Category: PowerShell
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Entra ID Connect: Starting Over
Because I do not always run my demo environments following industry best practices, I occationally find myself in a situation where things might be… horked. That is to say, my on-prem lab (including the Active Directory domain) gets wiped, and I rebuild it from scratch. It is something that I usually enjoy doing, and until…
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Changing the Date
I was asked by a friend the other day to help them to change the metadata on an NTFS file. I made sure that they were not trying to break any laws, and then I found this PowerShell cmdlet for them: $(get-item ‘.\filename.ext’).CreationTime=$(Get-Date “04/28/2025”) Of course, they were not very technical so I found a…
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RSAT Toolkits
I have been an advocate of using Server Core since… well, essentially since Microsoft introduced it in Windows Server 2008. I have also been a huge proponent of the Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) that can be installed in the client OS to remotely manage the non-GUI servers without having to become a PowerShell or…
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Creating AD User Accounts Using PowerShell
Whenever someone tells me that my insistence that domain controllers should never have a GUI (Graphical User Interface) I introduce them to the Remote Server Administration Tools, and all is well. Yes, you can manage your Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) from the comfort of your Windows 11 (or Windows 10) PC with the…
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Disabling IPv6 with PowerShell
Let me preface this piece by saying that I usually do not disable IPv6. There are advantages to leaving it on (even if you think you are not using it) which I will not go into here. With that said, I was building a server for a lab environment recently, and IPv6 was interfering with…
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The Secrets of The French…
The first class that I took on Microsoft Windows was with a very nice French-Canadian instructor whose name I think was Denis. He told an interesting story that I wish I had retained the details of. He told us that following The Great War (WW1), the government of France decided that codes and secrets and…
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Importing PowerShell Modules When You Cannot Install PowerShell Modules.
**Note: This article is written around a single PowerShell module (ExchangeOnlineManagement). However, the steps will work for any PowerShell module. Have at it! –MDG PS C:\> Install-Module -Name ExchangeOnlineManagement PackageManagement\Install-Package : No match was found for the specified search criteria and module name ‘ExchangeOnlineManagement’. Try Get-PSRepository to see all available registered module repositories. At C:\program…
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PowerShell From Afar
“Hey Mitch, I always hear you talk about running PowerShell against remote computers. How do I do that?” There are several different ways to do this, depending on what exactly you want to do. Preparation We cannot simply create a machine and start working on it remotely. We have to enable remote management by first…
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Where’s my RSAT?
A close friend and former colleague recently gave me the nickname “Mr. No GUI.” Why? I am big believer in Windows Server Core. I do not believe there should be a GUI on a Windows Server unless it is being used as a desktop. That does not mean that we all have to become command…
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RSAT Tools
**DISCLOSURE: While I am contracted to Microsoft Corporation, I am not an employee. The articles that I write are not meant to represent the company, nor are they meant to represent me as an employee or spokesman for the company. As has always been the case, all articles on this website represent me and nobody…
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Changing Default Usernames and E-Mail in M365
**DISCLOSURE: While I am contracted to Microsoft Corporation, I am not an employee. The articles that I write are not meant to represent the company, nor are they meant to represent me as an employee or spokesman for the company. As has always been the case, all articles on this website represent me and nobody…
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Domain Controller to the Core
**DISCLOSURE: While I am contracted to Microsoft Corporation, I am not an employee. The articles that I write are not meant to represent the company, nor are they meant to represent me as an employee or spokesman for the company. As has always been the case, all articles on this website represent me and nobody…
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Creating a Lab Domain in PowerShell
I am spending a lot of time in Microsoft 365 these days. Because of my new contract, I found myself needing to build a lab environment from scratch. Yes, I am working in Azure AD, but for my role I realized it would be help to have an on-premise Active Directory Domain Services environment, in…
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Office 365 Distribution List Question
Hey Mitch! Do you know if we can add a couple hundred users to a distribution list instead of adding them one by one? One of my help desk techs was asked to create several distribution lists with several hundred users, and they do not want to have to scroll through the user list to…
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Change the Way You Change Text
I remember when I first discovered the mail merge feature… it amazed the twelve-year-old me that I could write a letter once, and then AppleWorks would address that letter to the several hundred people in my database. I was thrilled with it. Last week, I was working with a client who moved a server. No…
The World According to Mitch 