PowerShell Utility
Hyper-V Virtual Machine Backup Utility - Update v4.1
· β˜• 1 min read
Download it from the Microsoft TechNet Gallery the PowerShell Gallery and GitHub. Today I’ve released an update to my Hyper-V Backup Utility PowerShell script. Version 4.1 adds zip file creation and the ability to keep a history of Virtual Machine backups. These new features are included along with the ability to backup Virtual Machines using the built-in Hyper-V export function, meaning that the VMs do not need to be shutdown. However if the Hyper-V host lacks the permissions necessary to perform the export, it can be configured to shutdown the Virtual Machines and backup through a file-based copy operation.

Hyper-V Backup Utility
· β˜• 15 min read
Flexible Hyper-V Backup Utility Hyper-V Backup Utility is available from: GitHub The Microsoft PowerShell Gallery Please consider supporting my work: Support with a one-time donation using PayPal. Please report any problems via the ‘issues’ tab on GitHub. Thanks -Mike Features and Requirements Designed to be run on a Hyper-V host. The Hyper-V host must have the Hyper-V management PowerShell modules installed. Can be used to backup VMs to a device which the Hyper-V host does not have permission to run a regular export to.

On-Prem AD User Creator Utility
· β˜• 5 min read
Configurable Script For Creating On-Prem Active Directory User Accounts On-Prem AD User Creator Utility is available from: GitHub Please consider supporting my work: Support with a one-time donation using PayPal. Please report any problems via the ‘issues’ tab on GitHub. Thanks -Mike Features and Requirements Requires the Active Directory PowerShell module be installed. Requires A CSV file containing the FirstName and LastName of each user to create.

WSUS Maintenance Utility
· β˜• 5 min read
Clean up WSUS WSUS Maintenance Utility is available from: GitHub The Microsoft PowerShell Gallery Please consider supporting my work: Support with a one-time donation using PayPal. Please report any problems via the ‘issues’ tab on GitHub. Thanks -Mike Features and Requirements It’s designed to run either on a WSUS server itself or can be run from a remote machine. The computer that is running the utility must have the WSUS management PowerShell modules installed.

Image Factory Utility
· β˜• 8 min read
Automate Creation of WIM Files Image Factory Utility is available from: GitHub The Microsoft PowerShell Gallery Please consider supporting my work: Support with a one-time donation using PayPal. Please report any problems via the β€˜issues’ tab on GitHub. Thanks -Mike Features and Requirements This utility is designed to run on a computer with Microsoft Deployment Toolkit installed. The computer must have either the Hyper-V management PowerShell modules installed, or Virtual Box.

Windows Server Status Monitor
· β˜• 5 min read
PowerShell based Windows Server monitor I wanted to create a lightweight and easy to setup server status monitor. It needed to highlight any metrics that were outside of a customisable threshold visually and be able to e-mail the report or run continuously. Based on a script from Bhavik Solanki (on TechNet) and with some help from my good friend, and software developer Dan Price, we created WinServ-Status, now known as Windows Server Status Monitor.

Log Manager Utility
· β˜• 5 min read
Flexible clean up and backup of log files For full change log and more information, visit my site. Log Manager Utility is available from: GitHub The Microsoft PowerShell Gallery Please consider supporting my work: Support with a one-time donation using PayPal. Please report any problems via the ‘issues’ tab on GitHub. Thanks -Mike Features and Requirements The utility will delete files and folders older than X days.

Auto Create Exchange Mailboxes v1.8
· β˜• 4 min read
I needed to write a PowerShell utility to create Exchange mailboxes for new users in Active Directory. The utility needed to create the mailboxes, use different databases, retention policies, and take users from several Organisational Units along with users in child OUs. This utility is available to download from the Microsoft TechNet Gallery, PowerShell Gallery and GitHub. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below. Please consider donating to support my work:

Fully Automated Image Factory for Microsoft Deployment Toolkit
· β˜• 11 min read
UPDATE: This post is old and intended as a walk through on how my original script was put together for those wishing to learn PowerShell. For the finished, up-to-date script please check out this post and you can download the script from my Microsoft TechNet profile. Recently I’ve been looking into automating my image build process further using PowerShell to create an Image Factory of sorts. There are other similar scripts that I’ve found online, but I like the relatively simple and straightforward method I’ve developed below.