A Quick and Dirty Hyper-V Backup Script
· ☕ 3 min read
I’ve replaced this script with a much more robust script that will backup each VM, including checkpoints/snapshots. You can find that post here and download the script from my TechNet profile. Let’s celebrate the holiday season with a quick PowerShell script to backup a Hyper-V server…or maybe you just need a quick and dirty, belt and braces backup script for your Hyper-V based VMs. It’s a small, quick script leveraging Hyper-V’s PowerShell module and some traditional command line utilities, like robocopy.
PXE Booting for Microsoft Deployment Toolkit
· ☕ 3 min read
UPDATE 2018-04-28: I’ve completely re-written and updated this post with new information for Windows Server 2016 here. When installing PXE (pronounced “pixie”) booting for use with Microsoft Deployment Toolkit there are a few things to consider. There’s not much to installing WDS and configure PXE booting for MDT on a flat network, but if you have a larger network with VLANs there is some additional configuration needed. I’ll be covering the flat network configuration here and will post about the additional configuration needed for a larger network at a later date.
Getting Started With Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 8443 and Windows 10 1607/1703
· ☕ 8 min read
For this post the demo network consists of an Active Directory Domain Controller (DC01), a WSUS server (WSUS01) - here’s a previous post on installing WSUS, a server that will have Microsoft Deployment Toolkit installed (WDS01) and a blank Hyper-V Virtual Machine for creating the reference image. Update 2017-05-02: Please note that this post is also relevant to building Windows 10 1703 (Creators Update) images. I’ve posted about the differences here.
Windows 10 Names, Builds and Versions
· ☕ 3 min read
Update 2017-05-02: I’ll attempt to keep this up to date as new versions of Windows come out. This might seem like an odd topic to cover, but I’ve receive quite a few questions about this in recent months. Due to Windows 10 being developed constantly and on a rapid release schedule, it’s important to differentiate between the various major updates. Even though Windows 10 Anniversary Update (1607) seems very similar to what would have been called Windows 10 RTM in the past, there are some big changes, and keeping track of each major update can be tricky when traditionally IT Pro’s are used to a new version of Windows every few years rather than every few months.
Stuck Windows Updates From WSUS On Windows 10 1607/Windows Server 2016
· ☕ 3 min read
If you’ve installed a fresh install of Windows 10 1607/Windows Server 2016 recently, you may have experienced a problem when it tries to download and install updates from your local WSUS server - specifically, it doesn’t, it gets stuck. You’ve tired rebooting, stopping the BITS and WU services, deleting %systemroot%\SoftwareDistribution but nothing seems to work. Both Windows 10 1607 and Windows Server 2016 require a cumulative update that fixes this specific issue.
Installing WSUS from scratch!
· ☕ 8 min read
Update 2018-04-20: I’ve rolled the information in this post, and updated it, into a new post about setting up a WSUS server from scratch on Windows Server 2016 Core. The post is also suitable for a regular Windows Server 2016 server with a GUI. You can read it here. Update: I’ve tested and updated this post for Windows Server 2016. In this post, I’m going to walk through setting up a WSUS server from scratch on Windows Server 2012 R2 or Windows Server 2016.
Resolving WSUS Connection Errors On Windows Server 2012 R2
· ☕ 3 min read
Update 2018-04-20: I’ve rolled the information in this post, and updated it, into a new post about setting up a WSUS server from scratch on Windows Server 2016 Core. The post is also suitable for a regular Windows Server 2016 server with a GUI. You can read it here. Update 2017-05-03: If you’re looking to resolve similar problems with WSUS on Windows Server 2016, please see this post. If you’ve been managing a WSUS server, you may have run into the well known MMC connection error above (appears as Event ID 7053 in the Event Viewer) by now.
Paint 3D Preview with a Hyper-V Virtual Machine
· ☕ 2 min read
If you’ve seen the news from the latest Microsoft Event, you’ll know that the next Windows 10 update, dubbed the “Creator Update” will be out early next year. One of the new tools shown was Paint 3D which looks to make the creation of 3D content more accessible. You can check it out right now, if you are a member of the Windows Insider Preview Program - which anyone can join.
Automating Chatty Maintenance With PowerShell
· ☕ 3 min read
Today’s post is another PowerShell script I wrote with a very specific task in mind. Chatty is a popular chat application for streaming site Twitch.tv. It is generally used for interacting in channel chat rooms as well as logging, running scripts, and live statistics. Some users run it 24/7. One problem that exists is that the logs don’t get separated, even if the program is restarted, the log continues on in the same file.
There's PowerShell In My Marzicraft!
· ☕ 5 min read
One of the servers I manage is a Minecraft server for a friend. It’s called Marzicraft, it has a candy theme, and it’s delightful, even if I do say so myself. :) I recently replaced the .bat scripts I wrote to maintain it with a single PowerShell script. Even if you aren’t supporting a Minecraft server, hopefully there’s some useful information here for your own work. If you are intending to use this script for your own Minecraft server, please be aware that I’ve put this together with a dedicated server in mind.

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