Hyper-V has a very interesting feature that allows to save a lot of space: By creating a golden VHDX Disk with the base operating system, you can then use so called “Differencing” disks, which reference the Master VHDX and only save the changes on their disk.

So, first things first: Just create a normal VM to prepare the golden image for later use.

Specify Generation 2

Give the Golden disk a self-explanatory name

Before starting the VM, disable automatic checkpoints (in VMware known as Snapshots) and give it more juice. Do not forget to apply changes:

Install the OS (standard procedure)

Once the OS installed and custom settings are made, the machine is ready to be Sysprep’ed.

Delete the VM once stopped, the disk will not be deleted. Then locate the VHDX and set it into Read-Only mode.

Now a new VM can be created in Hyper-V with a Differencing disk. Note: In the VM creation wizard specify “Attach a virtual disk later”:

Now in the VM settings under SCSI Controller add a new Hard Drive:

Select the last option for Differencing:

This will be the new disk name:

And finally, the base disk we created previously:

Before powering on the machine make sure the new disk is first in the boot order.

The VM is up and running!

Notice the size of the new VHDX. Only 1.4 GB!

In the VM settings you can once again inspect the disk and see the relationship with the golden disk.

Hey folks!

Here is a quick way to find inactive AD Users in your environment. Get-ADUser ist the cmdlet we are going to use.

We are getting all users from the highest OU (domain.com) and using the Property LastLogonDate, which will not be returned if not specified in the -Properties parameter. After that a Where statement is going to show users that haven’t logged in since 90 days or more.

Get-ADUser -Filter * -Properties lastlogondate | where { $_.lastlogondate -lt (Get-Date).AddDays(-90) }

We could also specify the OU where the command is going to search:

Get-ADUser -Filter * -Properties lastlogondate -SearchBase “OU=TerminatedEmployees,DC=Company,DC=com”| where { $_.lastlogondate -lt (Get-Date).AddDays(-90) }|select Name,Lastlogondate

There is also the -SearchScope Onelevel parameter to determine that we are not going to search recursively:

Get-ADUser -Filter * -Properties lastlogondate -SearchBase “OU=TerminatedEmployees,DC=Company, DC=com” -SearchScope OneLevel | where { $_.lastlogondate -lt (Get-Date).AddDays(-90) }|select Name,Lastlogondate

Have fun!

MS Edge Beta has been out for some days now and the Group Policy Templates are already available for download, which are crucial for IT Pros.

You can download them here.

How to import them in the GP Editor? Easy. You can test them on your local machine first. Just copy the files msedge.admx and msedgeupdate.admx to C:\windows\PolicyDefinitions and the language .adml files to C:\windows\PolicyDefinitions\en-US.

In an Enterprise environment you normally move these files into the central group policy store, located under \\domain.com\SYSVOL\domain.com\policies\PolicyDefinitions.

After opening Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc), under Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates you will see the newly imported Policies:

Now let’s specifically configure the IE Mode feature. For that we need to configure two settings. The first will configure the IE Mode and the second one lists the websites that are affected by IE Mode.

Under Microsoft Edge > Configure Internet Explorer Integration you want to select Internet Explorer Mode in order to integrate IE with the new Edge in case one of the specificied URLs is visited:

The second one is located under Windows Components > Internet Explorer > Use the Enterprise Mode IE Website List. You can use a file:///C:/local/path.xml, a \\network\path or a https://URL that hosts the XML file. I will be using a local path here.

With the MS Tool Enterprise Mode Site List Manager you can easily add or edit the site list. Just add a new URL, select the IE Mode you want to use and save it as an XML.

Now do a gpupdate /force, restart Edge and test your site. You will know that the policy has applied if you see the IE icon when you visit a site you have specified in the Enterprise Mode Site List Manager.

If you are having issues getting this to work, make sure your device has the latest Windows Updates installed, like stated in the Microsoft documentation.

Also this feature is not yet supported on Windows Server 2016 and some older versions of Windows 10.

If you have problems with MS Edge on Windows Server 2016 RDS with Citrix XenApp, you will have to exclude the process msedge.exe from Citrix hooks:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\CtxHook
REG_SZ “ExcludedImageNames”
Value “msedge.exe”

Microsoft yesterday announced in their blog post that the Beta Build of their Edge Browser is generally available.

If you don’t know yet, Microsoft is replacing “old” Edge which had the EdgeHTML rendering engine with Chromium, a rendering engine Chrome also uses.

To this day, two channels were available for use: Canary and Dev. Canary updates daily and Dev weekly. The Beta channel should be a stable release containing the properly tested features and updates every 6 weeks.

Enterprise Customers can also download the Policy Files with the Administrative Templates (.admx). Some interesting settings are roaming profiles and Internet Explorer Mode. Roaming profiles make the deployment in RDS (formerly Terminal Services) environments very appealing.

Microsoft Edge can be downloaded here – you have the option to download any of the 3 different builds.

Are you trying to delete a local Windows User Profile because something doesn’t behave the way it should? Here is a quick and easy tip to remember.

Deleting a user profile is very straightforward, if you know how to. Just deleting C:\Users\<username> is not enough though. In fact stranger things might occur if you just delete the user’s folder.

There are two ways of deleting a user profile:

Method 1: Advanced System Settings (Very easy)

By going into the Advanced System Settings you can delete a user profile. The user obviously has to be logged off, otherwise the “Delete” button will be greyed out.

Method 2: Regedit

Note: It is always a good idea to make a backup of your current Registry entries BEFORE making any changes. You could for example rename the registry key or “Export” it by right clicking on the key you want to backup. Sub-keys are also backed up.

There are cases where the user profile is not listed in the Advanced System Settings, but the user folder is present under C:\Users. In that case you can firstly delete the profile SID under

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\

You do not have to know the user’s SID, the Key “ProfileImagePath” will help you determine the username associated with the SID.

After deleting the whole key (left side), you can also delete the user’s folder under C:\Users.