@pmoncho said in Get Windows Version from Command Line:

No doubt. Currently working on getting Server 2019 DC, DHCP, and RDS working in a lab. A few challenges so far. Was going to try using PS to do many tasks I normally do in GUI (force myself to learn as I go) but decided to put it on the back burner due to frustration. I will get there with PS but it has to wait.

Unfortunately, no matter how much we want to complain about PS and how Windows has no production-level roadmap at this point and is getting worse by the day, if you are going to run Windows today, PS is how it is done. Issues with PS have only one valid purpose to discuss - to use to explain to management why Windows shouldn't be getting deployed in production workloads, or why risks with it need to be accepted. It's like the licensing issues with Windows, these things all add up to cost and risk and risk is really just cost. It's part of the "decision numbers." Beyond that, it is what it is. If the business actually knows how costly it is and still chooses it, then PS is how you manage it.

If you deploy and start without using PS, it'll be that much harder to switch later. I know the learning curve is absurd and the whole thing is so much harder than it has any purpose being, but I would bite the bullet if at all possible and learn it now. It'll just be harder later.

@scottalanmiller said in Windows Server 2019 Basic Installation:

@dbeato said in Windows Server 2019 Basic Installation:

@Obsolesce said in Windows Server 2019 Basic Installation:

@scottalanmiller said in Windows Server 2019 Basic Installation:

@Obsolesce said in Windows Server 2019 Basic Installation:

@scottalanmiller said in Windows Server 2019 Basic Installation:

@JaredBusch said in Windows Server 2019 Basic Installation:

The current install method brings Windows Server on parity with the Linux ecosystem really. You install, choose some options and end up at a prompt after reboot. Then you remotely add the features and shit you want.

Yeah, very in like with Fedora, Ubuntu, or Deepin. Deepin might still be my favourite installer for normal stuff of the four.

Did you have a Deepin install screenshot chain on here?

No, but I do it so often, it would be easy to get.

That'd be nice to see on here.

Last post on it was below
https://mangolassi.it/topic/14453/deepin-linux-15-4-1-install

The install still looks like that.

LOL that's not an installer. That's a push button, get peanuts.

Nice though.

I ran into a language issue the other day when writing a PowerShell script that uses net localgroup and thought it could be useful to others:

Depending on the language your Windows device is set to, the local Administrators group will be different, so the typical net localgroup administrators domain\user /add command will fail.

Implementing the following will grab the actual name of the group by it's SID first, then use that result.
Note that this is written to work in PowerShell, not CMD.exe.

# Gets the name of the local Administrators group in appropriate language $localAdminGroupName = (Get-WmiObject win32_group -filter "LocalAccount = $TRUE And SID = 'S-1-5-32-544'" | Select-Object -Expand name) Write-Output "Local Administrators group detected as: [$localAdminGroupName]" # Sets the users as a local admin using appropriate local Administrators group name net localgroup $localAdminGroupName domain\user /add # Gets local Administrators group members net localgroup $localAdminGroupName

@scottalanmiller said in Managing Windows Local Users with Net User:

@JasGot said in Managing Windows Local Users with Net User:

I'm using backstage more

I assume that this is a component of another product?

Part of ConnectWiseControl. (or ScreenConnect as we still call it around here.)

It's at the bottom of the View tab when attached to a guest. Takes you to a new sessions as a System account with a command prompt and powershell window already open. No limit to what you can accomplish there. many gui apps will run in backstage too.

Topic has been forked, please keep discussions of OS comparisons to a different thread.

@Tim_G thanks

@scottalanmiller Thanks. I got it. I overthink everything. :-)

@scottalanmiller said in Add Active Directory User to Group using PowerShell:

When we work strictly from Windows Server Core installations we need to be able to do everything from the command line, even user management. Let's add a user that already exists into a group that already exists in Active Directory using only PowerShell.

To do this we have the handy Add-ADGroupMember PowerShell commandlet. This is very easy to use in its basic form, all we need is the name of the group and of the user that we want to add. In this case, I want to add user jane to the group "Domain Admins".

