Better Windows Updates For Everyone
· ☕ 4 min read
In this post I’m going to show how to quickly configure Windows Updates so that you only receive important security updates. We’ll cover Home and Pro/Enterprise users of both Windows 10 and Windows 11. These are also the settings I use myself and recommend for most users. These settings may also be helpful for IT admins. Set Active Hours - Windows 10 By default Active Hours are configured to be automatic but personally I think it’s better to set them manually.
Image Factory Utility - Update 21.12.02
· ☕ 1 min read
Automate Creation of WIM Files This is the initial release of a new version of my Image Factory Utility with support for Oracle Virtual Box. I’ve tested it myself, but there may be issues on other setups, so I’d be interested in hearing if anyone has problems when using Virtual Box. 2021-12-02: Version 21.12.01 Added option to use Oracle Virtual Box instead of Hyper-V. Configured logs path now is created, if it does not exist.
Deploy Windows 10 21H2 Reference Image
· ☕ 13 min read
News and Updates An important update for Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT_KB4564442) has been released. This update fixes a boot loop issue. Download the update here. In this article as with my previous ones we will walk through configuring Microsoft Deployment Toolkit to deploy the reference image created in the previous article: Build and Capture Windows 10 21H2 Reference Image Installing the MDT Update: MDT_KB4564442 Extract the files from the self-extracting archive and copy them to %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Deployment Toolkit\Templates\Distribution\Tools replacing the existing files.
Build and Capture Windows 10 21H2 Reference Image
· ☕ 8 min read
News and Updates An important update for Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT_KB4564442) has been released. This update fixes a boot loop issue. Download the update here. In this article as with my previous ones we will walk through installing and configuring Microsoft Deployment Toolkit to build and capture a reference image of Windows 10 21H2 using a Hyper-V Virtual Machine. It’s assumed that you have a server or PC ready to install MDT and create a file share for MDT to build the image with.
Deploy Windows 11 21H2 Reference Image
· ☕ 13 min read
News and Updates An important update for Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT_KB4564442) has been released. This update fixes a boot loop issue. Download the update here There is no x86 version of Windows 11 This article is based on Windows 11 21H2 22000.258. I will update it in future as things progress In this article as with my previous ones we will walk through configuring Microsoft Deployment Toolkit to deploy the reference image created in the previous article: Build and Capture Windows 11 21H2 Reference Image
Build and Capture Windows 11 21H2 Reference Image
· ☕ 8 min read
News and Updates Update: 2021-11-12 After testing, a Build and Capture Task Sequence now appears to work and sysprep works as expected. An important update for Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT_KB4564442) has been released. This update fixes a boot loop issue. Download the update here There is no x86 version of Windows 11. This article is based on Windows 11 21H2 22000.258. I will update it in future as things progress.
On-Prem AD User Creator Utility - Update 21.09.20
· ☕ 2 min read
Configurable Script for Creating On-Prem Active Directory User Accounts I’ve completely re-written this utility to make it easier and simpler to use. You can now configure multiple groups for the users to be added to on creation and the sam account names are generated randomly from the names list CSV file. The utility is intended to create a lot of users very quickly. By default usernames are first name and a three digit number and passwords are also generated randomly by the script.
Windows 11 Customisation
· ☕ 3 min read
Windows 11 is very similar to Windows 10 is terms of technology and core services, however with the new UI and Start Menu refresh there are some new elements that you may want to remove. Start Menu Layout Microsoft now expects the Start menu layout to be managed by an MDM service, if you want to do it without that then the easiest method is to copy the start.bin files.
Windows 11 Microsoft Store Apps
· ☕ 4 min read
This post is a cut down version of this one and only focusses on Windows 11 for clarity. Important note! A “provisioned app” is an app that is a part of the Windows 11 installation and will be available for all users. Otherwise the app is only installed for the currently logged on user. To remove apps for all future users and the currently logged on user, you must remove both types of app.
Hyper-V Backup Utility - Update 21.08.10
· ☕ 1 min read
Flexible Hyper-V Backup Utility I’ve (finally) added the option to specify the port for the SMTP server. If not configured it will use the default of port 25. 2021-08-10: Version 21.08.10 Added an option to specify the Port for SMTP communication. Hyper-V Backup Utility can be downloaded from: The Microsoft PowerShell Gallery GitHub See the full documentation available here. Support My Work If you would like to support me, please check out the link below.
Hyper-V Backup Utility - Update 21.07.02
· ☕ 1 min read
Flexible Hyper-V Backup Utility Since implementing support for 7-Zip it has added a whole load of additional possibilities to test for. This has created some difficulties for me, however I have been hard at work and have believe I’ve tackled the problem by introducing a formal testing process (and mostly automated it) in order to test some popular possible configs. You should be able to use any option that 7-zip supports, although currently the only options I’ve tested fully are ‘-t’ archive type, ‘-p’ password and ‘-v’ split files.
Image Factory Utility - Update 21.06.22
· ☕ 1 min read
Automate Creation of WIM Files Just a small update to this utility. Some tidying up of code and added a progression bar so you can see at a glance how far through the list of TS ID’s the script is. 2021-06-22: Version 21.06.22 Added a progression bar display. Changed a variable to prevent conflicts with future PowerShell versions. Image Factory Utility can be downloaded from: The Microsoft PowerShell Gallery GitHub See the full documentation available here.

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