Windows

PowerShell

Calculate SHA-256 checksums in PowerShell

If you need to verify files are untampered with, you have to create a file checksum -or file hash- that you can use to verify. PowerShell offers this functionality with Get-FileHash cmdlet. Or use certutil.exe.

Windows Server ping google.com with IPv6 network protocol in WSL2 (WIndows Subsystem for Linux 2)

IPv6 support for WSL2! 🥳

Windows Subsystem for Linux gets new ‘mirrored’ network mode, providing IPv6 support. This is huge! Update WSL2 in Windows Insider Program to have experimental IPv6 support.

Windows Server magnifying glass near gray laptop computer

Windows SID to username and vice versa

Sometimes you need to convert a Windows SID (security identifier) to an username, or vice versa (an username to an SID). In this post I show you a couple of methods to translate the one into the other. One is using VBScript and one is using PowerShell.

PowerShell

Install Windows Updates using PowerShell

In this post I show you how you can use PowerShell to install Windows Updates. Quickly and silently. This makes the use of PSWindowsUpdate module perfect for your day to day automation. The module even supports scheduling (on remote computers too!), it has the ability to search WSUS and Windows Update for updates, scheduling and performing the download and installation of updates.

PowerShell

Send email with PowerShell

In this post I provide you with a small PowerShell function you can use to send email over a TLS secured SMTP connection with SMTP authentication. As a framework you can use in your own scripting and extend it. You can even create a PowerShell module of it.

Windows Server Windows Server logo small

Configure Windows Debugging Symbols in WinDbg

Before you can properly debug crash and memory dumps in Windows (Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows Server), you need to install WinDbg -Windows Debugger- and its debugging symbols. In this article I explain how to set up these debugging symbols for WinDbg in Windows. Debug BSOD like a boss!

Windows Server PowerShell 5.0

Extract files from an MSI package

To extract all files from a .msi file, use the following msiexec command and arguments. Windows has the ability to allow the MSI package (.msi file) contents to be extracted using the command line or via a script.

Windows Server

Windows 11/10 and WSL 2 DevOps environment

In this post I showed you how you can turn Windows 11 and Windows 10 with WSL into a fully fledged development environment. Here are the settings and tools I use for DevOps/SysOps on Windows. It may take some getting used to, but if you’re as shortcut-Ninja as I’m (I alt-tab, ctrl-c/ctrl-v a lot), you can work pretty fast in this set up.

PowerShell PowerShell 5.0

Emulate ternary operator in PowerShell

Emulate ternary or conditional operator in PowerShell 5. It takes three operands: a condition followed by a question mark (?), then an expression to execute if the condition is truthy followed by a colon (:), and finally the expression to execute if the condition is falsy. This operator is frequently used as an alternative to an if…else statement.

Windows Server WSL Monit website monitoring status

Setting up Monit monitoring in Windows Subsystem for Linux WSL

How to install and configure Monit monitoring in Windows 10 WSL. Set up a Monit monitoring service for your websites and services. A couple of years ago, I wrote a blog article about setting up Monit monitoring on an Ubuntu VM on Hyper-V. Now it’s time to do the same, but then in Windows Subsystem for Linux, or WSL. For this, I use Ubuntu.