Understanding the Processing Order for GPSI
I have always wondered how Group Policy Software Installation knows what MSIs to install when. Looking over Experts-Exchange and several forums/blogs, most made it out to be like magic.
Today, I stumbled across this article: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/cc817587.aspx
Categories: Management, Performance, Troubleshooting Tags: Group Policy, GUID, MSI, registry
A Blazing Fast PowerShell Console
The faster things become – the faster we want things to become.
For example – PowerShell. On my machine, it takes about 5-6 seconds to be fully functional. Because I link PowerShell scripts into certain MMCs, starting PowerShell quickly is very important to me!
Categories: Management, Performance, Scripting Tags: PowerShell, script, Technet
Cleaning Up Home Folders with PowerShell
If you use home folders and/or folder redirection, you probably are wasting some space! When a user in AD is deleted, their documents will still remain on your server. To reclaim this space, we can use a very simply PowerShell script:
Categories: Management, Performance, Scripting Tags: active, AD, Folder Redirection, PoSTD, PowerShell, Remove-Item
Testing a Website under Multiple IE Versions
When vendors update their web apps, they will often say that IE 10 isn’t supported and we should use another browser. When I test this – I will visit the website and simply press F12 to bring up the developer tools. Then I can cycle through the various versions of IE in order to validate their theory. With the release of IE 10 for Windows 7, this tip is sure to save you some time!!
Categories: Management, Performance, Troubleshooting Tags: IE
Enabling Indexing of Encrypted Files
If your search for content in encrypted files is failing then you may need to enable the Index Encrypted Files option available in Windows 7. Windows uses the index to perform very fast searches on your computer. Unlike the previous versions of Windows, Windows 7 supports indexing the contents of encrypted files. This makes searching encrypted content as easy as searching unencrypted content. By default, non-encrypted content (even non-encrypted properties of encrypted files) are always indexed. Indexing of encrypted files is possible on local file systems and an index rebuilt is required when you enable or disable this function. Read more…
Categories: Performance Tags: BitLocker, encrypted files, encryption, Index, Indexing, Indexing Options, PIN, rebuild index, Search
Windows 7 Defrag.exe Tool
Windows 7 handles fragmented data or files quite well, in fact, by default a disk defragmenter task runs on a schedule but some users may still want to perform a manual defrag exercise to improve system performance. The defragmentation tool (defrag.exe) in Windows 7 has several new parameters which you can invoke from a command prompt.
Categories: Performance, Utilities Tags: defrag, defrag.exe, defragmentation, fragmentation, parameters, schedule, tool
Windows 7 Monitoring and Performance Built-in Tools
Do you know which tool to use when applications and services running on Windows 7 encounter problems? The tools provided by Windows 7 can help you monitor resources, establish baselines and logs, and determine where problems might occur. Sometimes, you may need to further configure these tools or create basic scripts to address your particular problem. In this post you will find a brief overview of the various monitoring and performance tools available with your Windows 7 operating system.
Categories: Performance, Utilities Tags: action center, monitor, monitoring, Process explorer, Reliability Monitor, Resource Monitor, Task Manager, Windows Experience Index