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Tag Archives: Windows 8

Microsoft Surface Pro Docking Station: Plugable Review

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The Microsoft Surface Pro is an amazing combination of devices! It combines the mobility of a tablet with the power of a desktop. Out of the box, it is great for field work. To fully replace your administrative workstation, it requires some extra extensions. We have already reviewed the top 5 accessories for your Microsoft Surface. Each of those add-ons gives your Surface an extra cable – literally tying it down!

Surface Pro Docking Station

If you are getting tired of connecting numerous wires, you will be glad to know about a Microsoft Surface Pro Docking Station. Here is my two week  review of the Plugable UD-3000 docking station.
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Tracking User Logins: The Manual Hack

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I was recently asked “How can I start tracking user logins without modifying Active Directory or writing to a database?” Odd question right? Our reader, let’s call him Jose, had a few issues:

  • He wasn’t allowed to modify Active Directory. 
  • He wasn’t allowed to set up any new servers/hardware/etc. This ruled out writing his computer logins to a database.
  • He was allowed to edit Group Policy at his location. He did not have many restrictions there.

To me, it seems like his boss has their priorities a little mixed up – but oh well. Before finding out these restrictions, I referred him to these two articles:

I was hoping that the powers that could modify AD in his company would see the benefits of the solutions above. It turns out that they don’t trust this site… (or Microsoft documentation for that matter).

After a few emails back and forth, I found out what was going on and we came up with a manual hack to speeding up the whole “what computer are you on?” routine that every one of us face. We ended up using an old time tool with a modern deployment method.

Tracking User Logins

With one registry change plus a deployment with Group Policy Preferences, we can stick the Computer Name under the start menu. Instead of a shortcut to Computer (or My Computer), the user sees “Computer: COMPUTERNAME”. This allows you to quickly check a computer name or to easily tell an employee how to find the computer name.

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Enabled Inactive Computers or Why I fear the Zombie Compocalypse!

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Active Directory Administrator should regularly clean up stale computers from Active Directory. This is a fact. If you haven’t automated the stale computer cleanup process, take 10 minutes to read this background article and to set it up. Doing so will make your life easier. After all, cleaning up your stale computers will help you by:

When a computer is marked as stale, it can occasionally come back to life! I like to call these zombie computers. It makes my day sound more exciting…

enabled inactive computers

Binnnnarrry….. (said in a creepy zombie voice)

How do these stale computers come back to life? Here is an example: a user might have a laptop off the domain for a year. This laptop would be marked as stale and disabled. When the user returns, a help desk technician might re-enable the laptop without moving it from your Stale Computers container.

Just this week, we had 9 computers that had this issue. That meant 9 computers were not being managed by Group Policy! That meant 9 computers that did not have AppLocker, UAC, or other security settings applied to them! That mean 9 computers with a craving for human brains! Fortunately for us, PowerShell can fix two out of these three problems automatically! A shotgun will fix the last one…

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Installing .NET FrameWork 3.5

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There is no doubt that Windows 8 relies on .NET Framework 4. But what about .NET Framework 3.5? Just on my machine, three of my daily tools require it (Advance Group Policy Management, Print Manager Plus. and VMware vSphere Client). If you try to install it from the source files, you will find that they are contained on orginial media and not preloaded on your install!  Worse, installing it from Programs and Features will give you a cryptic error code. On two machines, I got two different codes – 0x800F0906 and 0x800F081F.

Installing .NET FrameWork 3.5

 

To get past this issue, we can use DISM or MDT. We can even automatically enable this feature in our Task Sequence to save future us some time!

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Deploying Printers with Group Policy Preferences (Complete Guide)

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Deploying printers with Group Policy Preferences is the superior way to deploy your printers. Here is the great thing about deploying printers this way: you don’t need anything special and it can deploy IP, local, or shared printers!

As long as your clients support Group Policy Preferences (which runs on XP SP3 +) and you have a print server, you can deploy printers with Group Policy Preferences. Before you deploy your first printer, you need to answer two questions first:

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