell modules on VSTS build agents 2 minutes readVisual Studio Team Services Lately I started using Visual Studio Team Services to see how I can leverage it instead of Jenkins for projects/builds where I d...
Building images on AWS with Packer - the new way 5 minutes readBuilding custom images on AWS For a very long time people have built custom images for cloud consumption with the help of Packer. Packer is an open source t...
Azure Functions - BYO PowerShell modules 5 minutes readBYO PowerShell modules to Azure Functions The previous articles introduced you to Azure Functions and how it executes PowerShell code. This article will exp...
Renewed as Cloud and Datacentre MVP 1 minute readRenewed as Microsoft MVP for Cloud and Datacentre Management Is it October again? A year has passed already and last night, shortly before midnight local ti...
Azure Functions - handling secrets 3 minutes readHow to handle secrets with Azure Functions By the time you have finished working through “how-tos” or “101s” on any topic like this you will get to a point ...
PowerShell on Linux - Get started with Ansible 2 minutes readPowerShell on Linux If you haven’t heard already, Microsoft has open-sourced Windows PowerShell and made it also available on other Operating Systems: https...
Azure Functions - Continuous Integration 3 minutes readContinuous Integration with Azure Functions After playing around a bit with Azure Functions over the last few articles it is now time to do it properly. So ...
Azure Functions - KUDU console and API 3 minutes readKUDU - advanced console for Azure Functions In part 1 I introduced the Azure Functions service to you and briefly explained what serverless computing means....
Azure Functions - PowerShell 4 minutes readPowerShell runtime in Azure Functions This is part 2 in this series of articles on the Azure Functions platform. If you’re after part 1, check here: the wha...
Azure Functions - the what and why 3 minutes readEvolution of IT Evolution is everywhere, nature has it and so has IT. Every other day there is that next new thing that kind of popped up out of nowhere and...
Preparing Microsoft Azure for Packer 1 minutes readLooking at my blog one might think that I’m not doing any Microsoft work anymore, or at least I’m off Azure, I’m not. Even though during day I’m almost compl...
Deploying Microsoft Domain Controllers on AWS 4 minutes readDeploying Microsoft Domain Controllers on AWS I am currently building an end to end automation framework for a secure Windows environment on Amazon Web Serv...
Speaking at IT DevConnections 2016 1 minutes readSpeaking at IT DevConnections in Las Vegas Coming October 2016 I will again make my way to the desert of Nevada in the USA to speak at IT DevConnections con...
AWS EC2 proxy settings on Windows 4 minutes readConfiguring EC2Config service proxy settings on Windows You will often find yourself in situations on Amazon AWS EC2 instances where you need to access anot...
AWS EC2 userdata on Windows 5 minutes readAWS EC2 user data As I have been previously doing more work on the other cloud, namely Amazon Web Services (AWS), I have found a few things that are worth m...
Conference session recordings from NicConf 2016 less than 1 minute readThis year I was able to again make the long trip to Europe to present at the Nordic Infrastructure Conference NicConf in Oslo/Norway. I had two sessions, ...
Continuous Integration with PowerShell, TeamCity and Git 5 minutes readOn Twitter I was following a conversation where someone said that he needed an easier way to publish PowerShell modules to the Microsoft PowerShell Gallery. ...
Securing sensible data with Ansible 4 minutes readOne very important aspect of deployments and the tools used for deployments is the security of sensible data like passwords, user names, server names, connec...
Ansible test lab in under 30 minutes 3 minutes readI speak to a lot of people at a lot of user groups, Meetups (like the Melbourne PowerShell Meetup) or conferences and a lot of them seem to not have heard of...
End of support for ConfigMgr scripts less than 1 minute readHi all, over the past years I have written a lot of PowerShell code for Microsoft System Center 2012 (R2) Configuration Manager. A lot of this code made it...
PowerShell module to interact with Github 1 minute readI sometimes find myself in a situation where I need to do something on Github, but, because I still once in a while use Windows machines which don’t have any...
PowerShell DSC to manage PowerShell modules 2 minutes readWhile on my way back from the 2015 IT DevConnections conference, it was a loooooong way back, I got the idea that I somehow wanted to make sure that certain ...
Windows configuration management - from *nix with Ansible 4 minutes readWait, what? First he turns his back on ConfigMgr and now he’s doing Configuration Management on Windows from a *nix machine?! Yes, that’s what I’ve been doi...
