The net user and group commands are very powerful tools for managing local and domain users and groups. In this post, I will show you how to use the net user command locally and on a domain to create a user account, reset a user account password, and view general info about a user account.…
There are many ways to activate Windows, and a really cool way to activate Windows is with Active Directory-Based Activation. Active Directory-Based Activation (ADBA) was first introduced in Windows Server 2012 and is only usable if your Microsoft Volume licensing has a KMS host key. If you don’t have a KMS key, you may need…
If you accidentally delete something in Active Directory, it can be difficult to undo. Fortunately, you can enable a recycle bin for Active Directory, making life much easier if you need to restore something. The Active Directory Recycle Bin (sometimes called ADRB) was first introduced in Windows Server 2008 R2. You need to enable it…
Active Directory is very much a database. It even has a schema to define what can and can’t be created and how everything is related and linked. An oversimplification is that the Active Directory schema is the rules about the types of items you can make in Active Directory, and this also includes the available…
I’m a big fan of using copy paste as it helps me reduce typos and allows me to paste links or other information quickly between systems. Previously I wrote a post that covers how to enable copy paste with VMRC (VMware Remote Console) however that’s not super useful for the users that are using Omnissa…
In this post, I will detail step-by-step how to install the Omnissa Horizon (formerly VMware Horizon) GPO templates. Technically speaking you can fully use Horizon without any of the GPO templates however there are a lot of useful settings in them that you can configure. Before installing the Horizon GPO templates I recommend you create…
I’ve been a fan of LAPS for a while and in 2023 Microsoft made LAPS even better by introducing a new version called Windows LAPS. Windows LAPS (Local Administrator Password Solution) is a great tool for managing your local admin passwords. You might be thinking it’s ok I use one complicated password for my local…
Everything in AD (Active Directory) has a Distinguished Name. A Distinguished Name can be used in many situations such as setting up an application to use a service account or adding AD groups or users into applications and so much more. A Distinguished Name is also known as a DN. A benefit of an using…
The default setup of Windows Active Directory is no central store. A central store is a central place to store your group policy definitions. If you only have one domain controller and make all your GPOs (Group Policy Objects) on that domain controller this likely wouldn’t be much of a problem. The limitations start to…
Intune aka Microsoft Endpoint Manager can be extremely powerful but as it always goes with great power comes great responsibility. To make sure I’m only targeting the devices I want, I like to make a few dynamic device groups that I’ll use for various Intune policy targeting. The dynamic device groups I create are: By…
