Lee Stevens: Technical Blogs

Because someone's gotta tell the story...

PS without BS: Showing a popup box and killing it

This is a simple solution for those wanting to show a popup box, but not leave it up indefinitely....

Author: leecstevens Date: 04/30/2018

PS without BS: Replacing Select Case True

This is a short blog to describe how to replace VBScript's brilliant "Select Case True" with...

Author: leecstevens Date: 04/28/2018

When SQL has no certificate...

Yesterday I posted a blog on how to identify the SQL Certificate used. I had some questions come...

Author: leecstevens Date: 04/24/2018

Server Core: Navigating an old but new world

Lately, I've done a lot of posting on Server Core and one thing I've neglected to write on is how...

Author: leecstevens Date: 04/23/2018

PS without BS: Finding the SQL Cert and trusting it to a remote system

This was an interesting case, and surprisingly didn't really find anything on how to do this out...

Author: leecstevens Date: 04/23/2018

Upgrading SQL Server on Windows Server Core

This, thankfully is a quick and easy blog discussing the how's of an upgrade to SQL Server 2017 from...

Author: leecstevens Date: 04/16/2018

Upgrading MDT on Server Core

So, in my previous blog on PS without BS: Building MDT and WSUS on Server Core, I outlined how to...

Author: leecstevens Date: 04/16/2018

Lee's Word Troubleshooting Guide

This is part of a series of my notes and troubleshooting guides referring to Microsoft Office. They...

Author: leecstevens Date: 03/27/2018

MDT: Using the UDI Wizard without SCCM

For those who know me, you know how deep my background in SCCM is. Over the last while, I have...

Author: leecstevens Date: 03/20/2018

PS without BS: Some useful GPO cleanup scripts

Just a quick blog with a lot of punch to it: Some easy and great ways to clean up Group Policy. What...

Author: leecstevens Date: 03/07/2018

Lee's Outlook Troubleshooting Guide

Outlook is a product that has been around for a very long time, with its first release as part of...

Author: leecstevens Date: 02/27/2018

PS without BS: Building MDT and WSUS on Server Core

Update: If you are looking also how to add the UDI Wizard standalone with MDT (without SCCM), check...

Author: leecstevens Date: 02/26/2018

Demystify PKI - Act II: Certificate Logging

This is a quick blog on how to enable certificate logging, as by default this is not enabled in...

Author: leecstevens Date: 02/13/2018

Demystify PKI (aka AD Certificate Services) - Act I: Cryptography

Some things are just a lot to digest, and so I thought it may be useful to the ditial world to kind...

Author: leecstevens Date: 02/13/2018

PS without BS: Removing WMI Queries from GPMC

One of the neat features back in (cough) Windows Server 2003 was the addition of WMI filters to...

Author: leecstevens Date: 02/05/2018

PS without BS: Fixing the user primary group

This is a Part 2 from my blog Group membership isn't consistent in AD Users and Computers. In this...

Author: leecstevens Date: 02/03/2018

Lee's Excel Troubleshooting Guide

In troubleshooting various Excel issues, I have found the following solutions to work quite often....

Author: leecstevens Date: 02/02/2018

Excel: Subtract Minutes from Time

So, you have a spreadsheet and you're trying to log time entries, say for work. You work 8:00 to...

Author: leecstevens Date: 01/17/2018

Excel VBA: Deleting a worksheet in code

I wanted to take a moment and share a little VBA in Excel that would delete a worksheet from code....

Author: leecstevens Date: 01/16/2018

Excel VBA: Replacing text in a specific column with code

Another really quick code snippet to replace text in a specific column through code. Usage is...

Author: leecstevens Date: 01/16/2018

SCCM 1710 and PeerCaching: Technical Notes

Executive OverviewSCCM peer cache was first introduced in SCCM 1610 as a pre-release feature and...

Author: leecstevens Date: 01/15/2018

Group membership isn't consistent in AD Users and Computers

This was the case of another interesting troubleshoot I ran across where users weren't enumerating...

Author: leecstevens Date: 10/04/2017

The future of old apps with Windows 10

The past is hard to let go of, let's be honest. In the IT world, there is a lot of truth to some of...