From here on - Automating the universe less than 1 minute readSo, it was really quiet here over the last two months and that had several reasons. I will talk about one of them now. I am changing, again. Or reinventing ...
DevOps - PowerShell in a Continuos Integration pipeline less than 1 minute readThis is a recording of my 20mins session at the last Melbourne System Center, Infrastructure and Security User Group. It is a quick dive into PowerShell Des...
Azure Automation - Webhooks 2 minutes readContinuous Deployment with Azure Automation This part of my “What’s new in Azure Automation” series will focus on something that a lot of people (me include...
Azure Automation - graphical runbooks 3 minutes readMicrosoft Ignite Microsoft Ignite 2015 conference is in full swing and they have already announced a lot of cool things at last week’s Build conference that...
Azure Automation, what is new? 2 minutes readMicrosoft has just released the next iteration of Azure Automation on their Microsoft Cloud and announced a lot of new features around it at their Microsoft ...
Windows Azure Pack in a FIPS compliant environment 2 minutes readI am just about to deploy a Windows Azure Pack (WAP) express installation in an environment where they have to turn on FIPS compliancy. There are companies ...
PowerShell scripting guidelines 2 minutes readLike always, if people are talking languages they will have dialects or accents (I don’t :-) ). PowerShell is not an exception here. There are so many peopl...
Microsoft MVA content for IaaS on Azure less than 1 minute readAre you interested in Azure? Are you thinking about extending your on-premises network to Azure and want to get an overview of what is possible? Microsoft V...
Windows PowerShell DSC - classes - resource basics (part 2) 5 minutes readIn part one of this miniseries I explained some principals around using the new class keyword in Windows PowerShell DSC resource modules. If you haven’t read...
Windows PowerShell DSC - classes - introduction (part 1) 3 minutes readThe Windows Management Framework 5 (WMF 5) Technical Preview also brought us PowerShell 5, and with that we got Desired State Configuration v2 (DSC v2). I ju...
Azure PowerShell IaaS - Notes from the field 1 minute readI was tasked to write a bunch of PowerShell scripts to deploy a new Active Directory Domain Services (ADDS) Server onto Azure. The end goal would be to have...
2015 - all new, bye bye ConfigMgr less than 1 minute readAfter getting rid of my Surface earlier this year there’s another big change for me, I’m saying good-bye to the Enterprise Client Management Group and with ...
Bye bye Windows - Hello Mac 5 minutes read2015 brought its first big change for me, I’ve sold my Surface Pro 3 and bought a - wait for it - MacBook Air. 😀 Why did I sell the Surface Pro 3? Well, I ...
Missing Save button while creating a Windows Azure Pack Plan 2 minutes readI was setting up my new lab environment at home and ran into a VERY weird issue, that caused me a bit of a headache. Thanks to Social Media and a very helpfu...
Zoom, that was 2014… 1 minute read2014 felt a bit like that. So much happened the last 12 months it’s hard not to forget something. had a session at User Group in Zurich / Switzerland q...
Install Windows features through PowerShell - by clicking 2 minutes readRebuilding my home lab with PowerShell I am currently rebuilding my home lab (again! This time properly, I promise.) and my goal is to use as much PowerShel...
Update SQL Always On Cluster with ConfigMgr & Powershell 5 minutes readHow to update a cluster with a cluster-ignorant tool I’ve recently been tasked to create a process to patch SQL Always On Availability Groups (I guess calli...
Recover deleted users in Azure Active Directory 2 minutes readYou know of the recycle bin in Active Directory, right? I guess this feature has probably saved a bunch of people already big time. Anyways, even the cloud ...
Deploy SMA Server via Powershell DSC resource 2 minutes readHi, I’m currently sitting on my plane from Minneapolis to Dallas. I love technology, WiFi on a plane, awesome!!! After two weeks of conferences (MVP Summit...
Upcoming speaking gigs 2014 / 2015 1 minute readSeems to be my ‘year of conferences’ this year. Since moving to Australia in March 2014 I didn’t have a quiet and laid back month; and it won’t change in the...
ConfigMgr evaluation expired - what now? 1 minute readI just rescued myself out of a pretty embarrassing situation… My home lab is managed by ConfigMgr and I am using the eval version for it, all good so far. S...
ConfigMgr Application catalog broken less than 1 minute readI just had an issue at a customer’s site where the ConfigMgr Application Catalogs would complain. Here’s the quick and easy solution to it. Server Error in ...
