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Archive for the 'Tools' Category

MOSS 2007: Hide Edit Page in Site Actions Menu

Published by ryangl April 1st, 2008 in MOSS 2007, Tools, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008. 0 Comments

This always annoyed me.  Users with contribute rights are given the right to "Edit Page" under site actions.  This quick write-up resolves that issue by only providing that function to users with Full Control, rather than Contribute.  As always, be careful when modifying default.master and make sure you have backups readily available.

  1. Open the master page for the site.

  2. Find the following lines of code:
           <SharePoint:MenuItemTemplate runat="server" id="MenuItem_EditPage"
            Text="<%$Resources:wss,siteactions_editpage%>"
            Description="<%$Resources:wss,siteactions_editpagedescription%>"
            ImageUrl="/_layouts/images/ActionsEditPage.gif"
            MenuGroupId="100"
            Sequence="200"
            ClientOnClickNavigateUrl="BLOCKED SCRIPTMSOLayout_ChangeLayoutMode(false);"
            />

  3. Add to the following lines to the code:
    PermissionsString="ManageSubwebs"
            PermissionMode="Any"

  4. The code should now look like:
           <SharePoint:MenuItemTemplate runat="server" id="MenuItem_EditPage"
            Text="<%$Resources:wss,siteactions_editpage%>"
            Description="<%$Resources:wss,siteactions_editpagedescription%>"
            ImageUrl="/_layouts/images/ActionsEditPage.gif"
            MenuGroupId="100"
            Sequence="200"
            ClientOnClickNavigateUrl="BLOCKED SCRIPTMSOLayout_ChangeLayoutMode(false);"
            PermissionsString="ManageSubwebs"
            PermissionMode="Any"
            />

  5. Save the master page and login with an account that does not have Full Control, but is not read only either…  The Site Actions drop down should now resemble:

Hide Edit Page

Hide Edit Page in Site Actions Menu - The SharePoint Redemption

Windows Server 2008 Webcasts

Published by ryangl March 8th, 2008 in Tools, Webcast and Windows Server 2008. 0 Comments

windows-server-2008_1

With the official launch of 2008, Microsoft has also started a set webcasts in their "24 Hours of Windows Server 2008".  The series contains 24 sessions covering all aspects of Windows Server 2008.  You can check out and download the first session here.

 

Microsoft Virtualization Assessment and Planning Tool

Published by ryangl March 6th, 2008 in Management, Tools, Virtualization, Vista and Windows Server 2008. 0 Comments

 WS08HypeV_logo_250

As part of their Solution Accelerator for Virtualization, Microsoft has released an assessment tool that will allow you to assess your IT infrastructure and take that data to assist with modeling your migration to Windows 2008, Hyper-V, Application Virtualization, and Vista.  Of course, you could still use this info in planning consolidation to other VM platforms as well.

The Microsoft® Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator (MAP) makes it easy for you to assess your current IT infrastructure and determine the right Microsoft technologies for your IT needs.

MAP is a powerful inventory, assessment, and reporting tool that can securely run in small or large IT environments without requiring the installation of agent software on any computers or devices. The data and analysis provided by this Solution Accelerator can significantly simplify the planning process for migrating to Windows Vista®, Microsoft Office 2007, Windows Server® 2008, Microsoft Application Virtualization (formerly SoftGrid), and Windows Server virtualization technologies including Virtual Server 2005 R2 and Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator expands upon the assessment features included in the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment Solution Accelerator. These features include Windows Vista assessment, Microsoft Office 2007 assessment, and non-Windows device inventory, using the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). Reports for these assessment scenarios are localized in French, German, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, and Spanish.

Feature Overview

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator performs three key functions; hardware inventory, compatibility analysis, and readiness reporting.

Secure and Agentless Inventory

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning tool provides secure, agent-less and network-wide inventory that scales from small business to large enterprises. It collects and organizes system resources and device information from a single networked computer. Assessment tools often require users to first deploy software agents on all computers to be inventoried, but this tool does not. MAP uses technologies already available in your IT environment to perform inventory and assessments. These technologies include Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), the Remote Registry Service, SNMP, Active Directory Domain Services, and the Computer Browser service. Assessments can be completed on the following Windows platforms:

  • Windows Vista
  • Windows XP® Professional
  • Windows Server 2003™ or Windows Server 2003 R2
  • Windows 2000 Professional or Windows 2000 Server
  • Windows Server 2008
Comprehensive Data Analysis

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator performs a detailed analysis of hardware and device compatibility for migration to Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Application Virtualization, and Windows Vista. The hardware assessment looks at the installed hardware and determines if migration is recommended. If it is not recommended then the reports tell you why it is not.

Device assessment looks at the devices installed on a computer and reports availability of drivers for those devices. Device assessment is provided for both Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista migration scenarios.

For customers interested in server consolidation and virtualization through technologies such as Hyper-V or Virtual Server 2005 R2, this tool helps to gather performance metrics and generate server consolidation recommendations that identify the candidates for server virtualization and how the physical servers might be placed in a virtualized environment.

In-Depth Readiness Reporting

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator generates reports containing both summary and detailed assessment results for each migration scenario. The results are provided in both Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word documents. Reports are generated for the following scenarios:

  • Identification of currently installed Windows Client operating systems, their hardware, and recommendations for migration to Windows Vista.
  • Identification of currently installed Windows Server operating systems, their hardware, and recommendations for migration to Windows Server 2008 (including a report detailing currently installed server roles).
  • Identification of currently installed Microsoft Office software and recommendations for migration to Microsoft Office 2007.
  • Detailed assessment and reporting of server utilization gathered using the Performance Metrics Wizard.
  • Recommendations for server consolidation and virtual machine placement using Hyper-V or Virtual Server 2005 R2.
  • Assessment of client machines, servers, and the technology environment for the implementation of Microsoft Application Virtualization (formerly SoftGrid).  
  • Reporting of SNMP-enabled devices found in the environment during inventory.

Download the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator

p2vd.com » Microsoft Virtualization Assessment and Planning Tool

PowerShell Toolbox

Published by ryangl September 2nd, 2007 in Active Directory, Downloads, Group Policy, Powershell, Releases, Tools, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008. 0 Comments

Adam Bell has a detailed, growing list of PowerShell tools that are currently available.  Bookmark the page as new tools are added when available.

Here is a sample:

/N Software NetCmdlets
- a broad range of network management and messaging capabilities. The current release contains more than 30 Cmdlets providing access to network and host protocols such as SNMP, LDAP, DNS, Syslog, HTTP, WebDav, FTP, SMTP, POP, IMAP, Rexec/RShell, Telnet, and more. This is a commercial product.

Codeplex PoshConsole
- utilises WPF features to improve on the PS shell. This tool aims to be a more modern replacement for the default shell. This is an open source product.

Codeplex PowerShell Community Extensions
- working towards providing widely useful set of additional cmdlets, providers, aliases, filters, functions and scripts for PowerShell. This is an open source product.

Codeplex PSEventing
- Trap and respond to synchronous & asynchronous .NET events within your powershell scripts with an easy to use suite of cmdlets. This is an open source product.

Microsoft PowerShell SDK
- The Windows PowerShell SDK is written for command developers who require reference information about the APIs provided by Windows PowerShell. This is a free download from MSDN.

PowerGadgets
- data visualization product that creates gadgets for displaying output from your PS data in Windows. Very simple to create. This is a commercial product.

PowerLocker PowerPad
- a small editor to develop and test your function or script. This is a free product.

Quest ActiveRoles Management Shell for AD (aka Quest AD Cmdlets)
- perform administrative tasks like discovering the AD environment, changing user properties, modifying group membership, provisioning new user accounts, and performing multiple other tasks within Active Directory. This is a free product.

Quest PowerGUI
- an extensible graphical administrative console for managing systems based on Windows PowerShell. This is a free product.

SAPIEN PrimalScript 2007
- fully-customizable user interface with multiple tabs, dockable pane, IDE for use with PowerShell and other scripting languages. This is a commercial product.

You can view the entire list here

Lead, Follow, or Move » PowerShell Toolbox

How to enable Remote Desktop on Windows 2008 Server Core

Published by ryangl August 21st, 2007 in Tools and Windows Server 2008. 0 Comments

Have you taken a look at Windows 2008 Server Core yet? 

core

What’s that?  Looks like you just opened a command prompt.  Nope that’s all you see with Windows 2008 Server Core, at least from the local console. 

