Along with PowerShell and Group Policy, I am in and out of the command prompt all day! Unlike those previous tools, I tend to use CMD in spurts. I might open it real quick on a test machine or use it to troubleshoot a client. To make life easier, I regularly use these 4 tricks to get to the administrative command prompt!
Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8 are so similar that they even share the same version number (6.2)! It should come as no surprise that some desktop features have been integrated into Server (like the Start Screen). While having the Start Screen on Server isn’t the best in terms of diffusion, some great Server features did manage to make it back into Windows 8. The biggest example – Hyper-V! Now, on a client OS, you can natively run an entire virtual environment. In this guide, I’ll show you exactly how to do this so that you can start creating a Hyper-V lab on Windows 8.
A Glorious Sight!
Deploying fonts as an application has worked so far. While it accomplishes my goal of installing fonts (without visiting every single machine), it has two downsides. First, Group Policy Software Installation requires a reboot to process. Second, an administrator is still needed to package the MSI. Because I love automation, this drove me crazy! How can I get out of the font deploying business? Let my users start installing fonts with PowerShell.
Now that Active Directory can tell us what computer models we have (and how many we own), it is time to extend our inventory! Today, we are going to implement one shutdown that script with Group Policy. This script will query for our computer’s serial number (or service tag) and will also grab the unique ID associated with an attached monitor. It will then store both pieces of information in that computer’s Active Directory account. As a final result, you can look at any computer in your domain and see the information in the Description field. This makes it incredibly easy to find serial numbers in Active Directory!
So if you are tired of manually doing an inventory, let’s automate some stuff!
The Administrative Start Menu, or the Windows 8 Win X Menu, can really be the one stop shop for troubleshooting a client machine. For my management machine, it doesn’t really live up to the task. Don’t get me wrong, it is great to access Run or System this way. It is pretty cool that I can use shortcut keys. There is not a faster way to launch an Administrative command prompt than Windows + X, followed by A. But things like Search or Mobility center seem to just take up space. Tools that I would use for remote support, like event viewer or device manager, seem downright slow or featureless when compared to Concurrent RDP. That is why I set out to rebuild the administrative start menu and to turn it into this:
