Thomas Bründl - IT - Solutions

Microsoft's Action Pack Subscription - a way to reduce IT costs for small businesses and still move into the digital future

Companies (especially small businesses) often shy back from stepping into the cloud (Office 365 / Azure). The main reason for this is usually the argument that the costs are too high compared to a locally running infrastructure. In addition, the costs differ in terms of

Software

How to switch from Legacy to UEFI boot mode (MBR2GPT conversion)

In the context of my work as a system administrator from time to time I have to deal with desktop / client issues in addition to infrastructure and server problems. So I recently had to cope with 2 problems that had the same cause. Case

Exchange Online

How to get Office 365 to accept mails from your homepage (contact form)

Recently, a customer had his homepage redesigned without my knowledge, in the belief that this does not require consultation and interaction with me. Unfortunately they didn't think about the dependency to their mail system, whose migration to Office 365 or Exchange Online was done

Powershell

Managing File System Access Control Lists (Powershell)

Today I had to copy the permissions from one folder to another folder. Instead of doing this manually, I tried to do it with Powershell. And I succeeded... Here are my experiences with it.... Obtaining the ACL for files and folders:get-acl <folder&

Software

How to create a self-signed Certificate interactively (GUI)

During my activities as a system administrator, it happens from time to time that I have to provide a certificate for a variety of purposes. Since a self-created and self-signed certificate is often sufficient, I would like to introduce my favorite way to create

Microsoft SQL

How to list top tables (disk usage) - SQL

SQL - Way: -- Use sys.tables, sys.indexes, sys.partitions, sys.allocation_units and sys.schemas to display the line number, and also the size of tables select sch.name as SchemaName, tab.name as TableName, par.rows as RowCounts, sum(alc.total_

Powershell

Simplest way to gather Input information (Powershell)

For each of my scripts I try to make them as easy as possible so that I have as little effort as necessary to solve an already solved problem again when I use it one more time. To make this possible, I often use

Powershell

Create a Wifi QR-Code (PowerShell)

Installation of the necessary module: Install-Module QRCodeGenerator Complete all needed steps to create a QR Code: # Allow unlimited execution of scripts Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestrict # Import the module you just installed Import-Module QRCodeGenerator # Assign WIFI Variables $wifissid = <SSID> $pwd = <password> $path = "

Docker

Getting Started with Docker (Linux)

For this project I really start from scratch and describe each step as clearly as I can. After all, this blog series should also become my project documentation... If it helps someone else as well, then this is a nice side effect. Provisioning a

Powershell

How to access OneDrive (Office 365) of a deleted user account (Powershell)

Today, one of my supervisors asked me if I could recover the data from a former employee's OneDrive (whose account has been deleted). So I got right down to work and started researching on that topic. The result is this script: # Requirements: # - Azure

Powershell

Relative File Paths in Powershell

My first intensive use of PowerShell was for scripting software installations/configurations. From development to deployment, I couldn’t guarantee the absolute file path of my script and any supporting files would be constant. I needed my script to be able to figure out

Powershell

How to query the execution path of a service (PowerShell)

Sometime you have to kill a process related to a service. To identify the process it is necessary to know the underlying service executable. Below you will find a small guide (using PowerShell), demonstrating how I managed to do this for Adobe's Update Service.

Powershell

Disk management with PowerShell: initialize, partition, format

Windows offers a historically grown collection of tools for disk management, both for the graphical user interface and the command line (diskpart, chkdsk, defrag, format.....) But as you hopefully know, PowerShell is state of the art... So here is the way to manage hard

Powershell

FSMO - Role Transfer (NTDSUTIL | Powershell)

Introduction:Recently the support for Windows Server 2008 & 2008 R2 has expired (14.01.2020 (see references at the end of the blog post). For this reason, it is highly probable that there are currently a number of projects for IT service providers

Powershell

Run a PowerShell Scripts from Task Scheduler

PowerShell is the de facto scripting language in Windows environments. Microsoft has even decreed that all software units must be able to be managed by using PowerShell cmdlets. This means that we need to learn how to run scripts from the Task Scheduler. Left

Powershell

dbatools -the tiny universal database management solution - PowerShell

Definitiondbatools is a free PowerShell module with over 500 SQL Server administration, best practice and migration commands included. You can think of dbatools as a command-line SQL Server Management Studio Minimum RequirementsServer SQL Server 2000 No PowerShell needed on the host for SQL Server-only

Powershell

Tiny database backup script - MSSQL

Once again an essential MSSQL topic. The backup of a database (in this case an Express version). Since this version is freely available and usable, the customer of course doesn't want to spend money for the backup). But thank god he has the money

Azure

How to make AZ Powershell Module backwardcompatible with AzureRM

Activating compatibility with AzureRM Enable-AzureRmAlias -Scope LocalMachine Disabling compatibility with AzureRM Disable-AzureRmAlias -Scope LocalMachine Reference: Link

Software

Planner (a small and handy project management tool)

Everyone who thinks of project management thinks primarily of tools like MS Project: MS Excel: But each of these programs was somehow improper for my use case. Either too complex and you would have to invest a lot of time to get along with

Software

In-Place Upgrade to Windows Server 2019

As you know the Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 are out of support on January 14th, 2020 (Link). Customer will need to upgrade their Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 to a newer version of Windows Server or migrate

Software

Microsoft Products Reaching End of Life in 2020

For products that have reached their end of support, Microsoft stops providing bug fixes for issues that are discovered, security fixes for newly found vulnerabilities, or technical support. Customers who still use end of service software are advised by Redmond to upgrade as soon

Powershell

Installing Chocolatey

Requirements:Windows 7+ / Windows Server 2003+PowerShell v2+.NET Framework 4+ (the installation will attempt to install .NET 4.0 if you do not have it installed)Elevated Command Prompt:@"%SystemRoot%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe" -NoProfile -InputFormat None -ExecutionPolicy Bypass

Powershell

The new "Windows Terminal"

"Windows Terminal is a new, modern, fast, efficient, powerful, and productive terminal application for users of command-line tools and shells like Command Prompt, PowerShell, and WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)." Reference: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/introducing-windows-terminal/ Requirements:Chocolatey (Link)Install Windows Terminal using

Software

How to create a bootable (USB) Acronis Media

Requirements:USB-Stick (2 GB - 32 GB | FAT32 | MBR)Acronis Boot ISORufus (Tool to create a bootable USB-Device)RufusRufus: Create bootable USB drives the easy wayPete BatardRufusDownload Rufus (portable):https://github.com/pbatard/rufus/releases/download/v3.8/rufus-3.8p.exe Required Settings:Result:

Azure

How to lock an Azure resource group

Connect to Azure:How to connect to Azure via Powershell (first time)Requirements: * PowerShell 5.1 * .NET Framework 4.7.2 or later. * Azure Powershell Module Check Powershell Version: # PSVersioncheck $PSVersionTable.PSVersion Check .NET Framework Version: # Check for .NET Framework 4.7.2 Get-ChildItem