You’re going to want to setup Remote Desktop in order to be able to remotely connect to this server, and its not as easy and going into System and enabling it!

Here are the instructions

1.  Logon into the server console.

2.  Depending on what OS you are going to connect from, do the following: 

To enable remote administration from Windows Vista/Windows 2008, Enter:

 ”Cscript %windir%\system32\SCRegEdit.wsf /ar 0”

and press the “Enter” button.

To enable remote administration from Windows XP/2003 and earlier operating system, Enter

 ”Cscript %windir%\system32\SCRegEdit.wsf /ar 0” and press the “Enter” button.            
 ”Cscript %windir%\system32\SCRegEdit.wsf /cs 0” and press the “Enter” button.  

 

Allowing scripts to be run via PowerShell

Published by ryangl August 16th, 2007 in Active Directory, Downloads, Management, Powershell and Tools. 0 Comments

Running scripts via Powershell is disable by default.  There is a key to note that you can run commands or cmdlets from the PowerShell console, just not scripts.  To enable this feature you can do one of two things, however one trumps the other:

Via PowerShell

Modify your ExecutionPolicy via the Set-Execution cmdlet

First run Get-ExecutionPolicy to see what level you are at.  By default, this setting is set to Restricted. 

To see what settings are available for you to set, you can type

Get-Help Set-ExecutionPolicy

This output shows that we have four options:  Restricted, AllSigned, RemoteSigned, and Unrestricted.

To set your ExecutionPolicy to Unrestricted (not recommended for production) you would enter:

Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

To validate you settings after running the Set-ExecutionPolicy, run:

Get-ExecutionPolicy

From the command above, your ExecutionPolicy is now set to Unrestricted.  You can now run any scripts you like, signed or unsigned. (Bet your administrator is happy to hear that!)

Now for the other method for setting this policy

Via Group Policy

Seeing how the first method would be a nightmare to manage, Microsoft has released the ADM files for PowerShell that allow you to configure this setting via Group Policy.  Any settings made via Group Policy will overwrite those set manually via the PowerShell Console. 

powershellADM 

You can download the PowerShell ADM here

The little things

Published by ryangl August 4th, 2007 in Powershell and Tools. 0 Comments

I once had a coach in high school that would always, and I mean always stress the little things.  “Its the little things that make the big things”; we would hear that daily.  After playing around with Powershell at home, I started laughing because I heard that voice say that phrase as I used a single line to organize all of my scattered .iso files on my 1TB external drive. 

I always wanted to re-organize the files on this drive, but using any search feature took a long time, and time is not something I have much of.  So again, the little things.

From the PowerShell console, I was wondering in what locations were all of my ISO files?  I entered:

Get-ChildItem -path E:\ -Recurse -Include *.iso > ISO.txt

This command searched for every ISO on the external drive (E:) and piped it out to a text file.  Viewing that text file, I found out what I thought…I had ISO files everywhere.  No big deal, I’ll just modify the command above to move everything to a central repository.

Get-ChildItem -path E:\ -Recurse -Include *.iso | move-item -Destination e:\ISO\

Easy peasy, command completed and now i’m going to re-run my audit of where my ISO files are and we see that they are now all located in the -Destination directory.

Clean-up made simple!

Active Directory Explorer v1.0

Published by ryangl July 21st, 2007 in Active Directory, Management and Tools. 0 Comments

adexplorer

Microsoft has released AD Explorer, a complementary tool to everyone’s favorite ADSI Edit.  Think of AD Explorer as ADSI Edit with improved navigation and the ability snapshot your AD database.

You can download Active Directory Explorer here

Active Directory Explorer (AD Explorer) is an advanced Active Directory (AD) viewer and editor. You can use AD Explorer to easily navigate an AD database, define favorite locations, view object properties and attributes without having to open dialog boxes, edit permissions, view an object’s schema, and execute sophisticated searches that you can save and re-execute.

AD Explorer also includes the ability to save snapshots of an AD database for off-line viewing and comparisons. When you load a saved snapshot, you can navigate and explorer it as you would a live database. If you have two snapshots of an AD database you can use AD Explorer’s comparison functionality to see what objects, attributes and security permissions changed between them.

AD Explorer works on Windows 2000 and higher.

Active Directory Explorer v1.0

Books

PowerShell

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Server 2003 & Server 2008

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