Remote Assistance offers over a VPN

In this day and age of Business 2.0, many organizations relay on VPN access for their users. You can offer them remote assistance. The process may be a bit more difficult. First off, you may have to use the clients IP address. You can ask the user for the IP address, but with Vista assigning both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses to each physical and virtual adapter, this could be frustrating for all parties. If you have access to the RRAS server the user is connected to, you can look up the properties of the connection. This should tell you the IP address to use in the offer. If DHCP Relay is enabled on the RRAS server, you may be able to look at your DHCP server for the IP address or use the name of the client.

Port issues on the local client, as well as the local network the client is on, will have an impact on your connection. I’ve found that DCOM port 135 seams to be the one most people are talking about. Here is the procedure to create an exception in the Windows Firewall for it (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/954386). Nothing can be done about a remote networks firewall settings. I found that Startbucks (Pay for use) and Panera Bread (Free Internet) allows me to remote access a VPN client.

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How to run GPResult on a remote client with PowerShell

In the past, to run the GPResult command, you would need to either physically visit this client, have the user do it, or use and RDP connection. In all cases, this will disrupt the user. First, you need PowerShell remoting enabled on the target machine. You can do this via Group Policy . Open PowerShell and type this command. Invoke-Command –ScriptBlock {GPResult /r} –ComputerName <ComputerName> Replace <ComputerName> with the name of the target. Remember, the target needs to be online and accessible to you.

Set up your Environment to utilize Invoke-GPUpdate

I’m sitting in O’Hare enjoying my 3 hour layover as I get ready to teach a Windows 10 class in Fort Wayne. I’m actually prepping for my class in Fort Wayne in a few weeks, 10982 Supporting and Troubleshooting Windows 10. This class is very much like the Windows 7 version that I used to teach so I decided to up the detail quite a bit. In the GPO troubleshootin chapter, I’m including a demonstration on how to use PowerShell’s Invoke-GPUpdate. I needed to make sure the environment is set up for me to be able to utilize this cmdlet. If you read the Notes section on Invoke-GPUpdate’s help file, you will see there are three firwall rules that need to be in place: Remote Scheduled Tasks Management (RPC) Remote Scheduled Tasks Management (RPC-ERMAP) Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI-IN) I decided to create a little PowerShell script to crea...

Where did a User’s Account Get Locked Out?

Updated: May 15, 2015 When this article was originally published, two extra carriage returns were add causing the code to malfunction. The code below is correct. My client for this week’s PowerShell class had a really interesting question. They needed to know where an account is being locked out at. OK, interesting. Apparently users hop around clients and forget to log off, leading to eventual lock out of their accounts. The accounts can be unlocked, but are then relocked after Active Directory replication. This problem is solved in two parts. The first one is to modify the event auditing on the network. The second part is resolved with PowerShell. The first part involves creating a group policy that will encompass your Domain Controllers. In this GPO, make these changes. Expand Computer Configuration \ Policies \ Windows Settings \ Security Settings \ Advanced Audit Policy Configuration \ Audit Policies \ Account Management Double click User Account Management C...

Jason Yoder, MCT

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