7-Zip 15.10 x86 and x64 silent installers

7-Zip is a excellent open source  file archiver with a high compression ratio

For those who may need to install 7-Zip 15.10 to users silently. Download either of these packaged executable's for x86 or x64 click below link.

Updated November 3, 2015

Run with administrator rights.

CutePDF Writer Silent Installer

CutePDF Writer Silent Installer

Portable Document Format (PDF) is the de facto standard for the secure and reliable distribution and exchange of electronic documents and forms around the world.  CutePDF Writer is the free version of commercial PDF converter software. CutePDF Writer installs itself as a "printer subsystem". This enables virtually any Windows applications (must be able to print) to convert to professional quality PDF documents - with just a push of a button!

If users in your environment need to create simple PDF files from their documents then installing this can solve the problem and save big dollars over installing Adobe Acrobat and users do not usually require if all they need is a converter.

The silent installer also installs Ghostscript which is required by cutepdf writer to convert  PS2PDF

To convert your document to a pdf file simply print it to the CutePDF Writer  and when prompted for a file name, choose the name for the pdf file.

Firefox 28.0 Silent Installer

Mozilla Firefox Web Browser is a good alternative to Internet Explorer. We install it in our environment so users have a choice and so support have a choice to troubleshoot browser issues.

This is a silent installer for Firefox Web Browser 28.0 Use if for when you may need to push out Firefox to users silently.

After Outlook 2013 Widows Update (KB2817630) Outlook Folder Pane displays as empty

After applying the Outlook 2013 Widows Update  (KB2817630) released on Sept. 10, 2013 your Outlook Folder Pane displays as empty.

To resolve the issue close out of Outlook and go to Control Panel > Programs and Features >View installed Updates and remove all instances of KB2817630 I had two versions installed and removed both.  After re-launching Outlook the folder pane was back to normal.

Windows Server 2012 R2 Generation 2 vm's now support PXE booting using standard nic

A great new feature in Windows Server 2012 R2  is the ability to create Generation 2 vm's.

Generation 2 vm's support PXE booting using the standard nic.  Unfortunately it only applies to Server 2012 and 64bit Windows 8 or higher systems only.

For anyone who has ever pxe booted into a mounted capture boot iso using the legacy pxe nic the image creation would take an extremely long time since copying the image to your network share would be limited to the legacy adapter 100 Mbps speed. So a copy process which might normally take 30 minutes on a 1Gbps network would end up taking 300 minutes. Ouch!!

Thankfully, with Windows Server 2012 R2 Generation 2 vm's image creation at least of Server 2012 and 64bit Windows 8 or higher will be at the speeds of your standard nic up to 10 Gbps. This will greatly reduce the creation time.

 

Prevent Server Manager from auto starting

Click Manage > Server Manager Properties and checkmark “Do not start server manager automatically at logon

MDT 2012 using Driver Groups

Managing drivers in MDT 2012 using Driver Groups

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2012 has some nice improvements to its successors in the driver handling department. You can use Driver Groups or Selection Profiles. In this tutorial I will describe using Driver Groups to manage drivers in MDT 2012.

Firstly we will build the ‘Out-of-Box Drivers’ folder structure and import drivers. I have subdirectories for each architecture, brand and model.



To build up the folder structure you have to know the model name of your hardware. To retrieve the proper computer name execute at command prompt: ‘wmic csproduct get name’, to get the exact name WMI queries to determine the computer model. In my case the computer name is “Latitude E4600”.

Now that we have drivers imported in our Deployment Share, it’s time to move on

At deployment phase MDT uses WMI to query the proper computer model and only the current model drivers will be injected. In order to get this working properly, you have to use the EXACT model name in your Out-of-Box Driver tree. You don’t want to query dead horses.

Inject the correct drivers in your Task Sequence

Add a new step in your Task Sequence to inject the correct drivers.  Select Add > General > Set Task Sequence Variable



I usually place this new variable in the node just above the Inject Drivers Node.



MDT will query the computer name and inject the drivers which corresponds with the computer name from the Out-of-Box folder structure, right before applying the image at deployment.



I use ‘DriverGroup001’ as Task Sequence Variable, and windows 8 x64\%Make%\%Model% as value for my Windows 8 x64 Task Sequence . You have to adapt this to your Out-of-Box tree.



