If you have Windows Server 2012 R2 Core installed but you want to be able to use a Graphical User Interface (GUI) then you can use the following Powershell command to enable it: Install-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Shell –Source d:sourcessxs NOTE: you should ensure that your source location is correct and up to date with your Windows Updates….
If you want to find the full list of Windows Updates that you have installed on your machine, you can use a Powershell command to find this information. This is particularly helpful for operating systems like Windows Server 2012 R2 Core. COMMAND Run this command in a Powershell environment on the machine you want to…
Powershell is becoming more and more important these days and the possibilities for using it are endless. However, there are also a large amount of very basic easy-to-use commands that you should add to your knowledge collection. We all pick up new Powershell commands that help us to do our jobs all the time so…
If you are using Server 2012 R2 Core and you wish to join it to the domain, then you can use this simple Powershell command to do it. Add-Computer -DomainName YOURDOMAIN.COM -Credentials DOMAINUSERNAME -Restart Note that the -Restart command at the end will automatically restart your server once it has completed the joining process. Also…
If you are using Windows 2012 R2 Core or if you just like using Powershell, then you may want to know how to enable Remote Desktop. To do this, you should go into your Core server where you should see a command box. In here, type in Powershell and press enter. This will open up…
We recently have had issues with our Windows 7 operating system deployments seemingly not completing fully. We were getting the following issues: The ConfigMgr client was not fully installed – it was displaying the Site Mode as “Unknown” The ConfigMgr client was not picking up a certificate – it was displaying as “None” The _SMSTaskSequence…
On April 8th 2014, Microsoft ended all support for Windows XP. They then released a number of Windows Updates that displays annoying messages on your desktop telling you that your operating system is now at its end of life. This is the Windows message: The second is the Microsoft Security Essentials one: We have been…
Adobe have released another update to their Adobe Flash Player software, this time taking it up to version 14.0.0.145. As always, you can download the executable file or get the MSI file so that you can load it into your Configuration Manager Software Catalog. The update is also now available to import through System Center…
We have had a number of people asking us how they can remove the annoying end of life message that Windows XP displays. There are actually two of them, one is a Windows end of life message that looks like this: The other is Microsoft Security Essentials end of life message that looks like this:…
As most of you should already know by now, Configuration Manager 2007 in any of its versions is now no longer supported as the mainstream support deadline passed on 8th July 2014. This means that you should now be looking at moving over to 2012 R2 as soon as possible (its a much better system…
Today we have had our 1 millionth page view on TechyGeeksHome! As a complete coincidence this post is also our 300th post since we started some two years ago. We find it completely incredible that our little site with its customised guides (usually to our own requirements!) has managed to gain a million page views…
Microsoft have released a number of documents to make up a best practice guide for System Center Configuration Manager 2012 R2. The documents are free to download and although we have not read through them ourselves yet, we are told that they are very good so worth a read. You can download the documents individually…
Java have now released update 5 of version 8 of their Java software.The update is available as an offline installer and using our guide below, you can extract the MSI from it and use it for deployment by using Windows Updates to update current machines or add to your Configuration Manager Application Catalog or even…
If you want to report on the servers that have not had a reboot in the last week within your Configuration Manager environment then you can run this query directly on your SQL database or you can use it to create a report within SSRS. How to create a Configuration Manager Report using SSRS SQL…
If you want to report on the machines that do not have the ConfigMgr client installed within your Configuration Manager environment then you can run this query directly on your SQL database or you can use it to create a report within SSRS. How to create a Configuration Manager Report using SSRS The query is…
If you want to report on the versions of your ConfigMgr clients that you have within your Configuration Manager environment then you can run this query directly on your SQL database or you can use it to create a report within SSRS. How to create a Configuration Manager Report using SSRS The query is below…
Sorry about the recent lack of updates on our site but we have been incredibly busy fixing “real world” IT issues! Its also the silly season for holidays so over the next month updates may be a little sparse but we will try our best! We recently came across a really good blog post by Daniel…
We are pleased to announce the release of WillyTheWorm version 1.1. We have been playing with creating a few very basic retro games for a while now and although these are really only more than testers and nothing to get too excited about, we thought we would release them for you to play with anyway…
We have recently had a number of reports of bluetooth devices like mice and keyboards randomly disconnecting since people have upgraded to Windows 8.1 Update 1. This can be extremely frustrating when you are flying along typing an email and you have nothing to show on your screen for your efforts! Most of the time,…
We are pleased to announce the release of DustyRacer v1.0. This is very much a test release and more of a practice in coding so please treat it as such! Your feedback and ideas are welcome but we are looking into building this up with lots of new features, like levels that speed up as…
Adobe have released another update to their Adobe Flash Player software, this time taking it up to version 14.0.0.125. As always, you can download the executable file or get the MSI file so that you can load it into your Configuration Manager Software Catalog. The update is also now available to import through System Center…
We are pleased to announce the release of our first web browser codenamed DustyNet. DustyNet is a simple and easy-to-use web browser. It is lightweight and standalone so can you run direct from a single executable file and even from a USB stick. This is a second release so if you find any bugs or…
We recently came across this excellent blog post about the configuration of distribution settings for Configuration Manager. We highly recommend that you read it if you have multiple remote distribution points as this may help to speed up the process of pushing out the packages. Controlling Concurrent Package Distribution
When you delete packages, applications or images using your Configuration Manager Console, it will then start to process the removal of the files from your distribution points. Depending on how many distribution points you have, this can take some time to complete. We recently had a scenario where we had to remove nearly 100GB of…
We had reports from a customer this week about strange issues with their Configuration Manager OSD Task Sequences failing. The OSD seemed to work on most machines but a new batch of refurbished laptops would PXE boot but then would fail after the task sequence had been selected with a generic Microsoft error (you know…
We have just started to update our hardware BIOS’s during the Configuration Manager OSD process taking advantage of the Application model. It works extremely well and is very easy to setup. We used this excellent guide to help us so we thought that we would share this with our visitors for it to help you…
If you are looking at deploying Google Chrome using systems like Configuration Manager, WDS, SCUP or Group Policy, you will want to use their MSI installer to make it much easier. You can now download the Google Chrome MSI installer from the Google Chrome website by clicking the download button below. Download Download Latest Google…
If you use Google Blogger and you have searches or menu items based on labels, you might find that when you click on these you get the below information appear at the top of your posts: This can be extremely annoying when you are trying to make your site look as professional as possible, so…
If you use Google Blogger and you are fed up of missing out on page hits because of 404 errors, then there is a very simple way that you can redirect any of these page mis-directions to another page of your choosing on your blog. To do this, you should login to your Blogger control…
Softpedia have today reported that Microsoft have released the drivers to use your Xbox One controller with your Windows computer! This is excellent news for gamers and long awaited. See the full article here: Download PC Drivers Now for Xbox One Controller
There are many uses for Exchange Management Shell and we will be adding various EMS commands over time so to start with we are going to show you how to get your Exchange mailboxes size information. For an overview of your Exchange mailboxes statistics, open your EMS console and type in the following command: Get-mailboxserver…
Skype version 6.16 has now been released and if you would like to either add this to your Configuration Manager Software Catalog or even have it available through WDS or Group Policy, then you will want to download the MSI file for it. MSI Installer for Distribution Skype do provide a direct download link for…
