May 29, 2016 Posted by newlife007

How to create a StartMenu link on the Desktop with PowerShell

Introduction With the interface changes to Windows 8 and above we see the ease of adding shortcuts by dragging or right clicking on the StartMenu links and sending to the desktop diminished,  but with PowerShell we can easily automate creating links to folders and applications. In this post we will see just how easy it is to create these  links. Code The code is simple, we will need to create a... read more

May 21, 2016 Posted by newlife007

How to Build Your First Windows Server 2012 R2 Domain Controller

Introduction So you want to take the plunge and build your first Windows Server 2012 R2 Domain Controller. Well don’t worry it is not as hard you may think! In this post we will cover creating a new Domain Controller and a new Forest. So lets get started. Process First we will need to have a Windows Server 2012 R2 ready to go to become a domain controller, once you have it ready and all updates... read more

May 14, 2016 Posted by newlife007

How To Use PowerShell to Retrieve User Account MemberShip data and Export to CSV

Introduction Recently had a request to retrieve specific information out of Active Directory and save the results to a CSV file for our auditors. The data to retrieve for the user is Name,Enabled,Created and MemberOf. The catch was to remove the CN and OU from the memberof output from PowerShell. In this post we will cover just how to accomplish that. Process The goal was to use PowerShell to retrieve the... read more

May 8, 2016 Posted by newlife007

How To Retrieve the Last Login Time For a User on Windows Using Net User

Introduction There are many times as an administrator that we dread looking through the Event Logs for the last time a user logged into a system. Command line is always a great alternative. Using the net user command we can do just that. Process The syntax of the command is given below. Do not forget the double quotes around Last logon. net user username | findstr /B /C:”Last logon” Example:... read more

May 6, 2016 Posted by newlife007

How to Enable Disk Cleanup on Windows 2008 R2 Without Desktop Experience

Introduction In an earlier post I described how to install and use Disk Cleanup on Windows 2008 R2 server. Since that time I have come across another way to install Disk Cleanup on Windows 2008 R2 without having to install Desktop Experience which adds things to servers that are not needed. This will not work on Windows Server 2012 R2 as you must install Desktop Experience. So let’s get to it.... read more