Author: leecstevens Date: 09/21/2017

PS without BS: Creating Random Test Users in Active Directory

This was an interesting ask, and kind of showcases a couple of different techniques. The ask was to...

Author: leecstevens Date: 09/19/2017

Troubleshooting Internet Explorer and the CRL mystery

This was an interesting case, and didn't see much on this when I searched around the public...

Author: leecstevens Date: 09/08/2017

Detecting port availability and blockage: Part 2, The Trace

Note: For Part 1 of this blog, "The players", Click Here So, back to our scenatio and detecting port...

Author: leecstevens Date: 08/31/2017

Detecting port availability and blockage: Part 1, The Players

Note: For Part 2 of this blog, "The trace", Click Here In a recent blog "Welcome to the domain, just...

Author: leecstevens Date: 08/31/2017

Protecting from Accidental Deletion (or not)

An interesting conversation came up today regarding the Active Directory feature "Protect from...

Author: leecstevens Date: 08/23/2017

SCCM: For those nasty incremental collections

One feature that is easily misunderstood in SCCM is one of "incremental updates to collections",...

Author: leecstevens Date: 08/22/2017

Welcome to the domain. Just kidding.

I ran across a strange issue recently in regards to joining a server to the domain, so I hope this...

Author: leecstevens Date: 08/21/2017

Demystifying the UNC Hardening Dilemma

Had an interesting issue come up today, and wanted to break it down a bit for my own understanding....

Author: leecstevens Date: 08/09/2017

The classic "Whodunit": Who removed IIS?

I had a recent issue where a customer's SCCM Distribution Point came up non-functional. Upon looking...

Author: leecstevens Date: 08/03/2017

MPControl 500 error after removing WSUS and the SUP from SCCM

One thing I have found interesting, intriguing, and somewhat ironic is a glorious lack of need for...

Author: leecstevens Date: 07/25/2017

PS without BS: Let's play "Where's that MSI?"

That infamous folder c:\windows\installer can take up a lot of space and resources, more...

Author: leecstevens Date: 07/19/2017

Recovering a SQL database via T-SQL

So this post is courtesy of a late night database issue. One of my important SQL databases was...

Author: leecstevens Date: 07/19/2017

Locked out of SQL...No More

I had an interesting issue come up at a customer where they needed to change SQL Memory and reattach...

Author: leecstevens Date: 07/10/2017

SCCM Servers showing their state as "Unknown"

I recently came across a unique issue where SCCM had not been reporting site status for its remote...

Author: leecstevens Date: 06/27/2017

PS without BS: Getting AD Users with a Filter

Recently, I was asked to get a list of admin accounts within multiple domains, however, all domains...

Author: leecstevens Date: 06/26/2017

Allowing RDP access to only certain IPs

I had an issue come up recently where the ask was to only allow RDP access to certain IPs. The trick...

Author: leecstevens Date: 06/26/2017

I can't connect - but the firewall is off!

Sometimes you simply cannot connect to another system, in one case a domain controller. You know the...

Author: leecstevens Date: 06/21/2017

PS without BS: How many times have you joined the domain?

Ever since the beginning of what is today called Active Directory, the default has always been to...

Author: leecstevens Date: 06/14/2017

How can I still use NTBackup after Server 2008?

You're probably wondering why on earth anybody would still want to use NTBackup after we removed it...

Author: leecstevens Date: 06/12/2017

PS without BS: multiple replace of a string

Been a busy blog day, but the last one today (promise). There is feature that is unique to...

Author: leecstevens Date: 06/09/2017

PS without BS: Extracting DHCP Reservations to a CSV

Just a quick snippet that shows how to extract existing reservations into a text file using...

Author: leecstevens Date: 06/09/2017

CMTrace without CMTrace

A quick blog to give cheap pop to PowerShell and it's rescuing power, yet again. Just a nice, quick...

Author: leecstevens Date: 06/09/2017

Changing individual quick action buttons via GPP

I was asked today if there was a way to change individual quick action items via GPO, and...

Author: leecstevens Date: 06/07/2017

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