@travisdh1 Thanks Travis. I was thinking about this last night.

I agree, I'd be better off running up a new instance of W11, installing hyper-V and running a Ubuntu VM as well as my W11 workstation so I can switch between the two.

I've played with Proxmox before, It's a good and easy product to use.

Thanks again.

Thanks guys, I'll check out AHK.

Thanks everyone for the input. I'll check it out when possible.

@Yonah-S said in Another new server question:

If you want to know how to get something built like that without the constraint of the online configurators - hit me up on private message.

When I buy, this is what I do.

But for quick comparison or rough ideas, the online tools are easy

@Pete-S said in New server q's:

@siringo said in New server q's:

Those last 2 posts are spot on Scott.

If I were to deploy a solution that was different to what everyone else was deploying, even if it was cheaper, better, faster, more resilient etc, I'd be lambasted by others simply because it was different and more likely, not understood.

That can lead to unhappy management, which can then lead to all sorts of grief for me.

This is obviously, not what I want.

Thanks for all the info & advice, it is greatly appreciated.

So you should buy the same old server model from 2016 to stay consistent with what they currently know 🙂

Unfortunately yes.

It comes under the job preservation title. I live in area where IT work is extremely hard to secure due to there not being much of it, so rocking the boat is not a good move.

Thanks everyone for the input.

I had another play with rclone and got it to work, looks quite useful.

@JasGot said in How Do You Replace Active Directory?:

@Dashrender said in How Do You Replace Active Directory?:

@JasGot Aren't you the one who asked how to do this?

I assume you are referring to my post of the script I came up with yesterday AFTER I read your post suggesting a script to do it?

Geeeeesh. The next time I want to share a solution I came up with, as a result of your suggestion, I won't.

LOL - there was no indication that you just created that -but that's awesome that you tossed something together so quickly.

@gjacobse said in free clone/imaging solution needed:

There are a few options and that aren't that difficult

CloneZilla
While Linux based - is not difficult to use, and if you follow the prompts (Read them unlike me) It's easy.

I use CloneZilla with CloneZilla SE (Server) to do this. Just make sure you can boot to PXE or leave a USB onsite for other people to stick in and power on.

Hint: With Wake-On-Lan and PXE we reimage PCs at schools all the time without ever going there. Takes only a few minutes to get a PC back up and running. 😀

@gjacobse said in Free Hosted Help Desk?:

"Free Hosted" doesn't mean it's the right thing. But in many cases - you can beat it to work for you. Just depends on the work and stress you want to deal with, what you want to give up and what you will never have..

I'd go as far to say that the "free" version is seldom the right thing. Often the reason to look for a solution in the first place is to become more effective and spend less time on something. Just stepping up to the first paying tier usually gets you a lot of features that will save you time for a very modest monthly cost.

went with a simple synology 2 bay and 2 x 6TB disks.

I could have used old hardware, but nah.

Thanks everyone.

@hobbit666 said in Help with renaming PC:

I use this when setting up new machines

$ServiceTAG = "PC-$((Get-WmiObject Win32_BIOS).serialnumber)"
$OLDNAME = (Get-WmiObject win32_COMPUTERSYSTEM).Name
Rename-Computer -ComputerName $OLDNAME -NewName $ServiceTAG -force

$ServiceTAG = "PC-$((Get-WmiObject Win32_BIOS).serialnumber)" $OLDNAME = (Get-WmiObject win32_COMPUTERSYSTEM).Name Rename-Computer -ComputerName $OLDNAME -NewName $ServiceTAG -force

this was a great help, thank you @hobbit666 . I changed it to this:

"B311-$("$env:computername$(get-random)")"
$OLDNAME = (Get-WmiObject win32_COMPUTERSYSTEM).Name
Rename-Computer -ComputerName $OLDNAME -NewName $ServiceTAG -force -restart

As the netbios names were displaying as the same.

