Forcing a ConfigMgr Client to Send a New CCMEval Report

In order to maintain a healthy ConfigMgr environment, it is important to know that your clients have successfully run the Configuration Manager Health Evaluation task and reported the results to the Site server.  Sometimes you will find a number of systems that have not reported any health status to the Site server.  In the Devices … Continue reading Forcing a ConfigMgr Client to Send a New CCMEval Report

PowerShell Stopwatch

In PowerShell scripts it is sometimes helpful to use a timer, for example to measure how long a certain task takes.  If you create GUI applications with PowerShell, it can be useful to display a timer during a long-running task.  It's actually quite simple to do and there are plenty of examples for C# programmers, but … Continue reading PowerShell Stopwatch

New Free App – ConfigMgr Deployment Reporter

Just released a new free application for ConfigMgr admins - ConfigMgr Deployment Reporter.  I developed this app for use in the organisation I currently work for, and it turned out quite well, so I decided to release a public version to the community! I developed this app as an alternative (and IMO easier) way to … Continue reading New Free App – ConfigMgr Deployment Reporter

Testing for Local Administrator Privilege with PowerShell

When writing PowerShell scripts it is sometimes necessary to know whether the user account running the script has local administrator privileges.  A piece of code often used for this is: However, this code only returns true when run in an elevated context, so it is not really a test of whether the user has local administrator … Continue reading Testing for Local Administrator Privilege with PowerShell

Detect an Active VPN Adapter During ConfigMgr Deployments

A common requirement with ConfigMgr deployments is to exclude clients that are connected to the corporate network via a VPN, when the total size of the content files for the deployment are too much to be throwing down a slow network link. There is more than one way to do this, but I have seen that … Continue reading Detect an Active VPN Adapter During ConfigMgr Deployments

Finding the ‘LastLogon’ Date from all Domain Controllers with PowerShell

In an Active Directory environment, probably the most reliable way to query the last logon time of a computer is to use the Last-Logon attribute.  The Last-Logon-Timestamp attribute could be used, but this will not likely be up-to-date due to the replication lag.  If you are using PowerShell, the LastLogonDate attribute can also be used, however … Continue reading Finding the ‘LastLogon’ Date from all Domain Controllers with PowerShell

Creating Simple Charts in WPF with PowerShell

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is great for creating GUI applications, but it does not natively contain any charting controls.  There are a number of products that can be used to create charts in WPF, including the WPF toolkit and the Microsoft Chart Controls for .Net, but good-old Windows Forms does this natively. WPF has does … Continue reading Creating Simple Charts in WPF with PowerShell

New Tool: System Explorer for Windows

Today I am pleased to release a new tool for enterprises and home users alike: System Explorer for Windows.  This application can be used to view detailed system and hardware data for a local or remote computer by exposing WMI Win32 classes in an easy-to-use Graphical User Interface.  For enterprises that use System Center Configuration … Continue reading New Tool: System Explorer for Windows

Creating WPF GUI Applications with Pure PowerShell

When creating a GUI application in PowerShell, I usually use Visual Studio, or Blend for Visual Studio, to design a WPF application, then copy and run the XAML code in PowerShell.  Designing in VS is generally easier and quicker and creates less code, but it is also perfectly possible to create a WPF GUI using … Continue reading Creating WPF GUI Applications with Pure PowerShell