As far as I know, robocopy is still the best file copying/syncing utility included in Windows, and you have to parse the output to get any anything useful back to work with in Powershell.

^ another example of Windows administration mismatch

Offshoring junior Devs that will end up always being junior Devs is a good way to make your senior developers have to work harder and give them incentive to find a new company.

@JaredBusch said in Comparing PowerShell to Linux User Manipulation:

@scottalanmiller said in Comparing PowerShell to Linux User Manipulation:

And you conveniently left out that almost no Windows has this PowerShell stuff, it's non-standard! Only extremely current versions have this without having to go through hoops to install it extra. This isn't universally workable for PowerShell.

WTF? What version of Windows are you claiming here? Because PowerShell has been install by default since Windows 7 (PowerShell version 2.0).

And Powershell 2.0 is missing a lot of stuff that are taken for granted by Powershell users today. If WMF was made available through Windows updates, that would have made life easier.

It interesting to think about, one complaint about Linux is that it has fragmented off into tons of different distributions, however it's has managed to keep a lot of the tools standardized across them all.

@scottalanmiller said in MS Audit???:

@flaxking said in MS Audit???:

I meant only for the Windows OS licence itself, CALs is a whole different world.

Yeah, you can definitely find ways to poll those.

Unfortunately slmgr doesn't seem to be able to detect if it's using a product key from a Visual Studio subscription. But maybe we just have to use some logic.

i.e. says it's Retail, but we don't have any Retail licences purchases so it must be a VS licence. Or it's MAK but doesn't match our recorded MAK

@pchiodo said in MS Audit???:

Yeah, a SAM audit, not to be confused with a Scott Alan Miller audit, is complete and utter BS. The easiest way to figure this out is to specifically ask them if it is a required audit or voluntary. If it's voluntary, why would you ever do it? There is simply no upside. The only time I would be concerned is if BSA contacted me. Then I would go to a CDW or a PC Connection for a licensing expert. Plus, in every case of the BSA getting involved, your company attorney(s) should be called in.

At the end of the day, those companies who are really violating licensing know they are doing it, and should not be surprise when BSA comes knocking. This is things like installing a retail Office on 30 computers, or using one server license across a whole server stack.

If you are working with a good reputable reseller, and are doing your best to be compliant, you will likely never have a problem.

I wouldn't trust your reseller on being the licencing expert. I've talked to a CDW 'licencing expert' before and know first hand that they are only experts in comparison to your account manager

@scottalanmiller said in MS Audit???:

@flaxking said in MS Audit???:

Do you know of a good tool to run to run to detect the Windows licences being used?

I don't think that there is one. So much of MS licensing isn't technical, it's all on paper. You have to know how things are licensed. A few things like RDS, track their usage. But the big, obvious stuff like desktop licenses and CALs, are impossible to track at the network level and can only be done on paper.

I meant only for the Windows OS licence itself, CALs is a whole different world.

It looks like slmgr might be able to do what's needed here. I'll have to check how it displays the different licencing channels.

@scottalanmiller said in MS Audit???:

You should always be auditing yourself to know if you are compliant. If you worry that you are not, you want to bring in a licensing expert to help (it's not expensive and very fast.)

Do you know of a good tool to run to run to detect the Windows licences being used? Something you could use if you walked into a new client that had used multiple different MS licencing channels but didn't properly keep track of things.

I did see a guide before on a private forum that I no longer have access to that showed off a special tool that could be run that would get all kinds of information of the Windows licence on the system and how to interpret them. So I know it would be possible for something to be out there, or is it best to outsource to an auditing company that already has the tools needed for the job?

@scottalanmiller said in Where to read Code? or Best practices to Learn Code?:

@flaxking said in Where to read Code? or Best practices to Learn Code?:

With proper vetting of someone who is using modern tools, I can't imagine that since I don't have the aptitude for that kind of thing, I could ever be able to justify the cost of me learning it and hours spent messing around to get it right.

Outsource it every time, absolutely. You can say that about any task that isn't your bailiwick. But I don't think you can get that for peanuts. Cheaper than trying to do it yourself, yes, definitely. But it's still a costly process to get done well.

That's true, it influences customer perception and directly affects usability. A business is definitely going to want to invest there.

However, if I'm doing a personal project to help myself learn web development, I'm going to pay peanuts for it, just so I have something I'm working with. And learn some good outsourcing lessons in the process.

@scottalanmiller said in Where to read Code? or Best practices to Learn Code?:

@flaxking said in Where to read Code? or Best practices to Learn Code?:

I can't stand web design, drives me nuts. And you can pay someone peanuts to do the design for your web apps.

You can't. That's a myth. Web development is as hard or harder than non-web and needs more skills and expertise. Like any development, no one skilled is cheap. You can't actually get it cheaper offshore. They charge less per hour, but it costs more.

For web design? For someone to make up CSS stylesheet and HTML template to use?

With proper vetting of someone who is using modern tools, I can't imagine that since I don't have the aptitude for that kind of thing, I could ever be able to justify the cost of me learning it and hours spent messing around to get it right.