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📝 Inventorying and reporting is part of a system administrator's job. This information is usually provided in Excel format. You can easily export and import any data into Excel files using PowerShell. 👨‍💻
✅ In this article we have looked at ways of interacting with an XLSX file using an Excel.Application COM object (requires Microsoft Office installed) and by using the cross-platform ImportExcel module (doesn't require Excel installed).
Reading and Writing Excel Files with PowerShell

Read and Write Excel (XLSX) Files with PowerShell | Windows OS Hub You can access the data in an Excel file directly from within PowerShell. Although PowerShell has built-in cmdlets for importing (Import-CSV) and exporting (Export-CSV) tabular data from/to CSV files, the…

How to deploy Language Packs to existing installations of Microsoft Office using ODT

Deploying Microsoft Office Language Packs | Windows OS Hub In this article, we’ll look at manual and automated ways to deploy additional language packs and set the default language in Microsoft Office 2019, 2016, and Microsoft 365 Apps for…

⚙️A RAM disk is a virtual hard drive made up of your computer’s RAM. It can’t save data permanently, but it’s incredibly fast.
✅ Some software or action performance can benefit from the extremely fast read and write speeds when it uses the RAM disk as storage or a cache.
How to Create RAM Disk on Windows 10/11 and Windows Server

How to Create and Use a RAM Drive on Windows | Windows OS Hub A RAM disk is a virtual drive created in a free area of RAM that the OS sees as a normal local hard drive. The advantage of RAM Drive is…

This article is an introduction to the Ansible modules that can be used to manage various VMware objects in a VMware infrastructure.

Managing VMware Infrastructure with Ansible | Windows OS Hub You can use Ansible to automate some tasks in your VMware infrastructure. You can automatically deploy and configure ESXi hosts, manage network settings, start, stop, or delete VMs, deploy virtual…

📂There are times when a file is open on a Windows server file share and you have a need to see which user or process has it open. These open files can be locked, preventing users from editing them, causing software upgrade errors, delaying a reboot, and so on.
✅ This article describes how to quickly find and close open files and processes on a Windows file server.

How to View and Close Open Files on Windows Server | Windows OS Hub A Windows file server admin can list the files that are open in a shared folder and force locked files to close. If a user opens a file in a…

⚙️ Process Monitor (ProcMon) is a Windows tool designed to monitor, view and record Windows file, registry and system activity in real time.
✅ Use Process Monitor to create a boot log if you are having problems with applications during startup, or if Windows is slow to boot (‘Enable Boot Logging’ option). Process Monitor captures events as Windows boot, so you can analyze exactly which process and/or application is causing the problem.

Find The Cause of Windows Slow Boot with Process Monitor | Windows OS Hub To identify drivers, programs, and services that cause Windows to bool slowly, you must enable startup logging. In this guide, we will have a look at how to create a…

🛡 Installing corporate security screensavers on computer monitors is an effective way to remind employees of the company's existing security rules and regulations.
👌The GPO allows you to copy the images of the Information Security Tip to the user's computer and display them as a slide show via the screen saver settings.
How to Configure and Deploy Screensaver on Windows with Group Policy

How to Configure and Deploy Screensaver on Windows with Group Policy | Windows OS Hub You can enable and configure the same corporate screensaver on all computers in the Active Directory domain. In this post, we will show how to enable a slideshow screensaver with…

⚔️ Organizations need a strong Active Directory password policy to protect against brute force, dictionary, password spraying, and other attacks.
🔐Password policies define rules for password creation, such as minimum length, complexity (like whether a special character is required), and when the password expires before it must be changed to a different one.
✅ In this article, you will learn how to configure the Active Directory Domain password policy.

Configuring Password Policy in Active Directory Domain | Windows OS Hub The password policy in an Active Directory domain specifies basic security requirements for user account passwords, such as password complexity, length, frequency of password changes, and so on. A strong…

How to Open Chkdsk Logs on Windows 10 and 11

How to Run Disk Check and Find CHKDSK Logs on Windows | Windows OS Hub The built-in CHKDSK.exe (Check Disk) tool is used in Windows to scan for and repair errors on the local hard disks. Chkdsk scans the file system for physical and logical…

Creating a NO-REPLY email address on Microsoft 365 or Exchange Server

Create a No-Reply Email Address in Exchange Server/Microsoft 365 | Windows OS Hub You can use a no-reply mailbox in scenarios where you need to send automatic mailings, notifications, or information newsletters to your customers and do not expect anyone to reply. A…

⚙️By default, modern click-to-run (C2R) MS Office installers don't let you choose which applications to install or specify the path you want to save them. You won’t see the custom install screen in the Office C2R setup. All the bundled apps in the Office Setup package are installed automatically. 🤯
✅ You can customize the Office installation using the Office Deployment Tool (ODT) and a configuration file.

