PowerShell & Automation – Owen Reynolds Personal blog

VMware PowerCLI automation for vSphere environmental checks

The TASK New automation efforts are often born from the need to automate repetitive tasks. I was a dedicated virtualization consultant from 2017 to early 2024. During that time, I’d often get engaged to help out customers who were running into performance and scalability issues with their vSphere environments, sometimes it started with the dreaded…
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A simple / fast method to ID EOL Windows server OS’s by PowerShell

In this post, I’ll talk about how to use a simple PowerShell script to scan for end-of-life versions of windows server within a Microsoft active directory environment. The script was written in October 2023, when a lot of IT depts are working hard to Win 2012 to meet the Oct 10, 2023 end-of-support timeline. It’s…
Read more: A simple / fast method to ID EOL Windows server OS’s by PowerShell
Before / after metrics for Citrix environments using free and built-in tools/scripts

Intro This post builds on a post I’d written last year on , where a client asked me to implement “Citrix direct workspaces” and wanted to show the before / after You might be engaged by your client or employer to investigate a performance issue. The request could come when you’re properly caffeinated and ready…
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Custom offline ISO Windows deployment method as a packer alternative

Background For 2022, it was time to start using the packer automation I learned / wrote about in 2022, however, when I first tried to use it with my first 2 clients, it failed, in each case, for a different reason. On a third attempt to use it, I didn’t have access to the client’s…
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Packer Part 3 – Windows 11 build

Intro Hot on the heels of the CUGC presentation I did 2 weeks back with my co-worker / friend Jonathan Pitre, I took some time this week to update my Packer config files for Windows 11. I have a client who wants to do a Citrix POC with Windows 11, so, let’s brain dump all…
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Windows build automation w Packer / Powershell 2022 redux

Last year, I wrote a long post about using Packer.IO to automate basic VMware shell creation and Win 10 / Win 2019 installation. At that time, I only ended up using the solution for re-builds on own home lab. This year, I’ve had the need to build golden images for multiple clients, each time, the…
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Random fix: Resolving issues with Chrome pinned icons associated to 32-bit chrome where 64-bit is now installed

Season’s greetings! Here’s an interesting fix I found to an odd issue from last week at a client It should be noted this issue could probably be fixed with Avanti, or WEM, but that wasn’t an option for my client, so I just used PowerShell instead For this client, we had been pushing a managed…
Read more: Random fix: Resolving issues with Chrome pinned icons associated to 32-bit chrome where 64-bit is now installed
10 min Windows 10 / Server 2019 build automation via OSDBuilder, autounattend.xml and Packer.IO

Intro As IT pros, we’ve got no shortage of new / interesting and useful tools available to us. With the adoption of open-source software into consumer and enterprise environments, a lot of the tools are free! As long as you don’t need serious 24/7 support that is How do you know which tools to use?…
Read more: 10 min Windows 10 / Server 2019 build automation via OSDBuilder, autounattend.xml and Packer.IO
Powershell health check script

I’ve been writing PowerShell scripts since 2015. One of the first scripts I wrote was a health check script my home computers. When I first wrote it a few years back, it’s main purpose was to identify those computers that hadn’t been rebooted in a long whileAs time has gone on, I’ve added a lot…
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QUIET! Simple powershell code to set current_user / default_user reg keys to "NONE"

I think for every PC i’ve used /worked on over the past 20 years, the first thing I do after logging on is set the “system sounds” to NONE. I don’t need beeps for every time I fat-finger windows + R or whatnot. I recently re-installed Win 10 on my personal laptop, and wanted to…
Read more: QUIET! Simple powershell code to set current_user / default_user reg keys to "NONE"

Category: PowerShell & Automation