What to do When the Postman Doesn’t Knock

No matter how much we try, there will inevitably be messages that the system gives up on and are unable to be delivered. Luckily Microsoft Exchange, as our postman, does a pretty good job of giving us the clues as to why the message was not delivered.

File System Cleanup

Let's face it both applications and people are terrible at cleaning up after themselves. As a result, cleaning up file systems has to be one of the most common requests I have had to help organizations through in my career and it's not always the servers needing the cleanup. Workstations often need the cleanup far more than the servers do. Organizations often target the network share locations for cleanup because that is where they see direct costs associated with this unnecessary collection of files in the form of additional backup media and premature system replacement costs. Workstations though also have file system cleanup needs as well.

Cleanup Unused User Profiles

Whether it is a terminal server, a loaner laptop, a training machine, or simply a machine that has outlived its owners, user profiles tend to collect on end-user accessed machines consuming system resources with no payback. It is best to address them and keep them addressed before the space they consume causes problems during an application push or other endeavor.

Cleanup Unused User Accounts

If your environment is anything like those that I have been a part of, it is a relatively simple thing for user accounts to continue to exist long after their true usefulness is past. Most organizations are good at cleaning up accounts that actually belong to a person, once the individual has moved on for whatever reason. This is because there are usually checks and balances in place, such as a reminder from your HR staff, to make sure these accounts are properly closed out.

Bulk User Changes

Whether it is due to organization changes, staff promotion, mobile carrier changes, or some other reason, keeping all of the user detail fields such as Title, Phone number, etc. can be a huge task especially as your organization grows over about 20 people. Luckily, there is an easier way to attack this problem than manually updating all of the user account object manually.

Computer Account Cleanup

With the Labor Day holiday now behind us, the summer vacation season is unofficially over. It is time to buckle down and address the cobwebs that have been collecting in the environment while you have been short-staffed addressing paid time off throughout your organization. With that in mind, I thought I would share some of my favorite scripts this week that help to keep the systems environment tidy.
One task that many organizations struggle with is keeping computer accounts throughout the domain structure in check and current.

Office 2010 – Build Your Installation Package

With the tasks that were discussed earlier in the week already underway, it is finally time to start prepping the actual installation media for your rollout. As was the case with the previous versions of Office, Microsoft has included a tool, the Office Customization Tool (OCT), to allow you to customize the installation properties for your organization's rollout. This tool greatly simplifies the installation process and lessens the chances of human error resulting in a much higher installation success rate for your rollout.