Second year as MVP for Enterprise Client Management less than 1 minute readToday I got the probably most important email in October 2014. On the day that Microsoft announced Windows 10, Microsoft re-awarded me for the second time wi...
Speaker at TechEd Australia 1 minute read I am quite excited to be chosen as a Speaker at the new TechEd format in Australia. The format will be quite different to what it used to be. Instead of fo...
Add or remove features in MDT WinPE 1 minute readNot going too deep here, just something I found the other day. In your MDT 2013 Deploymentshare, if you go to the share’s properties, you will find the WinP...
Cloud OS MVP Roadshow 2014 - Sydney less than 1 minute read[Update] New date! There has been a new date for the Cloud OS MVP Roadshow announced. The event will now be on 18/09/2014 in Sydney. Register FOR FREE on S...
Powershell DSC 101 - How to add Windows Features 1 minute readPowershell Desired State Configuration is a very powerful feature of Powershell 4.0 and Windows Server 2012 R2. Coming from a very strong Microsoft System Ce...
How to publish URL shortcuts to Windows 8.1 2 minutes readA customer of mine asked me to create a new Windows 8.1 Enterprise SOE (golden image, standard image, whatever) and also customise the Start Menu and Start S...
How to use scripts with ConfigMgr Powershell cmdlets less than 1 minute readThis is a short note to everybody using my scripts for ConfigMgr or who plans on using any automation (Powershell, Orchestrator runbooks, whatever) based on ...
How to - ConfigMgr collection updates 5 minutes readThis is a topic I haven’t seen much covered around but is quite important, especially if you’re managing an environment with a lot of clients, regular change...
How to configure client activity settings in ConfigMgr 1 minute readWhen does the ConfigMgr client become Inactive or Active? Ever wondered what triggers the ConfigMgr client change its Client Activity status from Active to ...
Applications vs Packages, why the ConfigMgr Package model will not go anywhere 5 minutes readDuring my last projects I came across a lot of issues around Software Deployment, mainly with the not-so-new-anymore Application model of Configuration Manag...
Why you shouldn’t use the Powershell pipe when using ConfigMgr 1 minutes readThe other day I was asked why I used the -filter parameter in one of my Powershell scripts with Get-WmiObject instead of just doing a pipe to Where-Object. ...
ConfigMgr 2012 R2 CU 1 available - walkthrough 1 minute readMicrosoft just released the Cumulative Update 1 for Configuration Manager 2012 R2. Here you will find what they fixed in this CU1 release (it’s a lot!): htt...
MVP ComCamp 2014 1 minute readThe next week will be full of interesting online and in-person community events all over the Australia / Asia / Pacific region with loads of interesting sess...
Orchestrator – Delete Collection Rule activity less than 1 minute readWhile writing my last article I discovered a little issue with one of the Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager activities you’ll get by importing th...
How to remove machines from ConfigMgr Collection 5 minutes readA customer of mine had a little workflow / network / process related problem regarding staging of machines. What they wanted to achieve was just to remove t...
Enable Deduplication with Powershell for ConfigMgr exclusions less than 1 minute readMicrosoft just released the following blog post on the support of Data Deduplication on Windows Server 2012 R2 in combination with System Center 2012 R2 Conf...
I am happy to announce 1 minute readIn my December’s article “End of year 2013” I teased you all by saying that my wife and I are going to move away from Germany, but I couldn’t tell you back t...
How to find the ConfigMgr SMS Provider Location 1 minute readIn my role as a technical consultant I sometimes need to visit customer sites where there are already ConfigMgr environments in place and I need to quickly f...
Multiple copy of Applications during ConfigMgr Task Sequence 3 minutes read[Update below 05.03.2014] SCCM Task Sequence issue in stand alone media I am currently working with a customer that has a strange issue during ConfigMgr st...
How to find ConfigMgr Collection membership of client via Powershell? less than 1 minute readDuring my session today at the ConfigMgr User Group in Zurich / CH I demoed a little Powershell function which will output all the Collection Names a device ...
Reports not working after upgrade to ConfigMgr 2012 R2 less than 1 minute readAt today’s ConfigMgr User Group meeting Wally Mead (Microsoft Product Group) mentioned something to check after upgrading from ConfigMgr 2012 SP1 to R2. Bes...