@obsolesce said in windows based FREE imaging app:

@dbeato said in windows based FREE imaging app:

@obsolesce said in windows based FREE imaging app:

@notverypunny said in windows based FREE imaging app:

@obsolesce said in windows based FREE imaging app:

@dashrender said in windows based FREE imaging app:

@obsolesce said in windows based FREE imaging app:

@dashrender said in windows based FREE imaging app:

they generally come with AV and other crap you don't want at purchase

Oh I see, that sucks. Are the company devices being bought from Walmart or something?

Seriously?

I order these from DCW. I haven't had a laptop not come with at least some third party AV in ages...

I suppose one of the reasons to not order Dell/HP, or at least not the default stuff.

Can't speak to HP, but with Dell, unless you get setup with their imaging program (you provide them with your desired stock image and it's $$$ from what I recall) they're sending you their stock OEM image with a significant amount of bloat-ware. In a corporate / enterprise setup consistency is king so it's normal that you want to reimage with something that's tested and known to play nice in your environment.

Business class devices shipping with trial anti-virus software that is well known to be much worse than the default Windows Defender? That alone is reason enough not to go with that manufacturer (still not a showstopper, as automation can fix that in later steps). If you need to touch a device before an end user gets it, you're wasting a ton of time and money. That's decades old procedures... having your IT department receive the device, reimage, configure, maintain images, and all the requirements that go along? That is a huge waste of resources.

Wouldn't you rather have a device sent directly from CDW to the end-user, without needing a special image, ready to go for the user and the work environment... managed, configured, secured, and compliant as part of the OOBE?

Dell charges a bit more for imaging with your Intune AutoPilot profile but can be arranged and most Dell with Windows Professional and up licensing barely come with bloatware as far as I have been working with them.

CDW and many other CSPs will register them in Autopilot for you for a couple dollars extra, OEMs can do it too, there's no need for a custom image. For some special purpose orders, sure, but not typically needed.

Perhaps this is something newer I simply haven't looked into yet.

I'm not using autopilot. Perhaps the vendors know that that extra crap isn't wanted, so they don't bother to include it in machines that companies pay more dollars for the vendor to include in autopilot.

@jasgot Thanks for the help buddy. What you mention sounds exactly like what is happening.

I think this problem may be resolved then, thanks for your help.

@obsolesce said in Is it authentication?? Slow response.:

@siringo watch resource monitor, resmon.exe, when during the delay of opening an app seemingly caused solely by connecting to the wifi network.

For paint.exe to open instantly prior to wifi connection, then slowly after, and instantly off wifi... seems like you'll notice something in resmon somewhere. Maybe A/V or something. Look at everything even the network and possible new tcp connections when you open paint.

I've got some time to look at this today, thanks.

I ended up using a tool from RDPSoft. You can take out monthly subscriptions to use their software. Very impressive stuff.

@krzykat said in Simple cheap RMM:

@scottalanmiller
I've never heard of TacticalRMM - but I love our MC. Is everyone digging it? I see that its a very active development and think I need to give it a try.

Not many people using it that I know of, we just started using it in the last few weeks. but I've been following it for a while. They see to be doing some awesome stuff.

@siringo said in HP iLO Alerts?:

anyone? someone here must have played with ilo alerts at some point ...

iDRAC, sure, iLO, not so much.

Should just be plug in the proper information for your email service and a valid account to send as.

@scottalanmiller said in Changing subnet mask?:

@siringo said in Changing subnet mask?:

Inherited an old SBS network which has been upgraded, but is still using the 10.0.0.0 /8 setup.
I was thinking of changing the subnet to /24.

while the old addressing is insane, what's the reason to change? Unless there is a benefit, why? Just reducing the address pool isn't going to buy you anything.

Yes this ^^^ exactly Scott. I'm of the same mind, that's part of why I threw the question out there, I wanted 2nd opinions.

Everything is working fine ATM, why would I want to make an unneccessary change that provided no benefit but could introduce downtime. I susbcribe heavily to the KISS principal, hence my lack of interest in VLANing in this instance.

The only reason I came up with, when thinking about the change is that it may make the environment 'look' more professional by having a more appropriately scoped, network.

Thanks for all the opinions and information it is all greatly appreciated.

@siringo have you seen Open-Audit?