Quickly and dirty determine if a condition is true or false in PowerShell 5.1 by emulating the ternary operator. For example when determinering if the server you are servicing is a Windows Server Desktop Experience version or not (and thus Server Core):
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How to remove IIS from Windows Server using PowerShell
No more need for Windows Server IIS?
Start your PowerShell console as admin, and issue the following command in PowerShell:
Force BITS to download WSUS updates in the foreground in Windows Server
When WSUS downloads are slow
WSUS uses BITS for downloading updates, and it does so in background mode. Unfortunately, this utilizes remaining bandwidth of the server instead of its full capacity. To speed up WSUS downloads, you can configure BITS in WSUS to use foreground priority.
Quickly view all symbolic links, junctions points and hard links in a folder
How to find all symbolic links, junction points and hard links in a folder in Windows Server quickly? Use dir /al /s /b.
Find vulnerable WordPress plugin versions fast using PowerShell
On a daily bases, new vulnerabilities are found in WordPress plugins. And when you host thousands of WordPress sites, you can count on the fact you have some customers using that vulnerable version of that particular plugin. So you need to find those vulnerable versions on your servers fast. On Windows Server, PowerShell is a perfect tool for the job!
WMI Filters for Group Policy to manage Windows Server versions
This post contains some example WMI filters for you to use in Group Policy Objects (GPOs) to target and manage specific Windows Server versions like 2012R2, 2016 and Windows Server 2019.
IIS 10.0 FTP IP Security allow list
How to create an IP restrictions allow list for your IIS FTP Server with Powershell.
When you set up a new public facing FTP server in IIS, it is important to properly secure it. Of course there’s authentication and authorization, but in this post I’ll show you how to configure an IP allow list for FTP using PowerShell.
Removing phantom application folders from website configuration in IIS
Thank you Ronald as I needed exactly this today. Here is how to remove phantom application folders from websites in IIS using PowerShell.
Use -SearchBase with Get-ADComputer for faster results
This might be specific to my Windows Server environment and PoSH scripting, but using -SeachBase with PowerShell’s Get-ADComputer gives me faster results. You can use this for your own advantage, here is a little example to speed up AD DS queries.
Install Windows Server Servicing Stack Updates (SSU) using PowerShell
You can install Servicing Stack Updates (SSU) for Windows Server 2012R2, 2016 and Windows Server 2019 using PowerShell, without downtime. Because they must be installed prior to your normal Windows Server security updates, you can install them anytime you want to during the day. Here’s a small PowerShell example to do so.
How to uninstall and remove Adobe Flash Player in Windows Server
Ever wondered why Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) offers Flash updates for Windows Server? Adobe Flash Player is installed on Windows Server 2016 / 2019 if you have the Remote Desktop Session Host (RDSH) role installed. Yikes! I can imagine you want to delete Adobe Flash Player without deleting the RDSH role, and here is how.
Working with file attributes in PowerShell
How to use the Windows PowerShell cmdlet Get-ItemProperty to work with file attributes.
Working with PowerShell’s Get-ItemProperty to get file attributes may boost your work productivity. It’s often easier to getting things done if you have a more generic way of doing something. Here is how to use Get-Item and Get-ItemProperty in PowerShell to perform and streamline day to day tasks like installing or updating software based on file versions. I also address changing timestamps on files in short.
Windows privilege escalation guide
Ryan McFarland writes on his blog: “Privilege escalation always comes down to proper enumeration. But to accomplish proper enumeration you need to know what to check and look for. This takes familiarity with systems that normally comes along with experience. At first privilege escalation can seem like a daunting task, but after a while you start to filter through what is normal and what isn’t. It eventually becomes easier to know what to look for rather than digging through everything hoping to find that needle in the haystack. Hopefully this guide will provide a good foundation to build upon and get you started.”
Windows Server 2016 on Hyper-V stuck at stopping
… and the guest server VM won’t reboot
If a Windows Server 2016 guest VM on Hyper-V hangs while stopping after Windows Updates, it might be caused by the recovery debug information type set. Especially when you have moved the Windows PageFile to a different partition/VHDX.
List all SPNs used in your Active Directory
There are a lot of hints & tips out there for troubleshooting SPNs, or Service Principal Names. Listing duplicate SPNs is fairly easy, just use setspn -X on your command-line and you’ll find out. But how do you find out which SPNs are used for which users and computers are used for this?
