List machines with thier FQDN

Prerequisites: Create a file that has the list of machines netbios names, and create an empty systems.txt file on your root.
<#
Reference URL: http://blogs.technet.com/b/heyscriptingguy/archive/2010/03/11/hey-scripting-guy-march-11-2010.aspx
This file will read Machinelist from a file, try to get their DNS information,
and append that output to a txt file.
You can use the above mentioned URL for more information and exaples of the Try\Catch\Finally
#>
ForEach ($entry in (Get-Content c:\scripts\machinelist2.txt)) {
    Try {
        [net.dns]::GetHostEntry($entry).Hostname | Out-File -FilePath c:\systems.txt -Append
    } Catch {
        $entry | Out-File -FilePath c:\scripts\Machine_WithFQDN.txt -Append
    }
}
Joe P.

How to enable the Disk Cleanup tool on Windows Server 2008 R2

I recommend you use using option #2 below for two reasons:

• Installing the Desktop Experience feature will not only install Disk Cleanup, but a lot of other crap you don't need or want on your server.
• Installing the Desktop Experience feature will require a server reboot

Enabling Disk Cleanup Tool

1) Go to Programs & Features, and in the Features section, enable/install "Desktop Experience".   The downside to this is that you will need to reboot your server after installing this and it installs other components you do not need on a server.

2) [RECOMMENDED] -  All you really need to do is copy some files that are already located on your server into specific system folders, as described at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff630161(WS.10).aspx

The location of the files you need to copy depend on your version of Windows:

Operating System	Architecture	File Location
Windows Server 2008 R2	64-bit	C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_none_c9392808773cd7da\cleanmgr.exe
Windows Server 2008 R2	64-bit	C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_en-us_b9cb6194b257cc63\cleanmgr.exe.mui
Windows Server 2008	64-bit	C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6001.18000_en-us_b9f50b71510436f2\cleanmgr.exe.mui
Windows Server 2008	64-bit	C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6001.18000_none_c962d1e515e94269\cleanmgr.exe.mui
Windows Server 2008	32-bit	C:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6001.18000_en-us_5dd66fed98a6c5bc\cleanmgr.exe.mui
Windows Server 2008	32-bit	C:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6001.18000_none_6d4436615d8bd133\cleanmgr.exe

Once you’ve located the files move them to the following locations:

1. Copy Cleanmgr.exe to %systemroot%\System32.
2. Copy Cleanmgr.exe.mui to %systemroot%\System32\en-US.

You can now launch the Disk cleanup tool by running Cleanmgr.exe from the command prompt.

By Joe Piggee

System Center 2012: Cannot Access the Web Console . Error MSG Access Denied

 1. Go to the Server where Ops Manager web console is installed.

 2. Click on Start -> Administrative Tools -> Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager

 3. Expand the Host Name and Go to Sites

 4. On Default Web Site, Click on "OperationsManager"

 5. Click on "Authentication"

6.  Confirm that Windows Authentication is enabled

 7. Right Click Windows Authentication and Select Providers

 8. Inside the Providers Window make sure that NTLM is first.

 9. Restart IIS Service and the WWW service.

Joe Piggee

MCSE, VCP5

Windows Diagnostic tools

Most of these tools can be easily launched if you know their names — just open your Start menu or Start screen, search for the name of the program, and press Enter. On Windows 8, you may have to select the Settings category on the search screen first. There are a few more, but these are the most common.

Windows Memory Diagnostic

Windows includes a Memory Diagnostic tool that can restart your computer and test your memory for defects, like the popular MemTest86 application. If you want to check your computer’s memory for errors, you don’t need a third-party tool — just open the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool.

Resource Monitor

The Resource Monitor application offers a detailed look at your computer’s resource usage. You can view computer-wide CPU, disk, network, and memory graphics, or drill down and view per-process statistics for each type of resource.

This means that you can see which processes are using your disk or network heavily, view which processes are communicating with which Internet addresses, and more. The Resource Monitor provides much more detailed resource statistics than the Task Manager does.

You can launch the Resource Monitor by opening the Task Manager, clicking the Performance tab, and selecting Resource Monitor. It can also be accessed by searching for Resource Monitor at the Start menu or Start screen.

Performance Monitor

The Performance Monitor application allows you to collect performance reports and view them. It can be used to log performance data over time, including determining how system changes affect performance, or to monitor the performance of a remote computer in real-time.

Computer Management and Administrative Tools

The Performance Monitor is actually one of many Microsoft Management Console (MMC) tools. Many of these can be found in the Administrative Tools folder, but they can be opened in a single window by opening the Computer Management application. Among other things, this window contains the following tools:

• Task Scheduler: A tool that allows you to view and customize the scheduled tasks on your computer, in addition to creating your own custom scheduled tasks.
• Event Viewer: A log viewer that allows you to view and filter system events — everything from software installation to application crashes and blue screens of death.
• Shared Folders: An interface that displays the folders shared over the network on your computer, useful for viewing what folders are being shared at a glance.
• Device Manager: The classic Windows Device Manager that allows you to view the devices connected to your computer, disable them, and configure their drivers.
• Disk Management: A built-in partition manager you can use without downloading any third-party tools.
• Services: An interface that allows you to view and control the background services running in Windows.