ConfigMgr - Application Base variables the easy way with Powershell 5 minutes readThis article I planned on writing for some time now (as a lot of others) but didn’t find the time yet. The topic itself isn’t new, it’s the solution that’s c...
Boost up your System Center know how with MS Virtual Academy less than 1 minute readIf, over the upcoming days off, you find some spare time and want to learn a bit more on Microsoft System Center 2012 (R2), why not go and have a look at the...
ConfigMgr Powershell Application Detection Methods 3 minutes readI am being asked this quite a lot, so I thought I might also write about it a bit. Already a while back a colleague asked me what needs to be done to make A...
End of year - all new - Change 1 minute readLooking back For five years I’m in IT now, not nearly as long as many others are who I’m allowed to work with every day (in person or via social media). Th...
Set User Principal Name via Powershell less than 1 minute readA while ago I implemented Windows Intune into my ConfigMgr 2012 R2 lab and during that process I also had to set a User Principal Name (UPN) for my users’ Ac...
Find required deployments on ConfigMgr clients less than 1 minute readI just came across a situation at a customer where I had to find out if a client was still installing required application deployments after an Operating Sys...
Speaker am ConfigMgr Community Day in Zürich / CH less than 1 minute readConfigMgr Event in Zürich / CH Für 2014 steht schon das erste Speaking Engagement für mich an. Am 13.01.2014 werde ich auf dem ConfigMgr Community Event (CM...
What’s wrong with ZTIOSRole in MDT / ConfigMgr ? 2 minutes readAdding OS Roles via MDT step / Script ZTIOSRole.wsf While doing a new Windows Build for my Lab I came across an issue which I at first was unable to solve a...
Hotfix available for Configuration Manager 2012 R2 1 minute readLast Friday Microsoft released the ‘not-so-long-but-even-more’-awaited hotfix for two issues that came with Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Man...
E2EVC XX in Rome - my session and why I like E2E 3 minutes readE2EVC XX, this has been the twentieth E2E (aka PubForum) is finished. This has been my third time at E2E (after Vienna in 2012 and Copenhagen this May/June) ...
Start-CMApplicationDeployment takes forever to complete in ConfigMgr 1 minutes readI recently had to create about 300 ConfigMgr 2012 Application Deployments for a customer migrating from NetInstall to Microsoft Configuration Manager 2012 SP...
Findings in System Center 2012 R2 ConfigMgr, what is really new 1 minute readI have finally deployed a Configuration Manager Site on Windows Azure. Quite an experience! I now can finally put a lot of my Lab workloads from my notebook ...
Powershell , what is new in ConfigMgr 2012 R2 RTM 1 minute readI just did the upgrade of my local ConfigMgr Lab from 2012 R2 PREVIEW (!) to RTM. THIS IS NOT SUPPORTED!!! What changed with regards to Powershell? This i...
How to configure Full Update on Collection in ConfigMgr with Powershell 2 minutes readI did a little cleanup of my ConfigMgr collections and came across a problem I already had before but did not solve properly and someone on Niall’s forum als...
How to rename machine during ConfigMgr OSD 4 minutes readI just came across a scenario where I had to do a migration from Windows XP to Windows 7. The “old” environment had no naming convention for its clients and ...
Speaking at E2EVC conference Rome 1 minute readAfter Vienna in 2012 and Copenhagen this June, this will be my third time visiting and also speaking at E2EVC conference. This will also be my first speaking...
First time awarded as Microsoft MVP less than 1 minute readI am very happy to tell you that today, for the very first time, I was awarded as “Microsoft MVP for Enterprise Client Management”. Thank you everybody fo...
System Center Universe (SCU_DACH) live blog 7 minutes readBlogging live from SCU_DACH in Bern During the next two days I’ll be busy in Bern (Switzerland) attending the “System Center Universe DACH” event in Bern. ...
How to unlock objects in ConfigMgr 2012 with Powershell 2 minutes readUnlocking packages or apps in ConfigMgr 2012 Crap! Do you know this message? Most probably your console just crashed a minute ago while you were editing t...
How to execute ConfigMgr 2012 Task Sequence from Powershell 2 minutes readExecution of a ConfigMgr task sequence from Powershell This little script or function I wrote because I saw a question on the german TechNet forums about it...
Video - Automate daily tasks in ConfigMgr 2012 less than 1 minute readAlex Juschin (E2EVC) was quite a busy guy and just uploaded (nearly) all the videos of the last E2EVC (Pubforum) 2013 in Copenhagen. I had two sessions ther...
