PowerShell

Digitally signing my Toast Notification Script to use with ConfigMgr, AppLocker and Constrained Language Mode

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Introduction

My Toast Notification Script unfortunately only works in PowerShell Full Language Mode (for the time being. I have plans to look into this).

This requirement does not work well with AppLocker and having Constrained Language Mode enabled. My solution to this, is to digitally sign the New-ToastNotification.ps1 file. While working my way through the process myself, I realized that a few changes to the Toast Notification Script itself was needed.

The changes made to this “edition” of the script, are only targeted  Configuration Manager. I’m not sure that moving between PowerShell Language Modes coming from Proactive Remediations in Intune, is something that’s possible (if anyone knows this, please let me know).

Additionally to the changes needed, I thought the process itself would make a decent and useful blog post. So here goes. 🙂

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Set primary and secondary DNS server addresses using ConfigMgr and PowerShell

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Introduction

Just a very quick nugget, finishing up this year of IT.

We needed to change the configured DNS server addresses, on a good bunch of (non-domain joined) servers before heading into 2022. Per usual, I don’t like to do stuff manually, so I took the opportunity to write up a PowerShell script in order to assist us.

I figured this is something anybody might find useful, so I wanted to share the script I ended up creating.

For your convenience, I’m also illustrating how this can be used in combination with ConfigMgr, as this obviously was a requirement for automation purposes.

Happy New Year! 🙂

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Detect and Remediate Lenovo Vantage vulnerabilities using Proactive Remediations and Microsoft Endpoint Manager

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Introduction

Just a quick blog post, on how to detect and remediate the Lenovo Vantage Vulnerabilities disclosed this week.

This surely has been an eventful week for most IT professionals, beginning with the #Log4j nightmare, and now ending with some Lenovo Vantage fun. Joking aside, this fix is pretty easy, but making sure and proving the vulnerability has been mitigated throughout your environment, might be something else. This post explains how I did.

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New Security Baseline version November 2021 for Windows 10/11 in Microsoft Endpoint Manager

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Introduction

Super quick blog post, covering the new version of Security Baselines for Windows 10 and 11 in Intune, which was delivered to us with the 2111 service release.

Not much has changed. In fact, if coming from the previous baseline version (December 2020), only one setting has been added: Scan scripts that are used in Microsoft browsers.

So lets take a quick peek at the process I went through, in order to update my Security Baseline.

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Windows 10 Toast Notification Script Update: Custom notification app and more built-in prevention from disabling toast notifications

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Introduction

It’s been a while since the last update on this script. I admit that. Better late than never, I guess.

This update brings a slight improvement to the looks of the toast notifications, and (almost) definitely removes the option for the end-user to disable the notifications as well.

Also, I was wondering about naming the script differently. The script surely works with Windows 11 too, but seeing the entire toast framework was introduced with Windows 10, and Windows 11 behind the scenes is still appearing as version 10.0, I will stick with the current name.

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Enable ‘Block abuse of exploited vulnerable signed drivers’ in a jiffy using PowerShell and ConfigMgr

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Introduction

I find this highly relevant to share at this day. Especially in regards to yesterday’s ‘false positive’ situation, where a lot of system admins got a good scare, when Defender for Endpoint reported that “Suspicious ‘PowEmotet’ behavior was blocked’ on a high percentage of the enrolled devices.

What I really mean by this, is that when you have the option to reduce the attack surface of your environment, you should look into doing so ASAP.

Let’s say yesterdays situation was real, and you for whatever reason didn’t have behavior monitoring enabled in Microsoft Defender Antivirus. You would regret that pretty soon after being hit, when you realize that it could have been prevented.

Same goes for above. Rather look into enabling this new ASR (Attack Surface Reduction) rule today, rather than later after being compromised.

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Back to basics: Modifying registry for the CURRENT user coming from SYSTEM context

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Introduction

Back in the days, when I started out being a newbie in the software deployment world, I had no real grasp about the different contexts (USER vs. SYSTEM), and I found it to be a trivial task to combine the two.

Today I find it an obvious approach, and in this post, I will give a quick example of how to modify registry for the CURRENTLY logged on user, while delivering an installation in SYSTEM context.

Oftentimes the scenario is, that you need to deploy software which requires local SYSTEM permissions, and while doing so, you’d like to modify the registry for the CURRENTLY logged on user.

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Install Lenovo Drivers and BIOS directly from Lenovo’s Driver Catalog during OSD using Configuration Manager

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Introduction

This is something that I’ve wanted to do for a while; to always install the latest BIOS and drivers automatically during OSD.

Keeping BIOS and driver versions up to date, can be a tedious and time consuming task, and I wanted to take on a more cloud-like approach.

For that reason, I’ve spent some time on Lenovo Thin Installer as well as Lenovo System Update, but they didn’t quite live up to my expectations and need for flexibility.

Instead – and by coincident – I stumbled upon this awesome PowerShell module: jantari/LSUClient

It does exactly what Thin Installer and System Update offers, as well as giving you the flexibility of PowerShell. What’s not to like?

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Remove desktop shortcuts for the current user and public profile using PowerShell and Proactive Remediations

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Introduction

I think most IT-professionals who’s working with software delivery in some sort, has dealt with software and software installers in general, that puts a shortcut on the desktop by default. Annoying indeed.

Typically you’re in for a treat, when trying to figure out how to customize the installer, to prevent the shortcut on the desktop from being created. It’s not rare either, that the installer simply doesn’t support that.

And finally, we are all aware of the desktop-shortcut-mess, when using OneDrive PC folder backup (formerly known as ‘Known Folder Move’), where shortcuts are duplicated and synced between devices. Yikes.

Long story short, I was tired of spending time on desktop shortcuts, so I figured it was time to create my own solution to the problem.

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Install the new Remote Desktop Connection Manager (RDCMan) with ConfigMgr and PowerShell

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Introduction

Another kickstarting blog post, getting into the swing of things again after a somewhat lacking period.

Now, RDCman has been revived and arrived last week in a new version 2.8.

For fun and giggles, I did a short PowerShell script which uninstalls the old version (2.7, registered with windows installer) and downloads the new version 2.8 directly from live.sysinternals.com.

This is a little something on the script itself and how to put that to use with ConfigMgr.

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