The Administrative Tools folder also contains other useful utilities, such as the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security application that allows you to create advanced firewall rules.

Advanced User Accounts Tool

Windows contains a hidden User Accounts utility that provides some options not present in the standard interface. To open it, press WinKey+R to open the Run dialog, type eithernetplwiz or control userpasswords2, and press Enter.

This window also contains a shortcut to launch the Local Users and Groups tool, which offers more user management tasks, but can’t be used on Home or standard versions of Windows.

Disk Cleanup

Windows’ Disk Cleanup utility isn’t quite as hidden as some of the other utilities here, but not enough people know about it. It will scan your computer for files that can be deleted, from temporary files and memory dumps to old system restore points and leftover files from Windows upgrades. It does the same job a PC cleaning utility does, but it’s free and doesn’t try to extract any money from you. Advanced users may prefer CCleaner, but Disk Cleanup does a decent job.

Access it by searching for Disk Cleanup at your Start screen or Start menu.

Group Policy Editor

The Group Policy Editor is only available on Professional or Ultimate editions of Windows, not the standard or Home editions. It provides a wide variety of settings that are designed for use by system administrators to customize and lock down PCs on their networks, but the local group policy editor also contains some settings that average users might be interested in. For example, on Windows 8, the group policy editor can be used to disable the lock screen and skip directly to the log-in screen.

To open it, type gpedit.msc at the Start menu or Start screen and press Enter.

Registry Editor

Sure, everyone knows about the registry editor — but it’s still hidden, with Microsoft not even providing a Start menu shortcut to it. It must be launched by typing regedit into the Start menu or Start screen and pressing Enter.

Many tweaks that can be made in the Group Policy Editor have equivalent tweaks that can be made in the registry editor. For example, on Windows 8, users with the standard edition of Windows 8 can’t disable the lock screen via the Group Policy Editor — but they can disable the lock screen with a registry hack.

MSConfig

The System Configuration window is another classic tool that many people know about. Prior to Windows 8, which features a startup-program manager built into its Task Manager, this tool was the only included way of controlling startup programs on Windows. It also allows you to customize your boot loader, which is particularly useful if you have multiple versions of Windows installed.

Launch it by typing msconfig into the Start menu or Start screen and pressing Enter.

System Information

The System Information utility allows you to view information about the current computer — everything from the model number of its CD-ROM drive to its attached peripherals, configured environment variables, and startup programs. It doesn’t provide the slickest interface, nor does it provide all the information a third-party system information tool like Speccy does, but it will display a lot of system information without forcing you to install another program.

Open it by searching for System Information at your Start menu or Start screen.

---

Once you know these utilities exist, you can do more with the tools built into Windows. These tools are available on any Windows computer, so you can always use them without downloading and installing software.

Add a New Virtual Machine to Inventory from a Datastore

 

 

By Joe Piggee

If you present new storage to vSphere that already has VM’s stored on it, you can add them to inventory so you can power them on, manage them etc by following these steps.

1. Open the vSphere/VMware Infrastructure (VI) Client and log in with appropriate credentials.
2. If connecting to vCenter Server, click on the desired host.
3. Click the Configuration tab.
4. Click Storage.
5. Right-click on the appropriate datastore and click Browse Datastore.
6. Navigate to the folder named after the virtual machine, and locate the <virtual machine>.vmx file.
7. Right-click the .vmx file and click Add to inventory. The Add to Inventory wizard opens.
   continue to follow the wizard to add the virtual machine.

If the device is something like an external USB drive, prior to completing the steps above complete the following:

If you have some shared storage, install vCenter 5.1, then connect the External hard drive to the PC you are working from(the one you have the vSphere client installed on) browse to the appropriate datastore, and upload the VM's to the shared storage, or to the local datastore that the ESXi host has. Then complete the steps needed to import the discovered VM's listed above.

What Is vShield?

by Joe Piggee

 vShield is a group of networking and security products for virtualized IT infrastructures.

vShield is comprised of vShield Manager, vShield Edge, vShield Zones, vShield App, vShield Data Security and vShield Endpoint. Products in the vShield Suite operate under the centralized management of vShield Manager.

VShield Zones - provides basic virtual networking security and firewalls to vSphere.

VShield App - adds a firewall for applications in the virtual data center.

VShield Edge - operates on the network edge, securing isolated virtual machines (VMs) and virtualized networks and providing their gateway services.

VShield Data Security - protects sensitive data in the virtual and cloud infrastructure, tracking any violations.

VShield Endpoint - supports agentless antivirus protection for guest OSes, in a secure virtual appliance.

Verify ESXi Licensed Featured

By Joe Piggee

Sometimes you’ll see errors, even though everything is configured correctly. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to a clients site and performed troubleshooting tasks, just to findout they aren’t licensed for a particular function. So Verify first before getting to deep.

 

To verify which features are licensed, make sure that the vSphere Client/VMware Infrastructure is connected to vCenter Server/VirtualCenter.

1. Select the ESX/ESXi host from the inventory in vCenter Server.
2. Click the Configuration tab.
3. Click the Licensed Features link.

Ensure that the feature appears on the list and that there are enough CPU licenses. If the feature is not listed, click Edit and enable the feature