Some Notes on the Machines

Remember that huge text file with all of the DHCP reservations, load average, and everything else? Well, go to:

-Monitor -> Devices
-Choose a firewall
-Go to Live Status -> Diagnostic Tools
-Choose the Snapshot tab.
-Click to download a snapshot file.

Then, in that file:

Fireware_support.tgz\
Fireware_support.tar\
Fireware_XTM_Support.tgz\
Fireware_XTM_Support.tar\
support\system\system_status.txt

Sometimes, when one logs into https://portal.office.com, the link/button for downloading is not present at the upper-right corner. One thing to try is this, right after login:

https://portal.office.com/account/?ref=MeControl

If that doesn’t get you to downloads, try these steps:

Click on ID ball at the upper right to pull down menu
Click on View Account
Click on Subscriptions at lower left
Click on Apps & devices near lower left

Recently it was discovered that a Windows server was running very slow because the Security log’s maximum size was set to 40 gigabytes. Here is a Powershell bit which will look at all event logs, set their max size to 2.5M if set larger, and clear them. Seems to free up a nice healthy dollop of performance in general.

wevtutil el | Foreach-Object {
	$LogObject = Get-WinEvent -ListLog $_
	If ( $LogObject.MaximumSizeInBytes -gt 2500KB ) {
		"$_ has max set to larger than 2.5M.  Setting to 2.5M."
		$LogObject.MaximumSizeInBytes = 2500KB
		$LogObject.SaveChanges()
		}
	wevtutil cl $_
	"$_ cleared."
}

There are times when an operation, a software install or configure perhaps, will error with “Cannot open log for source ———-. You may not have write access.” The below will do the above, and also give read/write to every local admin.

wevtutil el | Foreach-Object {
	wevtutil sl $_ "/ca:O:BAG:SYD:(A;;0x1;;;SY)(A;;0x5;;;BA)(A;;0x1;;;LA)(A;;0x3;;;LA)"
	$LogObject = Get-WinEvent -ListLog $_
	If ( $LogObject.MaximumSizeInBytes -gt 2500KB ) {
		"$_ has max set to larger than 2.5M.  Setting to 2.5M."
		$LogObject.MaximumSizeInBytes = 2500KB
		$LogObject.SaveChanges()
		}
	wevtutil cl $_
	"$_ cleared."
}

The security string is written in something called SDDL. Some more info:

https://itconnect.uw.edu/wares/msinf/other-help/understanding-sddl-syntax/

There have been many live CDs out there which have utilities to reset passwords on Windows. Unfortunately, many of them are long out of date and won’t work (or will do odd things) on recent hardware, and recent operating systems. This one:

https://www.supergrubdisk.org/rescatux/

was proven on 2022-12-21 to do well with the latest build of Windows 10.

SpaceSniffer is free of charge (donations encouraged), highly recommended, very very fast, orders of magnitude faster than WinDirStat, and works on drives, folders, and UNC paths. Not fancy, but oh so fast & functional.

Look for an app called Sweech. Put your phone on the same network as your desktop. Run it. It brings up a screen, tap the middle (go/play) symbol. You get a URL on the LAN you’re on. If you put that URL in a browser, you can pull off anything you want. Don’t look for security in this one, but it sure is handy.

We have machines that we want kept on Windows 10, we don’t want users urged over and over again to upgrade to 11. Run this Powershell, reboot (probably), and we’re good:

# Exit script if this is not Windows 10
If ((Get-ComputerInfo | Select OSName).OSName -notlike "Microsoft Windows 10*")
	{ 
	"This is not Windows 10. Exiting..."
	Exit 
	}
# Proceed
Set-Location -Path HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows
If (-Not (Test-Path -Path WindowsUpdate)) { MKDIR WindowsUpdate }
Set-Location -Path HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate
New-ItemProperty -Path . -Name "ProductVersion" -Value "Windows 10"
"Done!"

Note that many so-called solutions out there set things so no further updates, including Windows 10 build upgrades, will happen at all. The above simply limits things to Windows 10.

HGSDiag is a command-line tool which can kill running VMs and do other interesting things. Highly recommended.

There are only three methods for Windows, which appear to work reliably for Adobe Reader DC (among many others) at this time:

Ninite Pro – not free

Chocolatey – large community

RuckZuck – very interesting, based in Switzerland

If you need to do diagnostics on a Dell server, download “OpenManage Server Administrator Managed Node”. Yes, I know all Dell divers already have this written on the insides of skulls…:-)