Sample Script to manage Windows
Sometimes the Windows 7 functionality to automatically arrange or resize a window while dragging is a pain. This feature is called Aero Snap. Here are good news, you can disable the behaviour :-).
Open the Control Panel, go to “Ease of Access center”. If you are there, click “Make the mouse easier to use” and enable “Prevent Windows from being automatically arranged when moved to the edge of the screen”.
Hi,
you can use wmic.exe to set some network parameters (and much more, its WMI!!) from command line. Syntax is very hard, but it works :-).
For Example. If you want to disable the DNS registration of all enabled Intel e1000 network adapters.
wmic path Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration where (IPEnabled="true" and ServiceName="E1G60") call SetDynamicDNSRegistration False,False
The Filter in the braces is the where condition of wmi “select * from NetworkAdapterConfiguration where IPEnabled=’true’ and ServiceName=’E1G60′ ” statement. Modify this for your needs. By using WMI queries this is much more flexible than netsh command lines.
Michael
Hi,
if you use some image based technology to deploy your Windows installation, for example SCCM, MDT, Acronis and/or sysprep based, and OpenVPM is already included, the MAC Address of the TAP LAN interface isn’t changed by that way. But a unique MAC Address is requiered if the clients conntects to the same OpenVPN server. If multiple clients have the same MAC Address ping from VPN Clients sometimes fails with error “TTL expired in transit” and the VPN connection is unstable.
This powershellscript sets a MAC Address for each OpenVPN TAP adapter. In detail:
########################################################
# Generate a random MAC for all OpenVPN tap LAN interfaces
# Michael Albert
# 05.04.2013
# License: GPLv2
########################################################
# HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
# MatchingDeviceID tap0901
# REG_SZ MAC=00-FF-8F-E3-A1-AE
$oRandom=New-Object System.random
function fGetRandomMAC([string]$sMACStart){
if($sMACStart.length -ge 0 -and $sMACStart.length -le 11){
for($iLoop=$sMACStart.length; $iLoop -le 11; $iLoop++){
$iChar=$oRandom.Next(16)
$sMACStart+=[String]::Format("{0:x}", $iChar).ToUpper()
}
return($sMACStart)
}
else{
return $false
}
}
function fConvert2MAC16([string]$sMAC12){
[string]$sMAC16=""
if($sMAC12.length -eq 12){
for($iLoop=0;$iLoop -le 11;$iLoop++){
$sMAC16+=$sMAC12.SubString($iLoop,1)
if((($iLoop+1) % 2) -eq 0 -and ($iLoop+1) -lt 12){
$sMAC16+="-"
}
}
return $sMAC16
}
else{
return $false
}
}
###############################################################################
# Currently not used but defined :-)
function fValidMAC([system.string]$sMAC){
$RegExIP=new-object System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex("^([0-9a-fA-F]{2}\-){5}([0-9a-fA-F]{2})$")
return($RegExIP.IsMatch($sMAC))
}
###############################################################################
## MAIN
###############################################################################
$sMACPrefix="00FF8F"
if(! [System.Diagnostics.EventLog]::SourceExists("TAPsetMAC")){
New-EventLog -Source TAPsetMAC -Log Application
}
$aTAPAdapter=Get-ChildItem "registry::HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |where-object{$_.GetValue("MatchingDeviceID") -eq "tap0901"}
foreach($rTAPAdapter in $aTAPAdapter){
# Get-ItemProperty -Path "registry::HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}"
if(! ($rTAPAdapter.GetValue("MAC"))){
#$rTAPAdapter
#$rTAPAdapter.Name
# Get-ItemProperty -Path ("registry::"+$rTAPAdapter.Name)
$sMAC=fGetRandomMAC $sMACPrefix
if($sMAC16=fConvert2MAC16 $sMAC){
Write-Host -NoNewline "Set MAC of TAP Adaper to" $sMAC16 "..."
