For a very long time, the update mechanism for both Windows clients and Windows servers have been the same. With Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 this has changed.
Even though I’d already found out that something had changed with the Windows 8/Windows Server 2012 update mechanism by using it, I didn’t really know what changed and why.
- Windows 8 Modern (Metro) Apps security patching does not work the same as regular security patching. For more information, read “Microsoft’s new security patching routine raises concerns“.
- Default behavior after you install an important update in Windows 8 or in Windows Server 2012 is that you receive a notice that you have to restart the computer in three days. If the restart does not occur in three days, the computer displays a 15-minute countdown and then automatically restarts. By default, this automatic restart is delayed if the computer is locked, and the countdown will begin the next time that you sign in to the computer. Update KB2835627 has been released that introduces a new registry key called AlwaysAutoRebootAtScheduledTime which enables you to configure a forced restart after installation if desired.
- This great blog post provides more insight: “Managing Updates with Deadlines in an era of Automatic Maintenance“. The reactions are also very interesting.Some of the key takeaways from this post:
- A new feature called Automatic Maintenance, runs nightly and performs various tasks such as lightly defragmenting hard drives (or TRIMming SSDs if necessary), checking, repairing, and optimizing the system component store, running anti-virus scans, installing updates, and more.
- The setting for when to download and install updates doesn’t work in the same way as it did. While you can still set Windows Update to download updates and install them automatically or not, the day-of-the-week setting is not effective. It is included in the automatic maintenance and there isn’t a way to individually specify which maintenance tasks run on which day.
- The Windows Update Agent doesn’t have to be active in the background all the time because of this. This consolidation reduces system resource usage and battery usage.
- If you want to be in control of when updates will be installed you have to use WSUS and set deadlines for updates.
Even though I understand the reasoning behind the change, I would have preferred that Microsoft gave customers options to choose their preferred method. In my opinion this method makes sense for clients, but not so much for servers.
Also for some (smaller) companies the specific day and time patching method (including downloading from Microsoft Update) worked fine and now they might have to install, configure and maintain a WSUS server (including patch approvals) to achieve the same result.
What do you think about this ? Leave a comment on either my blog or on the original blog post : Managing Updates with Deadlines in an era of Automatic Maintenance
Tags: ICT, Metro App, metro application, Microsoft, Modern App, modern application, patching, security, update, Update Management, Update Services, updates, Windows, Windows 2012, Windows 2012 Server, Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server Update Services, WSUS
In the past I’ve had numerous occasions where I wanted to run a program or system to run under the local system user context. Most of them involved customers and application administrators that wanted to have a service or scheduled task configured. They often weren’t able to tell me if it was sufficient to run the service or scheduled task as local system or that a special service account would have to be created.
The issue I always ran into when I wanted to test this, is that you had to provide a password that you didn’t know if you wanted to use “Run As” with the local system account.
Recently I ran into the “Run As System” application. It enables you to start a program or run command and script under a local system account. It is UAC compatible, but it requires administrative privileges.
Another use of the “Run As System” application is if you want to access files or folders that are normally not accessible for users. This can come in handy when troubleshooting Offline Files. The tool might not work correctly with Windows Explorer though, so you should consider using other tools like Total Commander.
Other methods to run something as system can be found here.
For more tools and applications, take a look at my website: http://bjornhouben-web.sharepoint.com/Lists/Applications/Summary.aspx
Tags: application, Explorer, File Explorer, ICT, local system, local system user context, Microsoft, offline files, Permissions, Run as System, scheduled task, Script, system, system user, tool, Total Commander, Windows Explorer
My blog reached 50.000+ views. Thanks everybody, this really exceeded my expectation and motivates me even more to keep going. Special thanks go out to my fellow bloggers in my blogroll and to those who shared my posts on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks.
Even though my blog exists since January 2012, I really started to blog actively around August and ever since I’ve tried to keep posting on a regular basis. At the start of 2013 I even intended to blog every day. I was able to keep it up for a short while, but it was just too time consuming. Now I try to blog something at least once every 5 days. The blog post count is now at 170.
