Ivan’s cloud and security blog – Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, Defender ATP, security, DevOps and scripting

Get ‘Diagnostic Settings’ config on all Azure Resources using PowerShell

7 January, 2021 by Ivan Dretvic

As we start to plan a consolidation of our Log Analytics Workspaces and cleaning up years of partial implementations, we needed to discover all resources that have diagnostic settings configured. Objectives search through all subscriptions provide the following details Resource in question Configured Diagnostic Settings Details on what metrics and logs are configured Export it … Read more

My WordPress configuration suitable for a tech blogger

6 January, 2021 by Ivan Dretvic

Well it has come time to review, update and clean up my WordPress instance to get it refreshed so i can start to put some new posts. Below is a brief snapshot of the plugins and themes i use, and high level clean-up steps i performed. Themes GeneratePress theme (https://wordpress.org/themes/generatepress/) as its clean and free … Read more

Removing CA eTrust 8.x AntiVirus through a script

5 January, 202113 October, 2014 by Ivan Dretvic

I had a problem where i needed to remove the AV off our servers on a large scale and found that the manual process for this was quite time consuming.

Because CA sold the antivirus business to TotalDefence, a lot of the documentation disappeared from their website so it took some playing around with how to do it successfully.

The batch file does the following steps:

Stops all eTrust services.
Kills the processes just in case they are lingering
runs MSIEXEC uninstall of the software, in the order that they should be. ITM Agent first, then iTechnology iGateway.
Prompts to tell you to reboot machine

The script is relatively simple, and quite rudimentary –

Deploying GreenShot screen capture software with SCCM 2012

5 January, 202115 January, 2014 by Ivan Dretvic

A colleague of mine asked if i could make a handy screen capture tool available to our users. I said ‘Sure – piece of cake!’. Well it was for the most part, aside from the installer loading the website post install.

I will document how i successfully completed the deployment of this software to users who opted to install it via Software Catalog website.

Managing location based printers in an enterprise environment

18 November, 201315 November, 2013 by Ivan Dretvic

I thought about why managing printing in an enterprise is so frustrating and came to a conclusion that the solutions available (and available to my budget) do not fill end users requirements but IT administrators requirements. Ultimately users what to print something, to the closest printer without having to install printers/drivers or speak to IT, where as IT administrators want to control deployment, configure default settings and centrally control access.

Deploying Java 7 JRE – Deep Dive! (Part 2)

6 January, 202115 November, 2013 by Ivan Dretvic

Welcome to Part 2 of my series of Deploying Java 7 JRE – Deep Dive!

Hopefully my first article, Deploying Java 7 JRE – Deep Dive! (Part 1) has helped you understand the history behind what Java have been doing over the past year and how all these changes will affect you. This part will cover the steps to successfully overcome the deployment of Java in an enterprise. So lets get into it!

Deploying Java 7 JRE – Deep Dive! (Part 1)

5 January, 202115 November, 2013 by Ivan Dretvic

We have all had troubles with Java and quite frankly its been a challenge to keep up with all the changes. Between Java 7 Update 10 through to update 45 there have been changes in features and functions that affect how IT administrators deploy the software in an enterprise, let alone general software functionality (wont be covering that). I think the best outcome of all of this is Oracle’s commitment to supporting enterprise deployments of Java.

Migrating DHCP from Windows 2003 to Windows 2012 and setting up failover: Part 1

31 July, 201330 July, 2013 by Ivan Dretvic

The principles of DHCP are simple and Microsoft has not changed its core since before Windows NT days, however its not something you shouldn’t undertake lightly or ill-prepared. Most of your client devices will rely on DHCP to function and failing to migrate seamlessly will only cause disruptions to your business.

This article is to help document how to migrate multiple active DHCP servers to a new DHCP server running on Windows Server 2012. We will finalise the configuration by creating a failover for all scopes to a secondary server. I am writing the to include all the necessary information that I think is required to complete this successfully.

Decomission a Windows 2003 or 2008 Domain Controller

5 January, 202127 May, 2013 by Ivan Dretvic

To decommission an Active Directory Domain Controller (Windows Server 2003/2008) is a fairly straightforward task so long as you make sure nothing is relying on that server specifically. I will cover off the demotions steps (fairly easy) but I will go through a checklist (and how-to) of gotchas that you might get caught out when doing this.

UPDATE: 27/09/2019 – Quick update to say that this is definitely the most popular comment on my blog. Thank you all for the all the comments, and please do keep them coming. The more comments i get, the more likely i will start to write articles again.

Common WMI queries I have found useful

5 January, 202130 October, 2012 by Ivan Dretvic

Below are some common WMI Queries that I have used, both during OSD (Operating System Deployment), startup/logon scripts or similar situations. I have broken them down to their most common form, and will show you how you can leverage this in a VB script at the end.

I will continue to update this post with new useful queries that I come across.