How to Install Only Specific Apps in Office 2021/2019 or Office 365 | Windows OS Hub When you install Microsoft Office 2021, 2019, 2016. or Microsoft 365 Apps for Business (ex-Office 365), you cannot choose to install individual Office apps, change a path to the installation…

⚙️Using administrative shares (admin$, c$) on Windows:

✅ What the default administrative shares are
✅ How to disable or enable admin shares
✅ How to use admin shares in workgroup environment

Managing Administrative Shares (Admin$, IPC$, C$) on Windows | Windows OS Hub Windows administrative shared folders are used for remote access and computer management. By default, the following administrative shares are created by Windows: Admin$ – Remote Admin (refers to %SystemRoot% directory).…

Enable or Disable SMB1 File Sharing Protocol in Windows

How to Enable or Disable SMB 1.0 in Windows 10/11 and Windows Server | Windows OS Hub The Server Message Block (SMB) 1.0 file-sharing protocol is disabled by default in the latest versions of Windows 11 and 10 and in Windows Server 2019/2022. This version of the…

Configure Desktop and Lock Screen Wallpaper Using a GPO

Set Desktop Wallpaper and Logon Screen Background via Group Policy | Windows OS Hub Group Policies allow you to set the same corporate desktop background wallpaper and Windows logon (lock) screen image on all computers in the domain. You will need a JPEG file…

How does Windows know if a file is downloaded from the Internet?

How to Unblock a File Downloaded from Internet on Windows | Windows OS Hub Windows displays a security warning when you try to open or run an executable file/script that you downloaded from the Internet. This article explains how Windows identifies a file downloaded…

How to connect VPN before signing in Windows

How to Connect VPN Before Windows Logon | Windows OS Hub By default, the built-in Windows VPN client does not allow you to connect to the VPN server until the user logs in. This is inconvenient for Active Directory-joined computers connected…

Best practices for efficient Hyper-V VM backup strategy

How to Backup Hyper-V Virtual Machines (Tutorial) | Windows OS Hub This article discusses the specifics of organizing virtual machine backups in the Microsoft Hyper-V environment. We’ll look at the basic requirements for Hyper-V backup solutions, backup strategies, and the main…

The main October 2023 Patch Tuesday update for Windows Server 2022 (KB5031364) helpfully adds a new optional component to the Windows Features list: "Azure Arc Setup".
Not only does it add it, it pre-installs it, enables it, updates it and then automatically launches it into a systray icon for you.

Removing Azure Arc Setup Feature on Windows Server 2022 | Windows OS Hub October cumulative update KB5031364 for Windows Server 2022 adds new Azure Arc Setup feature. In addition, Azure Arc has not only been added as an optional component, but it is…

How to Auto Configure Proxy Settings on Windows Using WPAD and PAC Files

Using WPAD (Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Protocol) on Windows | Windows OS Hub The WPAD (Web Proxy Auto-Discovery) protocol allows you to easily configure the proxy settings on the clients in your network. The idea behind WPAD is that a client can use…

Sending emails using Microsoft Graph API and PowerShell

Send Emails with Microsoft Graph API and PowerShell | Windows OS Hub To send e-mail through an SMTP server from PowerShell scripts, you can use the built-in Send-MailMessage cmdlet. Its major drawback is that it can only use Basic SMTP authentication and…

Lock out screen after inactivity on Windows using Group Policy

Auto Lock Computer Screen After Inactivity with GPO | Windows OS Hub Information security best practices require the computer screen to be locked when the user is inactive (idle) for a period of time. A Windows user can lock the computer screen…

How to enable the built-in Windows VPN client to automatically re-connect when a connection is lost

Windows: Auto Reconnect to VPN on Disconnect | Windows OS Hub By default, the built-in Windows VPN client does not attempt to reconnect to the VPN server if the connection is lost. If the connection is dropped, the user must manually…

Zabbix: Running Powershell scripts on hosts with system.run or UserParameter options

Zabbix: How to Get Data from PowerShell Scripts | Windows OS Hub In this article, we will look at configuring the Zabbix Agent to retrieve monitoring data from PowerShell scripts. Let’s look at two PowerShell scripts to get some data into Zabbix.…

How to Get Started Using WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux)

Install Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL 2) on Windows 10/11 | Windows OS Hub Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) allows you to run native apps, write scripts, and run bash Linux commands and scripts directly from within Windows without the need for emulators or…

