Quick Tip: Updating your ESXi Server

[Last Reviewed: 2021-05-02] Are you attempting to update your ESXi server and you’re getting the infamous [Errno 28] No space left on device error? Did you already enable the swap and you’re still getting that error? You might need to download a VMware Tools VIB before starting your upgrade: Step 1: Make a note of the file that … Read more

Configuration Manager Security and You

[Last Reviewed: 2019-06-04] At MMSMOA 2019, I enjoyed a great presentation by Tom Degreef and Kim Oppalfens about Configuration Manager security. It was an amazing session, and I want to share some of the learnings I took away from it. But first, a heart-to-heart Extend the peace branch to your network and security teams. I’ve … Read more

Quick Tip: Adding drivers using PnPutil

[Last Reviewed: 2019-04-24] If you’re like me, one the first things you do when you get a new device is wipe and reload it. OEMs have gotten better about the amount of value added softwarethey preload on machines these days, but I still prefer starting fresh and building on top of that. If you happen to … Read more

Code Signing: Proving Your Enterprise Code Is Yours

[Last Reviewed: 2019-04-25] PowerShell scripts, ClickOnce VSTO applications, .NET applications, even Java Deployment Rulesets. What do they all have in common? You can sign them with a code signing certificate! What’s Code Signing? When you digitally sign an executable or script, you’re guaranteeing that the code hasn’t been altered or corrupted since it was signed. … Read more

Code Signing PowerShell in the Enterprise

[Last Reviewed: 2019-04-25] Here’s a scenario: you just finished writing the world’s most amazing PowerShell script, and you want to deploy it to a collection of workstations in your enterprise. You run it, just to see the wall of red text telling you that unsigned scripts are not allowed. What if we signed that script? … Read more

Quick Tip: Retrieve an Embedded OEM Windows Product Key

If you’re working on a device that has an embedded OEM Windows product key, you can run the following to retrieve it: wmic path SoftwareLicensingService get OA3xOriginalProductKey “That’s nice,” you say, “but can we do that in PowerShell?” But of course! (Get-CimInstance -ClassName “SoftwareLicensingService”).OA3xOriginalProductKey

Workaround: PXE Boot your VMware Fusion VM

[Last Reviewed: 2019-02-20] If you attempt to PXE boot a virtual machine using VMware Fusion, you might see this error: Error Code: 0cx0000001 Some quick research showed that I’d have better luck using the ‘vmxnet3’ network adapter rather than the default ‘e1000e’ adapter. I had no problem adding the vmxnet3 to our WinPE image, but… … Read more

Improving TeamViewer Aliases with ConfigMgr

[Last Reviewed: 2018-11-19] Recently one of our technicians mentioned in passing how nice it would be if TeamViewer’s console showed usernames in addition to computer names, so searching would be easier. That’s a fantastic idea–let’s use the TeamViewer API and ConfigMgr’s User Affinity to do this! Prerequisites: Tokens, Please Before we begin, we’ll need a … Read more

The Windows 7 MUI Black Screen of Death Spectacular, or “Why Can’t I Change Languages with DISM?”

[Last Reviewed: 2018-11-17] Here’s a scenario: You’re a global organization looking to upgrade your remaining fleet of Windows 7 machines. Your fleet contains multiple locales–your Frankfurt location runs de-DE, and your Shanghai location runs zh-CN. If you were to run an IPU on these machines using your en-US image, you’d discover pretty quickly that the … Read more