How to change prestaged Distribution Point settings on Package - ConfigMgr 2 minutes readThis is a quick one. A user on the ConfigMgr SDK technet forums asked this question on how to change the package’s option “Prestaged distribution point setti...
How to edit ConfigMgr packages - update on schedule 3 minutes readA few days back I asked for some ideas about what you need to get automated / scripted inside of Microsoft ConfigMgr and I actually got some nice feedback on...
How to sync the Software Update Point (ConfigMgr) via Powershell 1 minute readHere is another short script you can use on your way to automate every task in your ConfigMgr environment. Syncing the SUP in ConfigMgr 2012 Synchronizing ...
Deploy Google Chrome with ConfigMgr 2012 1 minutes readSome of you might have already read on Twitter that I’m currently doing a little ‘experiment’. About a month ago I got me a Surface Pro and said to myself, ...
Mass import of ConfigMgr applications from script with Powershell 3 minutes readHow to do a mass import of Applications into ConfigMgr Some days ago I was asked if I had a script that could create new Configuration Manager 2012 applicat...
Move ConfigMgr Task Sequences with Powershell 1 minute readThis is another quick one… Move a Task Sequence A customer just asked me if it’s possible to simulate a kind of staging of Task Sequences inside the consol...
ConfigMgr 2012 R2 - what’s new? 2 minutes readHere are a first few glimpses at my new Configuration Manager 2012 R2 site, before I have to go and work … An overview of new features are available at Henk...
ConfigMgr 2012 R2 - Step by Step installation 1 minute readHere’s a step-by-step installation guide for ConfigMgr 2012 R2. **DO NOT INSTALL THIS IN A PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENT!!! DO BACKUPS BEFORE INSTALLING THIS TECH...
System Center 2012 R2 - Preview available less than 1 minute readA really early and quick post (it’s still before 6AM)… Microsoft just uploaded their new “Cloud OS” to TechNet / MSDN for evaluation. You can download all t...
Delete whole folder structure in ConfigMgr 2012–Powershell 3 minutes readDuring my tests with scripts I sometimes create whole folder structures with software packages inside the Configuration Manager 2012 Admin Console. Of course...
Renaming Configuration Manager 2012 Task Sequences via Powershell 1 minute readQuick and easy one. If you want to rename a ConfigMgr 2012 Task Sequence then just go into its properties and rename it, but once you need to do that for a ...
Live from E2EVC 2013 Copenhagen 4 minutes readLive blog from E2EVC (aka Pubforum) 2013 Copenhagen It’s only a few days left and just like I did last year in Vienna, I’m also doing a “live feed” from thi...
Configuration Manager 2012 powershell environment variables less than 1 minute readSMS_ADMIN_UI_PATH and SMS_LOG_PATH This is a quick one, because I just stumbled upon these two Powershell environment variables on a Site System Server (wit...
Documentation for your ConfigMgr environment with Powershell - maintenance windows 4 minutes readAfter writing my previous script which creates new maintenance windows via Powershell on your ConfigMgr / SCCM 2012 device collections (look here) I had quit...
How to create ConfigMgr collection maintenance windows - Powershell 2 minutes readHere’s another one from my todo list (it’s getting shorter by the day…). What are Maintenance Windows in Microsoft ConfigMgr 2012 ? A customer once asked m...
How to install Software Update Point for ConfigMgr 2012 - Powershell 4 minutes readThis has been on my agenda quite a while now. How to install a SUP for ConfigMgr 2012 with Powershell. This wasn’t too easy since I wanted to accomplish this...
Data deduplication on Win8 1 minute readHow to enable Data Deduplication on Win8 A fellow Configuration Manager community member, Nickolaj Andersen, posted a blog article about Data Deduplication ...
Set-CMDeploymentType via Powershell for ConfigMgr 2012 4 minutes readA reader of my blog asked me something about one of the new Powershell cmdlets for ConfigMgr / SCCM 2012 and wanted me to check if I see the same behaviour (...
Powershell–How to eject all the ISOs of your Hyper-V machines? 1 minute readQuick post before going to bed ;-) Ejecting ISOs of Hyper-V machines with Powershell I’m using my Windows’ 8 client Hyper-V since switching over to Win8 an...
