VBScript to show current Teamviewer ID and save to text file

Since TeamViewer can be rolled out in an organization with the MSI package and sample vbs scripts from TeamViewer, I was asked if it would be hard to do a small VBScript to fetch the TeamViewer ID from theese machines and save it somewhere for the support staff to look up in.

This script is a very simple example of how to fetch the ID on a machine from registry and save that together with current logged in user and machine name in text files. To change this to save into another system, database, etc. would be quite simple.

But by creating a share with write permissions from everyone and pointing this script to it and placing it during login for all users in a domain, it would be easy to find a given machine or users TeamViewer ID. Since the TeamViewer ID does not change for a machine, it could be just run on machines when the TeamViewer client is installed, but that is entirely up to you. Read the rest of this entry »

Active Directory Shadow Group Script – will let you spend less time on updating group memberships

Introduction
If you are just looking for a free shadow group script, either click here for a nice simple one or go to the bottom of this post for the full AD administrated script.

I was looking into Shadow Groups, inspired by a customer migrating from Novell to Active Directory. Apparently in Novell you can use Organizational Units as security groups, and by just moving a user to another OU when they change departments, they will automatically update their security permissions given by their department OU placement.

So what is so great about shadow groups you might ask. Simply put if you have OU’s for departments, where you place users depending on department membership, shadow groups, will shadow the members of the OU in the security group, I assume that is where the name shadow group comes from. This allows you to setup security permissions for a group that is linked to an organizational unit. So when you move user A from department sales, into department accounting, the user A will automatically be removed from the sales security group and added to the accounting security group, effectively updating user A’s permissions automatically. Saves time for large organizations, now a user moving OU does not need to have his groups manually updated.

The first hit on google was a blog post by John Policelli (MVP) explaining shadow groups is not a new type of group in Active Directory, it is rather a concept, when you automatically update the members of a security group from the objects placed in an Organizational Unit. Also he points out that this automatic synchronization is not an existing feature in Windows Server, we need to add it our self. The example he uses with dsquery, dsget and dsmod, works if you manually set it in a script for each OU/Group, I was looking for something easier to manage, that preferably did not require editing of the script that needed to run. I strongly believe scripts that can be maintained from Active Directory will always have a longer life time, since less updates and potential errors happen in the script.

After some more searching I found an article by Jakob H. Heidelberg (MVP and fellow Dane) this one also had a good explanation about what Shadow Groups are and also a download link to a simple VBScript to populate a group with the users in an Organizational Unit. If You are looking for a script to feed the OU and Group and then update the group from the users of the OU, that script will do you just fine and I would recommend you take a look at the article and script he wrote, as it is simpler and less prone to errors by being simple.

My idea of a Shadow Group Script Read the rest of this entry »

How to configure your virtual Domain Controllers and avoid simple mistakes with resulting big problems

So You went ahead and used virtualized Domain Controllers for Your Active Directory domain, congratulations! I am sure You will be happy with the decission, as long as You have a decent virtualizing environment, this will give You both peace of mind, faster recovery and cheaper redundancy.

There is however some special considerations You must do, when You are using virtual Domain Controllers, not to mention, please with sugar on top, Windows Server Active Directorydo NOT P2V/Convert Your physical Domain Controllers to virtual, without at least reading this article!

What areas do we need to consider on a virtual DC?

  • Time synchronization
  • Disk cache
  • Suspend/pausing virtual machine
  • Snapshots and System State backups
  • Performance

Personally I much prefer virtual Domain Controllers, from having a lot of physical ones, but there are some considerations to be made, about perhaps leaving some physical and what features to use on the virtual and what settings to use as well. This article attempts to uncover some of the points to consider, specifically for virtal DC’s. The list is in no way meant to be the only considerations, but is mostly the things that I personally have noticed forgotten in environments I have encountered. Add Your own preferences and research to this and You should be well on Your way to live happily forever with Your virtual DC’s.

Read the rest of this entry »

Debugging an OCS installation just got easier

I might be realy slow in discovering this, after all it has been some months since I last touched an OCS installation. I seriusly wished I had this tool when I was last time thou.

This tool just like the Exchange testing tool, will show all the steps involved in connecting to an OCS system and produce any errors and confirmations that everything is working, excellent for debugging or even just validating that everything is working as it should. I found the link to the tool on a new danish UM experience sharing group (all danish) http://www.colabora.dk/.

The actual tool can be found here: https://www.testocsconnectivity.com/

Thought I would also add some extra info and show what the tool can produce of results (FQDN’s and IP’s changed)

Read the rest of this entry »

VBScript to join computers to domain, with specific user and avoid having to manually place them in AD

The following script was used for automatically joining alot of computers to an Active Directory domain, it was required to place the computer in a specific Organizational Unit and also to run with a specified user with only permissions to add machines in this OU and the default new computers OU (giving it unlimited join domain permissions).

So here is a cleaned up short script to join a machine to a domain, using a script specified user (could be changed easily to current user) and place the machine in a specific OU, great for running for specific departments, so You avoid having to manually sort the machines in the end. Read the rest of this entry »

How to silently install ZenWorks 10 with vbScript without having to watch the screen during installation

So You want to install ZenWorks 10.x.x.x silently on a machine, sounds easy enough right?

Well ZenWorks is making it slightly harder, if You just run the installer with a stay quiet parameter, when it finishes and You or the installer reboots, it was not actually finished. After the installation ZenWorks sits and runs msi packets that needs to install as well, so even thou the installer exited and says all done, another thread from ZenWorks is still working.

I used the following script to install ZenWorks 10 without showing it to the user, and then monitor the little thread doing the other installs, when that was finished I continue to do whatever it is I want to do, in my case tell the user I am rebooting their machine and reboot, but thats entirely up to You. Read the rest of this entry »