Monthly Archives: June 2017

OSD / SCCM / MDT, Powershell, Programming and Scripting

OSD Scripting Hacks Part 4 – Renaming NICs

Leave a comment
In a new series of short posts I’m going to show how to get around some frustrations I have had with the lack of GPO support for some common requirements plus a few other issues I have come across which have crept up recently.

More for a bit of fun really but this was another serious request I have had where a machine contained several adaptors, they should all be sequentially named to specification, in this case NIC1, NIC2, NIC3 ,etc.

Here’s the script. It renames the adaptor numerically and outputs to a logfile:

# Rename NICs
$number=0
ForEach($nic in (Get-NetAdapter -Name *)) {
$number += 1
Get-NetAdapter -Name $nic.Name | Rename-NetAdapter -NewName NIC$number - PassThru | Out-File %WinDir%\Temp\NicName.log -Append
 }

For MDT users I recommend using a commandline action as follows:

powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -command "$number=0; ForEach($nic in (Get-NetAdapter -Name *)) { $number+=1; Get-NetAdapter -Name $nic.Name | Rename-NetAdapter -NewName NIC$number -PassThru | Out-File %WinDir%\Temp\NicName.log -Append }"

That concludes this series for now until such time as another request comes my way…

 

OSD / SCCM / MDT, Powershell, Programming and Scripting

OSD Scripting Hacks Part 3 – Disable NETBIOS in Powershell

1 Comment
In a new series of short posts I’m going to show how to get around some frustrations I have had with the lack of GPO support for some common requirements plus a few other issues I have come across which have crept up recently.

Another requirement that came up in my recent project was to disable the NETBIOS over TCP/IP setting function under the network adaptor settings | IPv4 properties | Advanced. The issue here is that there are multiple GUIDs present in the registry that must be changed and these can’t be easily predicted. Fortunately Powershell is kind to us and allows the use of a wildcard (*) to just hit them all. This is achieved with the following script:

 # Disables NETBIOS over TCP/IP
set-ItemProperty HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\NetBT\Parameters\Interfaces\tcpip* -Name NetbiosOptions -Value 2

For MDT users, I recommend using a commandline action as follows:

powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -command "set-ItemProperty -Path 'HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\NetBT\Parameters\Interfaces\tcpip*' -Name NetbiosOptions -Value 2"

Next, renaming NICs!

OSD / SCCM / MDT, Powershell

OSD Scripting Hacks Part 2 – Performance Settings

Leave a comment
In a new series of short posts I’m going to show how to get around some frustrations I have had with the lack of GPO support for some common requirements plus a few other issues I have come across which have crept up recently.

In part 2, I will show you how to change the performance settings via a script which can be run from a task sequence step. Like the file extensions in Part 1, this was another area that (at the time of writing) seems frustratingly missing from group policy. I was creating an MDT task sequence recently to build some servers and one of the requirements was that the Visual Effects setting was specifically set for ‘Best Performance’ as opposed to Let Windows choose…

Anyway, the script:

# VisualFX - Best Performance
$RegKey ="HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects"
Set-ItemProperty -Path $RegKey -Name VisualFXSetting -Type DWORD -Value 2

For MDT, you may wish to run this as a commandline as follows:

powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -command "set-ItemProperty -Path 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects' -Name VisualFXSetting -Type DWORD -Value 2"

In the above I set the value to 2 for best performance. Other values can be:
0 – Let Windows choose what’s best for my computer settings.
1 – for Adjust for best appearance settings.
2 – for Adjust for best Performance settings.
3 – for Custom settings.

OSD / SCCM / MDT, Powershell

OSD Scripting Hack Part 1 – Enable file extensions for all users

Leave a comment
In a new series of short posts I’m going to show how to get around some frustrations I have had with the lack of GPO support for some common requirements plus a few other issues I have come across which have crept up recently.

First in the series is a build fix for file extensions. By default, these aren’t enabled and at the time of writing there isn’t a GPO that can be applied that applies them for users when they log on so they have to be enabled manually. Personally I find it frustrating that I can’t see what kind of file something is and it is usually the first thing I change when  I log into a new computer. Anyway, among others, this became a requirement for a recent project I was on and after a bit of playing around and further research I came up with the following Powershell script:

reg load HKLM\DefaultUser C:\Users\Default\NTUSER.DAT
 $path = "HKLM:\Defaultuser\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced"
 New-ItemProperty -Path $path -Name HideFileExt -Value "0" -Type DWord
 reg unload HKLM\DefaultUser

This should be run as a task sequence step but depending on your deployment tool of choice, Powershell commands can occasionally be a little fussy. If you are using MDT, you might find the following works better if set up as a commandline:

Powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -command "reg load HKLM\DefaultUser C:\Users\Default\NTUSER.DAT; New-ItemProperty -Path 'HKLM:\Defaultuser\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced' -Name HideFileExt -Value 0 -Type DWord; reg unload HKLM\DefaultUser"

The above should also work fine for SCCM although SCCM isn’t as picky as stand-alone MDT so either might work there.

Next time, Performance settings.