Orchestrator & ConfigMgr 2012 Install new Distribution Point less than 1 minute readThe new ConfigMgr 2012 SP1 CU1 has given us new Powershell cmdlets ( see here and here), one of these is the Add-CMDistributionPoint cmdlet. Well, I don’t l...
Found! - Where are my new ConfigMgr 2012 SP1 CU1 cmdlets? 1 minute readIf you take a look at my recent post about the new CU1 for SCCM 2012 SP1, you’ll notice that I say that the promised new cmdlets are missing from the powersh...
Cumulative Update 1 for Configuration Manager 2012 1 minute readThis night the CU1 for SCCM 2012 got released and I just want to share with you the process of update. The download is available here: http://support.microso...
Speaker at E2EVC 2013 in Copenhagen less than 1 minute readIn case you don’t know what E2EVC is, then go have a look at www.e2evc.com. It’s from 31.May to 02.June 2013. You might remember the PubForum? That’s it! Se...
How to install new Distribution Point–SCCM 2012 6 minutes readNearly a year ago (last June) I had a mission, I wanted to deploy new site systems via script. I wrote an article about it here (/2012/06/08/install-distribu...
ConfigMgr and Powershell ExecutionPolicy 3 minutes readThere are a lot of articles around talking about Microsoft SCCM 2012 / Configuration Manager and executing Powershell scripts. I won’t cover the basics here...
How to remove deployments in ConfigMgr–Powershell 1 minute readIn preparation to a customer workshop I’m having today, I went through the ConfigMgr 2012 Integration Pack for Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Man...
Remove direct membership rules – ConfigMgr 1 minute readThis is a quick one. A reader of my blog asked me if I had a solution for his problem. The Configuration Manager 2012 SP1 PowerShell cmdlet “Remove-CMDevice...
The curse of the second hop & PowerShell – CredSSP 2 minutes readI recently started migrating my PowerShell scripts for ConfigMgr to Orchestrator (read here: /2013/02/automating-configmgr-with-orchestrator-runbooks-prestag...
Automating ConfigMgr with Orchestrator Runbooks - PreStage content 3 minutes readI’ve been working with System Center Configuration Manager for quite some time now and all the time I wanted to automate stuff. Sure, we all build zero touc...
How to prestage content in Configuration Manager 2012 – Script 7 minutes readThis article won’t go into details on what content prestaging in SCCM 2012 is, there are a lot of good articles around, here just a few of them: http://b...
How to configure the ConfigMgr Client cache 4 minutes readSetting the Cache Size and Location and clear the Cache for SCCM Agent Today a colleague of mine asked me about an issue he has in one of his projects regar...
Travelling with the SurfaceRT 1 minute readWell, this is the first blog article I’m writing entirely on my (to be honest, it’s my wife’s, but we share!) SurfaceRT. Every now and again I’m going to wr...
How to configure ConfigMgr Distribution Point 5 minutes readScript to configure your SCCM 2012 Distribution Point This is one I came up with while going for a run last Sunday and what I missed a for long time in Conf...
How to trigger Software Updates Re-Scan in Configuration Manager 2012 SP1 2 minutes readHow to trigger Updates Re-scan in SCCM 2012 Did you ever do a OSD in Configuration Manager and wonder why some Software Updates weren’t installed? As a wor...
How do variables in Configuration Manager 2012 work? – Part 3 1 minute readScript to automate Collection creation and variable priority in SCCM 2012 For part 1 read here “How do variables in Configuration Manager 2012 work? – Part ...
How do variables in Configuration Manager 2012 work? – Part 2 3 minutes readThis is part 2 of my little series about variables in Configuration Manager 2012, for part 1 read here: /2013/01/how-do-variables-in-configuration-manager-20...
How do variables in Configuration Manager 2012 work? – Part 1 2 minutes readUsing Variables in SCCM 2012 While working with Configuration Manager 2012 you most likely also came across collections and Task Sequences. You deploy a Tas...
Update: How to create a new Software Update Group in ConfigMgr 2012 3 minutes readUpdate to previous post on Software Update Groups In this post I’m presenting you version 1.0 of my script (2012/12/create-a-new-software-update-group-in-co...
How to create a new Software Update Group – video less than 1 minute readCreating a new Software Update Group in ConfigMgr 2012 This video is a demonstration of my script which I wrote in December 2012 (Create a new Software Upda...
Why does WSUS not sync anymore in ConfigMgr 2012 SP1? 1 minute readIssue with Software Update Point synchronization after SP1 update in SCCM 2012 This article is just as an information for everybody in the same situation. I...
