Some Notes on the Machines

If you see GPO policies get implemented and re-implemented even though the settings have been removed, or if it just doesn’t happen, try the following in administrative Powershell. These clear the GPO cache on the machine you’re looking at.

Remove-Item "$env:windir\system32\GroupPolicy" -Force -Recurse
Remove-Item "HKLM:\Software\Policies\Microsoft" -Force -Recurse
Remove-Item "HKCU:\Software\Policies\Microsoft" -Force -Recurse
Remove-Item "HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Group Policy Objects" -Force -Recurse
Remove-Item "HKCU:\\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies" -Force -Recurse

This appears to work well. It uses the olde ‘rwinsta’ command to work around some Powershell oddities.

# Get list of disconnected RDP sessions

$RDPDiscSessions = Get-RDUserSession | Where-Object SessionState -eq STATE_DISCONNECTED

# Disconnect each of them one by one

foreach ($row in $RDPDiscSessions)	{
	'Logging off ' + $row.SessionID
	rwinsta $row.SessionID
}

Rather elegant:

https://spiderzebra.com/2020/05/21/how-to-create-a-simple-powershell-gui/

Here’s one way:

$wco = (New-Object System.Net.WebClient)
$wco.DownloadFile('https://fqdn/filename.ext','filename.ext')

An in-script fix:

[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12

A permanent fix:

Set-ItemProperty -Path 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\.NetFramework\v4.0.30319' -Name 'SchUseStrongCrypto' -Value '1' -Type DWord
Set-ItemProperty -Path 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\.NetFramework\v4.0.30319' -Name 'SchUseStrongCrypto' -Value '1' -Type DWord

To download a single file in binary mode, try translating this:

Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "http://fq.dn/sub/binary.exe" -Outfile "C:\folder\binary.exe"

Prefix this, add a space to the end, and then type your Powershell:

%SystemRoot%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -NoProfile -InputFormat None -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command

My current favorite way:

[string]$PSVersionTable.PSVersion.Major + '.' + [string]$PSVersionTable.PSVersion.Minor

If it’s 1.0, you’ll get an error, otherwise you will have what you need.

Here’s a rundown:

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/johan/2008/10/01/powershell-editing-permissions-on-a-file-or-folder/

If you place a tilde (~) before the command you enter, no space after, your command will be run within Powershell. For instance:

~dir