Add-ADGroupMember "Domain Admins" jane

That's it, jane is added automatically. This process, like most, is silent on success. To verify that all is as we want it to be, we can use the Get-ADGroupMember command to look up the members of a group.

Get-ADGroupMember "Domain Admins"

Can also do
Add-ADGroupMember -identity "Domain Admins" -members "jane" -WhatIf
to see if it gets added before actually running the command.

@IRJ said in Building a First Active Directory Domain Controller on Windows 2012 R2 Core:

@thwr said in Building a First Active Directory Domain Controller on Windows 2012 R2 Core:

@coliver said in Building a First Active Directory Domain Controller on Windows 2012 R2 Core:

@thwr said in Building a First Active Directory Domain Controller on Windows 2012 R2 Core:

@IRJ said in Building a First Active Directory Domain Controller on Windows 2012 R2 Core:

Good article. There is ZERO reason to have a GUI on a Domain Controller. Everything can be done through Server Manager on Windows 10/8

You mean RSAT ;)

Both? You can do a lot of directory management through Server Manager as well.

Ok, agree. Just don't like the Server Manager this much, ugly interface. I want to be sure WHICH drive on WHICH host I'm going to format for example. But that is just my personal opinion and I'm more or less a console fetishist ;)

But when it comes to ADSIedit or AD sites, you really want to have RSAT.

huh?

0_1469044083616_2016-07-20_15-47-37.png

Those options are generally only there is RSAT is installed.

@scottalanmiller said in Updating Windows from the Command Line:

Keeping a system up to date is very important and doing so from the command line can be one of the easiest ways to do this on Windows.

Updating a Windows system, server or desktop, can be as simple as running this command as an administrator:

wuauclt.exe /detectnow /updatenow

If you only want to look for the latest updates without applying them, you can just run:

wuauclt.exe /detectnow

Also:
wuauclt.exe /a /detectnow

(/ResetAuthorization)

http://ss64.com/nt/wuauclt.html

@scottalanmiller said in Renaming a Windows Computer from the Command Line:

@IRJ said in Renaming a Windows Computer from the Command Line:

@scottalanmiller said in Renaming a Windows Computer from the Command Line:

@IRJ said in Renaming a Windows Computer from the Command Line:

I learned something new today. I have been using the shutdown command for years. I never realized you could rename a PC with it.

shutdown doesn't do the renaming, you just have to reboot after you rename.

I use "m" instead of c for computer name

/c is the comment for the logs to tell them that you just "Renamed Machine", it doesn't rename it, it literally puts "Renamed Machine" into the reboot logs.

Ok. Got ya.

@dafyre said in Installing Scale Tools on Windows Server Core from Command Line:

@scottalanmiller said in Installing Scale Tools on Windows Server Core from Command Line:

@dafyre said in Installing Scale Tools on Windows Server Core from Command Line:

@scottalanmiller said in Installing Scale Tools on Windows Server Core from Command Line:

@dafyre said in Installing Scale Tools on Windows Server Core from Command Line:

I'm unfamiliar with the Server Core setup... but can't you install these drivers as part of the Windows installation process?

Storage yes, but I'm unaware of a simple way during a stock install to include other drivers. The storage ones are requested, and necessary, during the install. Otherwise the installation location does not show up (unless you don't use VirtIO block devices.) You can definitely add the tools into an image, and there is probably a way to include Ethernet devices ahead of time, but I'm not used to the installation process to know where it happens.

I just select all 3 of the INF files and go... It's always installed everything for me, lol... Just point it at the folder for the right OS and 32 or 64 bit... (Note: This is the way I did it in Scale v4.3... I've not had a chance to use their newer stuff yet.

At what stage are you selecting them?

During the install process... the same place where you go when you're picking the storage drivers.

I rarely do modifications at that stage. Still, handy to have a simple option because a lot of people will get the install done and find that there is no networking and need to know what to do at that point. :)

Veeam just announced this week that they now consider ReFS to be ready for production use for the first time due to last week's WIndows Server patch that addressed some ReFS issues.