Chris Bradbury

Active Directory

AD OU – Remove Protected From Accidental Deletion

When creating an OU in AD, ticking the Protect from Accidental Deletion box seems like a good idea. Until you go to delete the OU. Even more so if you have multiple nested OUs and just want to delete the top level one. Powershell to the rescue! We can use Get-ADOrganizationalUnit (note US spelling) to select all the OUs within a supplied OU and then use Set-ADObject and ProtectedFromAccidentalDeletion

Get-ADOrganizationalUnit -SearchBase "OU=NameOfOU,DC=ogs,DC=internal" -Filter * | ForEach-Object {

    Set-ADObject -Identity $_ -ProtectedFromAccidentalDeletion:$false

}

Get-ADOrganizationalUnit -SearchBase "OU=NameOfOU,DC=ogs,DC=internal" -Filter * | ForEach-Object {

Set-ADObject -Identity $_ -ProtectedFromAccidentalDeletion:$false

}

Once run, the top level OU can Read more…

By chrisbradbury, 3 months3 months ago

Windows

AccessIt – Unattended Install

We use AccessIt for library management in several of our schools. Aside from running on JAVA it’s an excellent piece of software.In the past, we’ve always had to deploy it by having physical (or virtual) access to the machine. However, now have a process for unattended install.We use PDQ Deploy – if you don’t use it, have a look. It’s worth every penny Step 1. – Install JAVAThe installer will crash out if JAVA isn’t already Read more…

By chrisbradbury, 2 years3 months ago

Active Directory

GAM – Hide all users in AD OU from Global Address List

Fairly niche one this one. Needed to hide all the users in a specific group from the GSuite Domain’s Global Address List Powershell to the rescue. Pulling through all the users in a specific searchbase and iterating through them with the GAM gal off command.

Get-ADUser -Filter * -SearchBase "OU=Name,DC=domain,DC=local" -Properties mail | ForEach-Object { 

    .\gam.exe update user $_.mail gal off

}

Get-ADUser -Filter * -SearchBase "OU=Name,DC=domain,DC=local" -Properties mail | ForEach-Object {

.\gam.exe update user $_.mail gal off

}

The script pulls the accounts in the specified OU, including their mail attribute, in to an object. It iterates through that object calling gam.exe, selecting the user by email address Read more…

By chrisbradbury, 3 years3 months ago

Windows

api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll

This has been a minor annoyance for a while now; how some machines work with a certain piece of software (Skype, Cura, Wacom Tablet Drivers to name some of the examples we’ve had) and some don’t. They all give an error of The Program can’t start because api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll is missing on machines running Windows 7. Some Google-Fu narrowed this down to VC++ components missing. Turns out you can install VC++ Redistributables to your heart’s content but if a Read more…

By chrisbradbury, 3 years ago

Concerto

Concerto Date and Time Format

Changing the time and date format in the Concerto signage system. By default, the date displayed on the signage screen is in American format; Month / Day / Year As one of the 2.8billion people in the world who use the DMY format, I needed to find a way of changing the date format on the screens. Concerto have some document ( https://github.com/concerto/concerto/wiki/Field-Configuration ) but for some reason the option was unavailable. Started by going to Read more…

By chrisbradbury, 3 years ago

Drivers

WDS, Windows 7 and USB3

For a while now we’ve been building machines using WDS, a master image and filtered drivers. Each machine model has a WDS Driver Group which is filtered by Model and Applicability set to Driver packages matching client hardware. For a long time, using this approach, USB3 drivers haven’t been installing at all. We tend to find that the USB3 Port driver is installed but not the USB3 hub. Finally, after a lot of reading up on this Read more…

By chrisbradbury, 3 years ago

Slack LAPS Slash Command

Having implemented LAPS (Local Administrator Password Solution) on all of our PCs there became a need to access the password when in the field away from a PC with easy access to AD / the LAPS GUI. As we use Slack for primary out-of-office communications, it made sense to create a Slack Slash Command to return the LAPS Password. It is accessed by using /password PCNAME and returns the password to the user who requested it. PC Read more…

By chrisbradbury, 3 years3 years ago

GAFE

GAM – Set profile photo of entire group to single image

For out students, we want a single image for their GSuite profile photos. Sadly there isn’t a way of preventing users from changing their photo, so we have to run a script regularly to remove any changes they may have made.

#- Address of the group -#
$groupAddress  = "group@domain.tld"

#- Location of image -#
$imageLocation = "C:\Folder\image.jpg"

#- Set the image -#
.\gam.exe group $groupAddress update photo $imageLocation

#- Address of the group -#

$groupAddress = "[email protected]"

#- Location of image -#

$imageLocation = "C:\Folder\image.jpg"

#- Set the image -#

.\gam.exe group $groupAddress update photo $imageLocation

By chrisbradbury, 3 years3 years ago

Calendar

GAM – Give mail group calendar permissions

Had a need to add all the users from a GSuite group as editors on a Google Calendar. The script reads and outputs the current ACLs, gets the members of the group and then adds them to the calendar giving them the appropriate permissions. At the end, it outputs the new permissions. Different permissions can be given freebusy|read|editor|owner by changing the permission on line #23

#- Address of google calendar to add permissions to -#
$calendarAddress = "domain_xxxxxx@group.calendar.google.com"

#- Address of the group containing the users -#
$groupForAccess  = "group@domain.tld"

#-- read the acl of the calendar --#
.\gam.exe calendar $calendarAddress showacl

#-- get the group members --#
.\gam.exe print group-members group $groupForAccess > CSVs\group.csv

#-- load in the CSV --#
$list = Import-Csv CSVs\group.csv

#-- for each member --#
foreach ($entry in $list){

    #-- output who we're on --#
    echo "add $($entry.email) `r`n"

    #-- add the user to the calendar --#
    .\gam.exe calendar $calendarAddress add editor $entry.email

}

#-- read new permissions --#
.\gam.exe calendar $calendarAddress showacl

#- Address of google calendar to add permissions to -#

$calendarAddress = "[email protected]"

#- Address of the group containing the users -#

$groupForAccess = "[email protected]"

#-- read the acl of the calendar --#

.\gam.exe calendar $calendarAddress showacl

#-- get the group members --#

.\gam.exe print group-members group $groupForAccess > CSVs\group.csv

#-- load in the CSV --#

$list = Import-Csv CSVs\group.csv

#-- for each member --#

foreach ($entry in $list){

#-- output who we're on --#

echo "add $($entry.email) `r`n"

#-- add the user to the calendar --#

.\gam.exe calendar $calendarAddress add editor $entry.email

}

#-- read new permissions --#

.\gam.exe calendar $calendarAddress showacl

The users receive an email from Google telling them that the Read more…

By chrisbradbury, 3 years3 years ago

Active Directory

Powershell AD – Output groups a user is a member of

We occasionally need to make a note of the groups a user is a member of. If they’re going on maternity leave, for example. This script does require the Active Directory Module For Windows PowerShell.

$user = "username"

Get-ADPrincipalGroupMembership $user | select name

$user = "username"

Get-ADPrincipalGroupMembership $user | select name

By chrisbradbury, 3 years3 years ago