Windows 10 and the Microsoft Store

A screenshot of a video game

Many companies would like to turn off the Microsoft Store so that not everyone installs “Netflix” or “Ages of Empires” on their corporate device. There are many ways, but which one is the right one, that depends. The risk exists that if the store is deactivated incorrectly, the integrated apps (for example the calculator or the photo app) will not receive any updates. However, there are a few basics that need to be clarified before you can get started.

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End User Computing MeetUp – Bonn / Koblenz Area (Germany)

End User Computing End User Computing MeetUp - Bonn / Koblenz Area (Germany) 2

For a long time, I have been planning a MeetUp on the topic of End User Computing, which I am starting to organize and regularly offering now. Many can’t imagine much about End-User Computing (EuC), in general, it’s about working on the end device, i.e. the computer, tablet, mobile phone and Co.

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Properly secure and document group policies

GPOBACKUP Properly secure and document group policies 4

It’s been some time since I started working on the first basic version of the script in August 2014, and posted about it on CONET’s blog. This first version came to just 6 lines of code without the header. Since then a lot has happened and the script has grown in the TechNet Gallery. Time for a new article about the script and its function.

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New version of get-GPOBackup

Neue Version von get-GPObackup

It has once again reached me a feature desire, and here is the implementation. With version 1.58 the group policy templates can be saved from the central store. This is especially good when importing new templates that may be buggy. This even happens to Microsoft with the German translations for Windows 10 times quite often. If you don’t know the script yet, I recommend having a look at the article: “Gruppenrichtlinien richtig sichern und dokumentieren“.

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Administrative templates in Intune – incl. list

Intune ADM Template

In January 2019 I reported about the preview of the administrative templates in Intune. Now it’s time to see what happened. Meanwhile, the function is no longer in the preview phase and it has grown too.

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Local Administrator Password Solution (LAPS)

041917 0532 LocalAdmini5 Local Administrator Password Solution (LAPS) 9

In the past, a company-specific standard was usually always used for local administrator passwords. But what do you do if an employee who knows the default password leaves the company?

Right, it should be changed. In the past, Group Policies (GPO) were often used for this, even if the password was in clear text in SysVol. This was fortunately stopped by Microsoft. What other solutions are available? In practice I have seen VBS or PowerShell scripts, the good ones have random passwords, the bad ones only a standard.

But isn’t there a well designed solution from Microsoft? Yes, there is, Local Administrator Password Solution (LAPS).

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