Finally, you want to go into you're Inject Drivers node and make sure you're not using profiles

Selecting Nothing in the Choose a selection profile and choosing the install all drivers from the selection profile. Which in reality is turning off plug and play.  Note that if you leave  the Choose a selection profile set to all drivers,  the task sequence is going to inject the drivers in your matching  folder and all the other folders.



If you don’t like to use a new Task in your TS, you can add DriverGroup variables in customsettings.ini like this:

DriverGroup001=%Make%\%Model%

MDT Task sequence will not join domain

When running a sequence to join a domain you will usually not have any issues on actual hardware or using Hyper-V using the below customsettings.ini  that uses the domainadminID  format.

DomainAdmin=domainadminID
DomainAdminPassword=password

Occasionally using the above settings will fail in vmware. If so, try changing your settings as shown below.

DomainAdmin=adminID
DomainAdminDomain=domain
DomainAdminPassword=password

Sysinternals Top 10 Suite Silent Installer

This is a silent installer of my top 10 favorite sysinternals apps. It useful if you want to push it out silently to a select group of users.

• Process Explorer

Find out what files, registry keys and other objects processes have open, which DLLs they have loaded, and more. This uniquely powerful utility will even show you who owns each process.

• AutoRuns

See what programs are configured to startup automatically when your system boots and you login. Autoruns also shows you the full list of Registry and file locations where applications can configure auto-start settings.

• Process Monitor

Monitor file system, Registry, process, thread and DLL activity in real-time

.

• Disk View

Graphical disk sector utility.

• Autologon

Bypass password screen during logon.

 
• TcpView

Active socket command-line viewer.

• BgInfo

This fully-configurable program automatically generates desktop backgrounds that include important information about the system including IP addresses, computer name, network adapters, and more.

• Port Monitor

Monitor serial and parallel port activity with this advanced monitoring tool. It knows about all standard serial and parallel IOCTLs and even shows you a portion of the data being sent and received. Version 3.x has powerful new UI enhancements and advanced filtering capabilities.

• Disk Monitor

This utility captures all hard disk activity or acts like a software disk activity light in your system tray.

• Ram Map

An advanced physical memory usage analysis utility that presents usage information in different ways on its several different tabs.

• Desktops

This utility enables you to create up to four virtual desktops and to use a tray interface or hotkeys to preview what’s on each desktop and easily switch between them.



After installation completes you will have shortcuts for each application in your start menu under all programs – Sysinternals Suite as shown below.

Autoruns 11.60 silent installer

Autoruns is an excellent utility, which has the most comprehensive knowledge of auto-starting locations of any startup monitor, shows you what programs are configured to run during system bootup or login, and shows you the entries in the order Windows processes them. These programs include ones in your startup folder, Run, RunOnce, and other Registry keys. You can configure Autoruns to show other locations, including Explorer shell extensions, toolbars, browser helper objects, Winlogon notifications, auto-start services, and much more. Autorunsgoes way beyond the MSConfig utility bundled with Windows Me and XP.

Autoruns' Hide Signed Microsoft Entries option helps you to zoom in on third-party auto-starting images that have been added to your system and it has support for looking at the auto-starting images configured for other accounts configured on a system.

You'll probably be surprised at how many executables are launched automatically!

Screenshot

The silent installer will add icons to the desktop as well as accessoriessystem tools folder in your start menu.

Windows 8 based PE boot disk with explorer shell and many greatutilities

Update 07.09.13 The iso now includes two versions. One that requires the press any key and one that does not. Choose which ever suits your needs. Also fixed the desktop PE url and updated some of the portable apps.

This is my newly created customized Windows 8 PE x86 boot disk with windows 8 explorer shell and many great diagnostic and repair utilities. I have updated the iso  on 06.07.13 to include two imaging /cloning applications.  Drive Image XML and Drive Snapshot. Shortcuts for each  in the start menu and on the desktop. It iincludes the following open source free apps

Google Chrome 26	Opera 12
7Zip	MBR Fix
ServiWin	Regshot
AMSN	ANote
Eraser	Filezilla FTP
Foxit PDF Reader	Infran View
Multi Res	Notepad ++
Process Explorer	Process Hacker
Tree Size	Tweet Deck
IMDisk Virtual Disk	Defraggler
DriveImage XML	Drive Snapshot
VLC	Virtual Keyboard

All portable apps are listed in the Windows Start Menu under all programs.

