PowerShell

Just a quick script to set the Path Selection Policy on any LUNs on a host that do not have your target policy enabled. The script sets the server to Maintenance mode first, evacuating any VMs if you are in a full DRS automated environment. While this is not strictly necessary, it was required for my production environment just to be safe. param( [string] $vCenterServer = $(Read-Host -prompt "Enter vCenter Server Name"

The DFS monitoring tool in SCOM 2007 has some great features, which will replace many a custom VB script running in enterprises. As with a lot of Management Packs, to get the most out of it you need to have a dedicated RunAs account with local admin permissions on the servers you are monitoring (e.g. for the Backlogged Files reporting). The easy (and wrong) option here is to go with the less secure option and distribute a RunAs account to ALL servers.

While using the New-TestCasConnectivityUser.ps1 script to create a test user for Exchange 2010’s connectivity testing, I ran into an issue: CreateTestUser : Mailbox could not be created. Verify that OU ( Users ) exists and that password meets complexity requirements. At C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\Scripts\new-TestCasConnectivityUser.ps1:255 char:27 + $result = CreateTestUser <<<< $exchangeServer $mailboxServer $securePassword $OrganizationalUnit $UMDialPlan $UMExtension $Prompt + CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Write-Error], WriteErrorException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.WriteErrorException,CreateTestUser Oddly enough, that OU does exist (as it will by default on any Windows Domain!

Recently I needed to report on the ActiveSync devices that were attached to our Exchange 2010 organisation, and which users they were accessing, and then export them to a CSV file. This is the script: $ActiveSyncDevices = @() ForEach ($Mailbox in Get-Mailbox –Server MBX01) { Get-ActiveSyncDeviceStatistics -Mailbox $Mailbox.Identity –ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select DeviceFriendlyName, Devicetype, DeviceUserAgent | ForEach-Object { $_ | Add-Member –MemberType NoteProperty -Name "MailboxIdentity" -value $Mailbox $ActiveSyncDevices += $_ } } $ActiveSyncDevices | Export-csv c:\Path\To\File.

Today I was configuring a new FTP server based on IIS7 (well, 7.5 technically as it’s a Server 2008 R2 host), and I wanted an easy way to add and remove allowed IP addresses based on either an XML config file or a CSV import. Customers’ IP addresses are added or removed regularly, but I didn’t want to have to update their details twice, once on the server and once in the documents.

With the release of Exchange 2010 SP1, administrators can now use separate Mailbox Databases to store the Personal Archives of users – this is particularly useful if you have some larger, slower (and probably by virtue, older) storage that’s not really up to the I/O of your Exchange Server (that old SAN/NAS sitting in the corner of the server room?). It’s also useful if you just don’t have the capacity on your main storage.

So, you’ve installed a new server with Server 2008 R2 Core – what next? Logging on, you’re presented with a shiny command prompt, you can run notepad or regedit…but aside from that, where do you go from there? In the next few series of posts I’ll hopefully point out the basics, and some not so basics! In this post, I’m covering Installing the IIS web server (and a few useful bits) and managing it from the IIS Management Snap-in.

Our development SQL server is a monster…there are many many databases, and hundreds, if not thousands of backup files. With each patch tested on the software we sell, there is a new backup. With each client deployment, a new database. With each new major version, a new database. Backups of the new databases inevitably occur, and so we have more files, in more folders - most of which need to be kept in case of roll-backs, bugs or deployment issues.

I needed to use PowerShell for something today on my Vista laptop, but was unable to install the file. I had the normal UAC permission required when I ran it, but then it failed with this error Installer encountered an error: 0x80070422 The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it. It turns out that you need to enable the Windows Update service in order to use an MSU file.