This great Powershell script will ping all machines listed in a text file and put the live results into a Excel workbook:

$erroractionpreference = “SilentlyContinue”
$a = New-Object -comobject Excel.Application
$a.visible = $True

$b = $a.Workbooks.Add()
$c = $b.Worksheets.Item(1)

$c.Cells.Item(1,1) = “Machine Name”
$c.Cells.Item(1,2) = “Ping Status”

$d = $c.UsedRange
$d.Interior.ColorIndex = 19
$d.Font.ColorIndex = 11
$d.Font.Bold = $True
$d.EntireColumn.AutoFit($True)

$intRow = 2

$colComputers = get-content C:\temp\server_list.txt
foreach ($strComputer in $colComputers)
{
$c.Cells.Item($intRow, 1) = $strComputer.ToUpper()

# This is the key part

$ping = new-object System.Net.NetworkInformation.Ping
$Reply = $ping.send($strComputer)
if ($Reply.status –eq “Success”)
{
$c.Cells.Item($intRow, 2) = “Active”
}
else
{
$c.Cells.Item($intRow, 2) = “–Offline–”
}
$Reply = “”
$intRow = $intRow + 1

}
$d.EntireColumn.AutoFit()

Display names of the services changed in the R2 version of SCOM 2007.  The names themselves did NOT change, so if you use ‘net stop’ or ‘net start’ that will not be affected. If you are looking for the services in the services.msc, the new names are list below. It had me stumped for a few minutes!

Here’s a breakdown:

Open the command prompt and navigate to %windir%\System32 directory

slmgr.vbs -cpky (this clears the KMS entry you may have)
slmgr.vbs -upk (this removes any product key installed)
slmgr.vbs -ipk xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx (where the x’s are the new product key you want to use)
slmgr.vbs -ato (this activates the server)

Type slmgr.vbs for further options….

Shared disk options when trying to create a cluster using virtualized nodes within Microsoft Hyper-V are very limited - in fact, only iSCSI will work! You can no longer use a shared SCSI device as you could with older Microsoft virtualization product or like you can with products from VMWare.

I was happy to find that StarWind offers a free iSCSI Target Server (http://www.starwindsoftware.com/) - it’s very simple to install and share out storage and best of all it is free - great for test / dev environments.

Gavin McShera has a fantastic step-by-step guide on how to set up a 2008 cluster in a Hyper-V environment over here –> http://blogs.technet.com/pfe-ireland/archive/2008/05/16/how-to-create-a-windows-server-2008-cluster-within-hyper-v-using-simulated-iscsi-storage.aspx

A colleague of mine has created an excellent Maintenance Mode GUI for System Centre Operation Manager based on Powershell forms. Head over to http://yangtao-blog.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!78150852A51B249C!209.entry to find out more.

There is a fantastic script on Kurtdepauw’s blog (http://kurtdepauw.wordpress.com/2007/11/10/dbbalancer-load-balance-your-exchange-mailbox-databases/) to assist in evenly balancing your Exchange 2007 databases so they are of similar size.

I have customized it slightly and highlight the 2 lines below as useful modifications:

Line 78 - added ‘| Where-Object {$_.Name -notlike “Archive Storage Group”}’ - this is very useful if you want to exclude certain databases from being touched by the balancing script

$DBs = Get-MailboxDatabase -Server $Global:hshParameters.MailboxServer | Where-Object {$_.Name -notlike "Archive Storage Group"}

Line 130 - added -PreserveMailboxSizeLimit switch - you will need to add this so that you can move mailboxes that exceed the database default limits

Move-Mailbox -Identity $Mailboxes[$intRandomMailbox] -TargetDatabase $Global:strSmallestDB.Split(”;”)[0] -PreserveMailboxSizeLimit -Confirm:$false

This PowerShell script queries the defined Exchange 2007 server and emails in HTML format the top 25 biggest mailboxes to the defined receipents. Simply create a scheduled task and you can have a automated weekly report:


# Author: danovich@danovich.com.au 24/02/2009
# Name: top25.ps1
# Purpose: Report on the 25 largest mailboxes on an Exchange server and email this report in HTML format

$SMTPClient = New-Object System.Net.Mail.SMTPClient $SMTPServer
$SMTPClient.Send($SMTPMessage)


To run a Exchange 2007 Powershell script as a scheduled task you need to call the Exchange Shell as part of the command eg:

powershell -psconsolefile "C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\bin\exshell.psc1" -command "& 'your script.ps1′ “

Powershell and Exchange 2007 allow for setting user mailbox limits (including warning and send / receive restrictions) based on Active Directory Group Membership.

For example, you can create a Powershell script that sets a 1GB mailbox limit for all users in the ‘Exchange Mailbox 1GB Storage Limit’ Active Directory Group.  Schedule this script to automatically run overnight and you no longer need to move users between mailstores or manually set limits in the account properties. Code below:

Whilst recently installing the Hub Transport role of Exchange 2007 SP1, the installation failed because it could not start the OpsMan server (it was disabled, another story). After enabling the service I went to reinstall the role and had the error shown below, indicated that I needed to perform the “BuildToBuildUpgrade” action.

After checking out the Exchange Team Blog (http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2007/05/21/439529.aspx) it looked like I needed to remove a registry key.

Delete Watermark

Delete the Watermark key and restart your Exchange installation. For me, the Hub Transport role had successfully installed, it just looked like the installation said it had failed after unsuccessfully trying to start the OpsMgr services as one of the last tasks in the installation.