Some Notes on the Machines

This has some gems in it:

scripts.aaronjstevenson.com/

including a Dell Command Update script which reportedly takes care of all drivers and firmware on Dell non-servers in one swell foop!

The most reliable way I had for a long time, was using a scheduled task. But Powershell for this changes from Windows version to Windows version. Here’s a new method, it uses the time specification in the ‘shutdown’ command, to reboot the machine tomorrow at 3AM:

$tomorrow3AM = (Get-Date).AddHours(24)
$tomorrow3AM = $tomorrow3AM.AddHours( ($tomorrow3AM.Hour * -1) + 3 )
$tomorrow3AM = $tomorrow3AM.AddMinutes( $tomorrow3AM.Minute * -1 )
$tomorrow3AM = $tomorrow3AM.AddSeconds( $tomorrow3AM.Second * -1 )
$tomorrow3AM = $tomorrow3AM.AddMilliseconds( $tomorrow3AM.Millisecond * -1 )
$SecondsFromNow = ($tomorrow3AM - (Get-Date)).TotalSeconds
shutdown -f -r -t ([int] $SecondsFromNow)

This will log off all users, whether console or RDP:

logoff console
quser /server:localhost | ForEach-Object {
		logoff $_.ID
		}

Every scripting language which runs on Windows can call multiple methods of bringing up a popup to users. However, only this CMD method seems to do it for all users, and be callable universally:

msg * /time:9999 /v /w Put your message here!

Here’s a great place to start:

Get-CimInstance -Class Win32_OperatingSystem | ForEach-Object -MemberName Caption

This gets profoundly useful strings like “Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise”. If you need the numeric version, the best so far has been:

(Get-ItemProperty -Path c:\windows\system32\hal.dll).VersionInfo.FileVersion

which, right now on this machine, gets us “10.0.18362.387 (WinBuild.160101.0800)”. And for the Windows 10 build:

(Get-ItemProperty 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion' -Name ReleaseID -ErrorAction Stop).ReleaseID

which gets “1903”. All of these are fast, do not depend on systeminfo, and appear to be nice and reliable.

First, download the EXE here:

https://get.adobe.com/reader/enterprise/

Then cause it to run thus:

AcroRdrDC1901220036_en_US.exe /sAll /rs /rps

A full list of command-line options can be had with /?.

This one is from the amazing Rick Boatright. I saw the ancestor of this thirty-plus years ago in Unix System V, had no idea it had gotten so useful in Microsoft-land. The gist of it is:

• You have a batch file, and want to access something involving a UNC path, something like this: \\SERVER_NAME\share_name\dir1\dir2
• Default logic often involves storage of current location into a variable, CD, resumption of previous, blah, blah, blah.
• But we can do it in one command: pushd \\SERVER_NAME\share_name\dir1\dir2 This does multiple things:
• First, it creates a temporary drive letter for the server and share name. It chooses an available drive letter.
• Secondly, without any further ado, it changes the current working directory of the shell (of the script) to the very location you pointed at.
• So, if you did the pushd above, and if Z: were available, your current working directory suddenly becomes: Z:\dir1\dir2
  where Z: is mapped to \\SERVER_NAME\share_name !!!
• Then when you’re done with it, just put in popd, and Z: goes away and you’re back to the current working directory you had beforehand!

Rather good to see:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/smbshare/close-smbopenfile

So we have a terminal server or other multi-user Windows machine, Windows 7/2008R2 or later. We want to pin one or more icons to the taskbar, for all users. We discover that this is not something extremely easy to do :-) We can, at least reasonably easily, set up the same taskbar icon set for all users, thusly:

1. Log into the one machine, and set up the taskbar as you would like it to appear for all.
2. Export the following registry key:
   [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Taskband]
   to a file named TaskBarPins.REG. Put it in a permanent folder outside of user space, e.g. C:\AutoSettings, it will be imported automatically at every login.
3. Create SetTaskBarPins.VBS in C:\AutoSettings, containing the following text:

Option Explicit
On Error Resume Next
Dim objShell, ProgramFiles, sRegFile
Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
sRegFile = """C:\AutoSettings\SetTaskBarPins.REG"""
objShell.Run "Regedit.exe /s " & sRegFile, 0, True
Set objShell = Nothing

4. Create a shortcut to C:\AutoSettings\SetTaskBarPins.VBS in C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp.

The next time any user logs into this machine, nothing will appear to have been changed. But when they log off and then log on after that, their taskbar will be the same as the one you exported.

Run it like this, from CMD:

"%SystemRoot%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe" -NoProfile -InputFormat None -ExecutionPolicy Bypass script.ps1