How to set a Network Access Account in ConfigMgr 2012–video less than 1 minute readHow to set Network Access Account in SCCM 2012 This video is part of my video series on Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager and a follow up t...
How to create Collections in ConfigMgr 2012 less than 1 minute readCreate new Collections in SCCM 2012 This video explains how to create new user and device Collections in Configuration Manager 2012 using first the console ...
New video series for ConfigMgr 2012 less than 1 minute readVideo Tutorials how to use my Powershell Scripts in SCCM 2012 I’m starting a new video series where I’m going to show you how to use the scripts I write. Of...
What’s new in ConfigMgr SP1? less than 1 minute readOverview of what’s new in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager This is a short overview of what I found new in ConfigMgr SP1 update: I am able to up...
How to automate Offline Servicing in Configuration Manager 2012 5 minutes readImage Offline Servicing in SCCM 2012 In my last post (Create a new Software Update Group in ConfigMgr I showed you how to create a new Software Update Group...
Create a new Software Update Group in ConfigMgr 3 minutes read[Update 07.01.2013] This post is still valid. Nevertheless, find a more recent script version here: “Update: How to create a new Software Update Group in Co...
Easy versioning of Images–Configuration Manager and Powershell 3 minutes readDid I ever tell you that I like thin-thick images? Thin-thick?! I like to put as many applications as possible into my base image, but only that much that th...
Create a Network Access Account–Configuration Manager 2012 3 minutes readToday was a bank holiday in Germany and rainy weather, so what better could there be than scripting a bit in Configuration Manager? Personally I’d say a lot...
How to backup & restore your TaskSequence–Configuration Manager 2012 and Powershell 2 minutes readAnd here’s another quick one for the weekend, before the wife wants to go shopping ;-) This is a quick way of “backing up” and restoring your Task Sequences...
Deploy RES WorkspaceManager 2012 Client with Configuration Manager 2012 1 minute readA quick article, as I’m in the middle of building my demo RES environment and wanted to include the RES Workspace Manager 2012 client in my Operating System ...
Re-adding PXE support to Configuration Manager Site 1 minute readI already tweeted about that, but I thought this is worth a blog post, although I don’t have a solution yet. When I try to add PXE support (or re-add it) to...
MS System Center Configuration Manager 2012 SP1 (beta) – Powershell 4 minutes readI was looking forward to the recent release of the latest beta of System Center 2012 SP1, because one big part (at least for me), which has been announced be...
Unattended installation of Citrix Provisioning Services 7 minutes readAs I always say/write ‘automation is key’. It’s important to me and also to a lot of customers/companies. That’s why I had and still have the task to automa...
Install XenApp in only eight steps–sepagoLogiX 3 minutes readRecently I’m doing a lot of projects where customers either want to upgrade their existing Presentation Server 4 / 4.x / XenApp 5 or even 6 environments to X...
Import Computer to Configuration Manager 2007 / 2012 1 minute readThis is a really quick one… With this script you are able to import a computer into your Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager environment. No matte...
Citrix AppDNA 6.1–what’s new? 2 minutes readJust before my wedding holiday Citrix decided to upload all the new releases of the products I work with. XenApp 6.5 HRP1, XenDesktop 5.6 FP1 and of course A...
Updating Configuration Manager 2012 to Service Pack 1 1 minute readYou most probably already know that the “Service Pack 1 Customer Technology Preview 2” for System Center Configuration Manager 2012 has been released a few d...
Microsoft TechEd North America & Configuration Manager 1 minute readJust a bit of a sum up of the announcements that were made around ConfigMgr 2012 at TechEd North America. I’m not there myself, so this is just what I found ...
Install Distribution Point for Configuration Manager 2012 8 minutes reador: documentation would have been nice! I like automating as much as possible, as you might have already learned from my other articles. My next plan was to...
I’m at E2EVC 2012 in Vienna (“Live Feed”) 6 minutes readI’m writing this article while on board my Germanwings flight from Cologne/Germany to Vienna/Austria where I’ll be attending the 2012 Experts to Experts Virt...
Create Machine variables in Configuration Manager 2012 5 minutes readI scripted quite a lot these last few days/weeks and needed to use, as a good scripter like me would (*g*), lots of variables. Variables in Configuration Man...