If you prefer to use the Portable Apps menu instead then run the Portable Apps Menu shortcut on the desktop.  The portable apps menu also allows you to download more apps by selecting the Apps>Get more apps. These freshly downloaded apps will only be available during the current session.

Screenshots

 

 

It’s a large download (about 500mb) so be patient it can take 10-20 minutes (depending on your internet speed) to download. After downloading burn either version of the bootable iso  file to CD, USB or mount  the iso.

Note:  To prevent its use as a pirated operating system, Windows PE automatically stops running the shell and reboots after 72 hours of continuous use. This time period is not configurable.

ImgBurn 2.5.7.0 silent installer

ImgBurn is a lightweight open source CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application that everyone should have in their toolkit!



For those who may need to install ImgBurn 2.5.7.0 to users silently.  Download this packaged executable from my skydrive link below.

FileZilla 3.14.1 silent Installers for x86 and x64

FileZilla is an excellent open source FTP client.



For those who may need to install FileZilla 3.14.1  to users silently. Download the packaged executables for both the x86 and x64 versions below.

Notepad++ 6.5.5 silent installer

Notepad++ is an excellent free source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages.



For those who may need to install Notepad++ 6.5.5 to users silently.
Updated Mar. 21/2014

Waves Collection Windows Wallpaper Theme

This is my Windows 7/8 Waves Collection Windows Wallpaper Theme. After downloading double-click waves.themepack to install it.



Previews of the wave pictures in the theme

PowerShell 3 quick switch to PowerShell 2

PowerShell 3 improves on PowerShell 2 by adding almost 500 new cmdlets built-in.  One drawback unfortunately, is cmdlets or scripts written for version 2 do not always work as expected.

If you need to quickly switch to version 2 while you are in PowerShell 3 type the following.

 PowerShell.exe -version 2  

 
You will see the copyright info change to 2009 and if you type get-host it will display version 2.



To switch back to version 3 you can either  close and re-open PowerShell or simply type in your current session

 PowerShell.exe -version 3  

 

Set PowerShell icon launch to default to run as Administrator

Many commands in PowerShell will not run unless they are run as an administrator.  You can of coarse right click on the taskbar icon and choose the ‘Run as Administrator’ option. But if you prefer to have the icon or shortcut default to run PowerShell as Administrator then you can right click on it once, and choose the ‘Properties’ item.

In the window that pops up, near the bottom right of the window click  the ‘Advanced’ button.

On the next (and last) screen, you will see a checkbox with ‘Run as administrator’. make sure that checkbox is selected, click ‘OK’, then ‘OK’ on the main Properties window to exit .

From now on out, when you click the PowerShell icon, it will run as administrator and you should see the Administrator prefix displayed in the PowerShell title bar.

Get memory configuration of all vm's on hyper-v server and output totext file

Two line powershell script that gets memory configuration of all vm’s and outputs to text file.  Change path and name of vmmemory.txt to suit your needs.

Works on Server 2012 with powershell 3

 Get-VM | Get-VMMemory | out-file -filepath C:\VMMemory.txt  
 C:\VMMemory.txt   

Get all vm’s on a hyper-v server and output to text file

This two line PowerShell script will get all vm’s on a hyper-v server and output to text file. Change path and name of vmrunning.txt to suit your needs.

Works on Server 2012 with powershell 3

 Get-VM | Where-Object {$_.State -eq ‘Running’} | out-file -filepath C:VMrunning.txt  
 C:VMrunning.txt  

Powershell 3 combo installer

These combo installers will update PowerShell to Version 3 on either Windows 7 x86 or Windows 7 x64 / Server 2008 R2

The installer runs silently and installs both the dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe  and either the Windows6.1-KB2506143-x86.msu or Windows6.1-KB2506143-x64.msu files. When the script  completes a pop-up prompting for a reboot will be displayed.




After re-booting and launching powershell type get-host to display the version number.