Personally I think Microsoft is on the right track. I’m really looking forward to all new Microsoft product (preview) releases including Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2 and you can expect some blog posts about this in the near future.
Popular posts
From the stats, it turned out these are the blog posts that are being viewed most, if you’ve missed any of them you might want to take a look at them:
Stats
For those interested in the view stats, here they are:
Comments and suggestions
If you have suggestions about what I can do to improve, please let me know. Also if you’d like to see some things covered more or in more detail, just leave a comment.
Tags: Apple, blog, blog post, blogpost, Microsoft, milestone, Mountain Lion, Office 365, OS X, POST, Server 2012, Sharepoint online, views, Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, wordpress
At TechEd 2013 North America, Microsoft has announced a lot of new stuff. Many of the TechEd sessions have been recorded and can be viewed on Channel9. I’ll try to blog more about it as well.
For Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2 the Microsoft Virtual Academy is hosting jump start sessions next month. For more information and registration take a look at this blog post.
Tags: channel9, ICT, jump start, jumpstart, Microsoft, Microsoft Virtual Academy, MVA, server 2012 r2, system center 2012 r2, teched, teched north america 2013, windows 2012 r2, Windows Server 2012 R2
Future events
Before starting with my summary of 2nd DuPSUG meeting, I want to inform you about some future events first:
- Dutch PowerShell User Group Meetings
- To keep track of news, use the links to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and the RSS feed on the DUPSUG website.
- In the future, the plan is to meet every June and November.
- The next meeting will probably be at November 7th at VX Company.
- The idea is that community members will also present their own experiences, use cases, scripts, tools, methods. If you want to do so, please contact the DUPSUG group.
- Remko Weijnen | Blog | Twitter | LinkedIn might be one of the people presenting at a future DUPSUG meeting.
- Jeff Wouters might be able to arrange one or more copies of the PowerShell Deep Dives book from Manning since he’s contributing to it. The book isn’t complete and released yet, but Manning has an Early Access Program which means that you will get access to the completed chapters now and will get the full version when it’s done. Until June 13 there’s even a promotion to get a 40%-50% discount and it also applies to other great PowerShell books.
- Inter Access Microsoft Summer Summit (Hilversum, July 2nd 2013 17:30-22:00 CET)
This event
Last Thursday I attended the second Dutch Powershell User Group meeting in Hilversum hosted at Inter Access and sponsored by Sapien Technologies Inc.
Just like I mentioned in the summary of the first meeting there were manu interesting sessions that provided me with more insight and inspired me for practical uses. It was also great to discuss current developments with other knowledgeable and passionate people. The main differences with the previous meeting was that:
- This meeting was completely in Dutch, while the previous one was completely in English. As such, the workshop descriptions were also in Dutch and you needed to bring your own laptop.
- The format of this meeting was more of a workshop, while the previous one was mainly presentations.