Release of my Configuration Manager Admin GUI 1 minute readIt’s done! I finally got my script to a point where I would like to start sharing it with the whole community. Go ahead and download the package here: Downl...
Citrix AppDNA 6–don’t miss out on these new features! 3 minutes readAfter Citrix’s acquisition of AppDNA in November 2011, the product formerly known as AppDNA AppTitude underwent some major rebranding and was just a few days...
Microsoft Configuration Manager 2012 and Powershell–Create Deployments 1 minute readHi all, here another quick script I wrote to deploy a specified Task Sequence to a given collection. This was a real quick one, as I could find out all the...
Microsoft Configuration Manager 2012 and Powershell–Part 2 2 minutes readJust wanted to keep you up-to-date regarding my task to automatically build a folder-collection structure in a customer’s Configuration Manager 2012 environm...
Create Folders in Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2012 with Powershell 2 minutes readJust a short article today… I’m in the middle of a Configuration Manager implementation at a customer’s site and facing the problem of creating lots of fold...
Hydration Kit for SC Configuration Manager 2012 RC2 available less than 1 minute readI already wrote something about the Hydration Kit for Beta 2, but now Johan Arwidmark just released his Hydration Kit for the System Center Configuration Man...
Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2012–unattended installation of Sites 1 minute readThere’s a lot that changed in ConfigMgr2012 (e.g. Client Log Files ), but also inter-site communication. Most of it is now done via SQL replication and not o...
Microsoft ConfigMgr 2012 – Client Log Files 3 minutes readA lot of things changed with the coming of ConfigMgr2012 (for now it’s in the state of RC1). Loads of people already wrote articles about what cool new featu...
App-DNA AppTitude–Self Provisioning 2 minutes readI just came from a customer project with AppTitude where I faced the requirement that the department that was responsible for the AppTitude environment didn’...
AppDNA AppTitude–which path will you take? Project planning made easy 1 minute readAre you on the edge of a migration project and have to decide how to deploy your applications to your customers? (And by users I mainly mean users, because I...
AppDNA Apptitude & Microsoft SCCM – can it get any easier? 2 minutes readUsually the biggest problem when executing a Launchpad or an AppTitude deployment is getting all the apps into AppTitude. What I mean is, and what I already ...
Am I compatible to my future plans? How App-DNA’s AppTitude helps along the way (part 3) – Reports 4 minutes readThe last article about AppTitude covered the import of an application. This one will be a bit less technical but more about report generation, remediation a...
local to anywhere–Profile Migrator cloud migration less than 1 minute readCitrix Synergy is just about to start and I thought I could talk a bit about Profile Migrator, as it’s part of Citrix’s Desktop Transformation Model. In thi...
Am I compatible to my future plans? How App-DNA’s AppTitude helps along the way… (part 2) 2 minutes readIn my last article about AppTitude I gave you a short overview of what AppTitude is and where it can help you save time and such save you money. This articl...
Am I compatible to my future plans? How APP-DNA ’s AppTitude helps along the way…(Part 1) 2 minutes readWhat are the future plans for your environment? I believe most customers/companies are going to update to Win7 and might also change their architecture from ...
How to install Windows 8 on XenServer 5.6 less than 1 minute readNew blog article on XenServer and Windows 8 on my sepago blog: http://www.sepago.de/d/david/2011/09/22/how-to-install-windows-8-on-xenserver-56
PoC Deployment of SCCM 2012 - Hydration Kit less than 1 minute readYesterday, a colleague of mine told me about a new hydration kit for SCCM 2012 Beta 2, which is available here: Hydration Kit for SCCM 2012 It has been desi...
XenServer - XS Management Suite by DoubleRev less than 1 minute readJust came across a nice tool for all the XenServer admins which will let you complete some tasks faster and easier. “XS-Management Suite” by DoubleRev is a ...
Citrix personal vDisk - a personalized static Desktop 4 minutes readAs most of you will have heard by now, Ringcube is now part of Citrix, who integrated Ringcube’s “vDesk for VDI” into XenDesktop 5.5 as their new “personal v...
XenDesktop - Updating to version 5.5 2 minutes readAs XenDesktop 5.5 just got released the other day I planned to upgrade the lab environment I usually do my tests in. My environment looks like this: 1 X...
XenDesktop automation with Powershell (for beginners) 1 minute readSince XenDesktop 5 is around I began working with Microsoft’s PowerShell (I know what you’re thinking…“what? THAT late?”) And it’s been really easy to learn ...