$Error.Clear()
New-ItemProperty -Path ("registry::"+$rTAPAdapter.Name) -Force -Name MAC -PropertyType String -Value $sMAC16|Out-Null
if(! $Error){
Write-Host "ok"
Write-EventLog -LogName Application -Source TAPsetMAC -EntryType Information -EventID 666 -Message ("TAP LAN Adapter: Altered MAC Address to "+$sMAC16)
}
else{
Write-EventLog -LogName Application -Source TAPsetMAC -EntryType Warning -EventID 666 -Message ("TAP LAN Adapter: Failed to altered MAC Address to "+$sMAC16)
}
}
}
}
Michael
Hi everybody,
here are some fundamentals to handle XML Files with powershell.
The following commands uses these XML File
<config description="Config file for testing">
<system description="Document Management">
<document authorFirstName="Kirk" authorSurname="Author1" date="20130503 01:15:43" description="Document Hammet" index="3">C:\temp\doc0001.txt</document>
<document authorFirstName="Lars" authorSurname="Author5" date="20130503 10:05:42" description="Document Ulrich" index="4">C:\temp\doc0002.txt</document>
<document authorFirstName="Cliff" authorSurname="Author5" date="20130612 11:54:33" description="Document Burton" index="6">C:\temp\doc0051.txt</document>
<document authorFirstName="Jason" authorSurname="Author2" date="20130806 04:02:41" description="Document Newsted" index="1">C:\temp\doc0041.txt</document>
<document authorFirstName="Robert" authorSurname="Smith" date="20131202 07:12:03" description="Document Trujillo" index="2">C:\temp\doc0012.txt</document>
<document authorFirstName="James" authorSurname="Smith" date="20130211 09:05:59" description="Document Hetfield" index="5">C:\temp\doc0003.txt</document>
</system>
</config>
Creating a XML File, create a document root, create subelements, add and set attributes, save the file
# Create a new XML File with config root node
[System.XML.XMLDocument]$oXMLDocument=New-Object System.XML.XMLDocument
# New Node
[System.XML.XMLElement]$oXMLRoot=$oXMLDocument.CreateElement("config")
# Append as child to an existing node
$oXMLDocument.appendChild($oXMLRoot)
# Add a Attribute
$oXMLRoot.SetAttribute("description","Config file for testing")
[System.XML.XMLElement]$oXMLSystem=$oXMLRoot.appendChild($oXMLDocument.CreateElement("system"))
$oXMLSystem.SetAttribute("description","Document Management")
# Save File
$oXMLDocument.Save("c:\temp\config.xml")
Loading an existing XML File, read an element, do some XPATH queries
Continue reading Powershell: Some basic XML handling with Powershell and .NET
Hi,
just a short post :-). A powershell script to get the NetBIOS Name of an Active Directory Domain
###############################################################################
# Gets the NetBIOS Domain
# Author Michael Albert michlstechblog.info
# License: GPL v2
###############################################################################
[reflection.assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.DirectoryServices.Protocols")|Out-Null
if($args.count -ne 1){
Write-Warning " Start script with fqdn as parameter"
Write-Warning (" for example: "+$myInvocation.myCommand.name+" yourdomain.com")
exit 1
}
$sDomainName=$args[0]
# Get AD Root
$oRootDSE = [ADSI]"LDAP://RootDSE"
$sConfig = $oRootDSE.Get("configurationNamingContext")
# AD Object AD Root
$oADSearchRoot=New-object System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry("LDAP://CN=Partitions," + $sConfig)
# Search for Netbiosname of the specified domain
$sSearchString="(&(objectclass=Crossref)(dnsRoot="+$sDomainName+")(netBIOSName=*))"
$oSearch=New-Object directoryservices.DirectorySearcher($oADSearchRoot,$sSearchString)
$sNetBIOSName=($oSearch.FindOne()).Properties["netbiosname"]
# Print out
Write-Host "Domain NetBIOS Name:" $sNetBIOSName
Have fun :-)!
Michael