Thanks go out to all attendees, especially those presenting, organizing and sponsoring the event. Special thanks to Daniel Bot for helping me fix a (stupid mistake in a) script I was working on 🙂
Goodies and giveaways
Workshops / presentations
And now on with the really interesting stuff, the sessions/workshops. Below are the sessions with some info about the speakers and their sessions. I also added notes I took and other information I looked up afterwards. If you come across any errors or have comments, please leave a reply so I can fix it.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: $PSBoundParameters, -asjob, -passthru, Azure, background jobs, Cloud, Compliance Settings, DCM, Desired Configuration Management, Desired State Configuration, devops, DHCP, DHCP failover, DNS, DSC, DuPSUG, Dutch PowerShell User Group, error handling, Event, Exe, Filters, flickr, forms, Functions, graphical user interface, gui, GUI applications, high availability, Hilversum, HTA, HTML Application, Integrated Scripting Environment, Inter Access Microsoft Summer Summit, InterAccess, InterAccess Microsoft Summer Summit, Interface Video Training, IPv4, ISE, Jaap Brasser, Jeff Wouters, job, jobs, Manning, module, msi, nslookup, Out-Gridview, parallel, parallelization, passthrough, Ping, PowerGUI, Powershell, PowerShell 3, Powershell 3.0, PowerShell 4.0, PowerShell Deep Dives, PowerShell GUI, PowerShell GUI applications, PowerShell Runspace, PowerShell RunSpaces, Powershell v3, PowerShell Workflow, presentation, PS2Exe, Resolve-DNSName, Richard Siddaway, runspace, runspaces, SCCM, script block, script blocks, scriptblock, scriptblocks, ShowUI, splat, splatting, System Center Configruation Manager, Test-Connection, The MSI Wizard, VisualStudio, VX Company, Windows, Windows 2012, Windows 2012 Server, Windows 8.1, Windows Forms, Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, WinForms, workflow, workshop, WPF
The PowerShell Summit took place in North America in April and many of the prominent PowerShell people were there. And from what I read there were a lot of great presentations.
The PowerShell Summit 2013 North America conference schedule can be found here. Thanks to Don Jones and PowerShell.org (most of) these sessions are available for download: http://powershell.org/wp/2013/04/22/summit-downloads/
Videos are available here:
http://powershell.org/wp/2013/05/07/powershell-summit-videos/
So even if you weren’t able to attend, you can still learn from their presentations. Or if you did attend, you can review them again.
Tags: conference, conference schedule, Don Jones, download, downloads, North America, Powershell, PowerShell Summit, PowerShell Summit 2013, PowerShell Summit 2013 North America, PowerShell.org, schedule, session, sessions
The recordings for “Using Microsoft VDI to Enable New Workstyles Jump Start” are available now on Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA).
These Jump Starts are a great way to quickly get up-to-date about a subject. Also there’s a great team of people working behind the scenes to answer questions and provide more detailed resources. Other attendees often also share their experiences and provide valuable insights. So be sure to check out the Q&A log as well.
Tags: Cloud, Free, Hyper-V, ICT, jump start, jumpstart, Learning, Microsoft Virtual Academy, MVA, Private Cloud, recording, Using Microsoft VDI to Enable New Workstyles Jump Start, VDI, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, virtualization, Windows
Roger Osborne has posted a great article with a Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V best practices checklist.
I especially like the fact that it’s not just a checklist, but it also explains what it does and why it is considered a best practice to do it this way (in specific situations).
Additionally you might also want to take a look at “Top 20 Hyper-V Performance Metrics You Should Care About” and System Center Advisor.
Tags: best practice, best practices, best practices checklist, check list, checklist, Hyper-V, Hyper-V 3.0, hypervisor, hypervizor, ICT, Microsoft, Server 2012, virtualisation, virtualization, Windows 2012, Windows 2012 Server, Windows Server 2012
This script determines the group membership of Active Directory users.
In this case, some users are member of multiple functional groups (groupname “*-core”), while the design assumes a user can only be a member a single functional group. This script helps determine the functional groups they are a member of.
Especially with a large number of users, scripting will save you a lot of time.
Tags: Active Directory, Active Directory Directory Services, AD User, ADDS, automate, Directory Services, group, group membership, groups, ICT, Microsoft, Powershell, Script, user, users
The videos and Q&A transcript of the “Windows Intune for IT Professionals Jump Start” are available on Microsoft Virtual Academt (MVA):
https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/tracks/windows-intune-for-it-professionals-jump-start
Windows Intune is a cloud-based solution to manage desktops and mobile devices (including tablets and phones). It’s not limited to just Windows based products. For more information, take a look at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windowsintune/pc-management.aspx
Tags: ICT, Intune, jump start, jumpstart, Microsoft, Microsoft Virtual Academy, MVA, q&a, Training, transcript, video, videos, Virtual Academy, Windows, Windows Intune
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