Install and Use a Windows TFTP Server and Client

How to Install and Configure TFTP Server and Client on Windows | Windows OS Hub TFTP (Trivial File Transfer Protocol) is a simplified file transfer protocol that provides an easy way to download and upload files. Typically, TFTP is used for PXE booting (network boot,…

How to get public IP address using PowerShell in Windows

How to Get My Public IP Address with PowerShell | Windows OS Hub You can use a simple PowerShell command to find out the current public IP address that your Windows computer uses to access the Internet. There are a large number of…

How to track printer usage on Windows with event logs

Tracking Printer Usage with Windows Event Viewer Logs | Windows OS Hub In Windows, you can track printer usage with the Event Viewer. All print jobs sent to the print spooler are logged in the Event Viewer. If you have a print…

Configure Microsoft Entra (Azure AD) Certificate Based Authentication for your Exchange Online PowerShell scripts

PowerShell: Configure Certificate-Based Authentication for Exchange Online (Azure) | Windows OS Hub Microsoft Entra ID (ex Azure AD) supports Certificate Based Authentication (CBA). This means that you can use certificate authentication to automatically run your PowerShell scripts with no password entry and…

HowTo: reset a VMware ESXi root password

Reset Root Password in VMware ESXi | Windows OS Hub According to the official VMware documentation, reinstalling ESXi from scratch is the only supported way to reset the root password (https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1317898). You can also reset your password using Host Profiles…

Extending partition and file system sizes on Ubuntu

How to Increase the Size of a Disk Partition in Ubuntu | Windows OS Hub If you have Ubuntu Linux virtual machines, it is highly likely that you will need to expand your virtual hard disk and increase the partition in the guest OS. By…

Managing Windows machines with Ansible

How to Use Ansible to Manage Windows Machines | Windows OS Hub Ansible is the popular free open-source configuration management system used primarily to manage Linux hosts. This article describes how to use Ansible to remotely manage the configuration of Windows servers…

Cannot Connect to L2TP VPN in Windows (Solved)

How to Connect L2TP/IPSec VPN Server From Windows | Windows OS Hub In this article, we will look at the most common causes of errors when connecting to an L2TP/IPSec VPN server from Windows 10/11 or Windows Server 2019/2016. If you cannot…

How to Enable Auto Login in Windows? [Step-by-Step Guide]

How to Enable Windows Auto Login without a Password | Windows OS Hub A user must enter a password for a local or Microsoft (online) account each time they log on to Windows. This allows you to restrict access to your computer. In…

How to Enable and Configure Mailbox Forwarding in Exchange Server and Microsoft 365

Configure Email Forwarding for Mailbox on Exchange Server/Microsoft 365 | Windows OS Hub In Exchange Server and Exchange Online (Microsoft 365), you can enable email forwarding at the mailbox level (configured by the administrator using the ForwardingAddress attribute), through mailbox Inbox rules, or…

How to Install/Uninstall Language Packs in Windows 10 and 11 with PowerShell

Installing Language Pack in Windows 10/11 with PowerShell | Windows OS Hub In modern versions of Windows 11 22H2 and Windows 10 21H2+, you can use PowerShell to install and manage language packs and language interface language packs (LIPs). In previous builds…

How to Setup HTTP to HTTPS Redirect in IIS
https://woshub.com/redirect-http-to-https-iis/
How to Install an SSL/TLS Certificate in Microsoft IIS
https://woshub.com/install-ssl-certificate-iis-windows/

How to Install an SSL Certificate on IIS (Windows Server) | Windows OS Hub This guide covers how to issue and install an SSL certificate on an IIS (Internet Information Services) web server running on a Windows Server. Contents: Create a Certificate Signing Request…

How to Manage Windows Firewall Rules with PowerShell

Managing Windows Firewall Rules with PowerShell | Windows OS Hub This article covers the basics of managing the settings and rules of the built-in Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security from the PowerShell command line. We’ll look at how to…

Create a File Share with Anonymous (Guest) Access on Windows

Allow Anonymous Access to Shared Folder or Printer on Windows | Windows OS Hub This article shows how to allow anonymous access to shared network folders and printers on a computer in a workgroup or Active Directory domain. Anonymous access to a remote computer…

Monitor Domain Name Expiration with Zabbix

Monitoring Domain Name Expiration Date with Zabbix | Windows OS Hub This article gives a detailed overview of how to configure the monitoring of your domain names’ expiration dates in Zabbix. This will prevent you from missing the renewal and expiration…

How to extend a partition/volume in Windows using built-in tools

Extending a Disk Volume (Partition) in Windows | Windows OS Hub Modern versions of Windows and Windows Server allow you to increase the size of any disk volume (partition) at the expense of unused (unallocated) disk space without shutting down the…