I try to bypass Windows IE setting pop up from the initial launch IE. either close the window or click ask later. Is it possible Powershell can check the window object? I tried the "New-Object" below:
New-Object -ComObject 'internetExplorer.Application'
But it doesn't seem to work that way I expected.
Thanks
For those looking for the Registry method (or Powershell), this is the script I use:
$keyPath = 'Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main'
if (!(Test-Path $keyPath)) {
New-Item $keyPath -Force
}
Set-ItemProperty `
-Path $keyPath `
-Name "DisableFirstRunCustomize" `
-Value 1
You want to test the path exists first as using the -Force parameter on New-Item will remove any existing children of the path provided.
Is using group policy out of the question as this can easily be done through a gpo. Here is a link explaining. https://mkcheah88.blogspot.com/2014/06/microsoft-how-to-disable-internet.html
If not is it ok to change the registry key this links to with powershell prior to internet explorer opening? If so I can modify this answer to include that answer.
Related
Is there a way to create group of users with group policy apllied to them via Powershell/CMD?
My machine is not joined to a domain.
I want to prepare a script which I will use multiple times on other local computers/ machines to recreate group policy.
I want e.g restrict user access to Control Panel, Internet Access and stuff like that.
Thanks from advance for answers
For computers not joined to the domain, you can't use Group Policy. You will need to use Local Policy. Many of the items that you are looking for will simply be registry value that you can easily set with a PowerShell script. For example the policy for Hiding Fast User Switching toggles can be toggled like this:
Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System" -Name HideFastUserSwitching -Value 0
You can look up where the values are by reading the .admx templates
Alternatively you could use David Wyatt's PowerShell module to read and modify policy files.
Finally the last option would be create the policy on one computer and then overwrite the .pol files on all the computers and then gpupdate /force. This of course could be scripted with PowerShell.
Copy-Item \\ExampleComputer1\C$\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy\Machine\Registry.pol \\ExampleComputer2\C$\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy\Machine\Registry.pol -Force
Copy-Item \\ExampleComputer1\C$\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy\User\Registry.pol \\ExampleComputer2\C$\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy\User\Registry.pol -Force
Security Templates would have to be exported from the Security Templates mmc snapin and then imported on the other computers with secedit
secedit /configure /db %temp%\temp.sdb /cfg yourcreated.inf
Using that solution --> Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System" -Name HideFastUserSwitching -Value 0
Doesn't work.
I mean e.g:
Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\NonEnum" -Name NoRecycleBinIcon -Value 1
.admx template.
It should make my desktop recyclebin gone. This is just an example other settings also stays unchanged.
A little background about what I'm trying to do and why. We are slowly migrating from using a local copy of office on our end users Win7 machines to publishing office through RDS 2012. With 2012 you can have the end users machine subscribe to a webfeed which puts the shortcuts to the actual RDP files in Appdata. In order to have our image pretty much mirror before RDS, I need to pin the shortcuts to the taskbar. If you pin the shortcut as it comes from the RDS Gateway server the icon on the taskbar is that of the .rdp file. If you edit the target for the shortcut and put mstsc.exe before the path to the .rdp file you can then pin the shortcut to the taskbar using those icons of the shortcut.
I have found posts on how to change the target field of shortcuts but nothing on how to add something to what is currently there. An environment variable is needed since the path to the shorts will be different for each user. Below is I have tried thus far
$Word = $env:userprofile + "\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\RemoteApp and Desktop Connections\Microsoft Word 2010.lnk"
$sh = New-Object -COM WScript.Shell
$targetPath = $sh.CreateShortcut($Word).TargetPath
$sh.TargetPath = "mstsc.exe" + $targetPath ## Make changes
$sh.Save() ## Save$shell = New-Object -COM WScript.Shell
One of the errors i'm getting is : Property 'Arguments' cannot be found on this object; make sure it exists and is settable.
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Instead of using Shell COM object, how about using a .Net wrapper class? There is a great sample.
To use the VBAccelerator's wrapper in Powershell, extract the source code and compile a DLL like so,
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\csc.exe /t:library /out:ShellLink.dll /r:System.Drawing.dll .\ShellLink.cs .\FileIcon.cs
This should create ShellLink.dll, which you can add as Powershell type like so,
Add-Type -path .\ShellLink.dll
And use the class by creating a new object like so,
$lnk = new-object vbAccelerator.Components.Shell.ShellLink
$lnk.Target = "C:\Windows\System32\mstsc.exe"
$lnk.Arguments = "some arguments"
$lnk.Description = "My awesome shortcut"
$lnk.Save("c:\temp\test.lnk")
Your code will prepend "mstsc.exe" to the current target path if you just add this line before your ## Make changes line:
$sh = $sh.CreateShortcut($word)
Sounds like you also want to add a space, so that your lnk file is the "connection file" argument of mstsc.exe. You can set the Arguments property like so:
function Set-RDSshortcut {
param( [parameter(mandatory=$true)]$Shortcut )
$sh = New-Object -COM WScript.Shell
$targetPath = $sh.CreateShortcut($Shortcut).TargetPath
$targetPath = "mstsc.exe"
$sh = $sh.CreateShortcut($Shortcut)
$sh.TargetPath = $targetPath
$sh.Arguments = $Shortcut
$sh.Save()
} #end function
Is there a way to check the option for "Turn on the Windows Location platform" in windows 8 using PowerShell?
This option is available under control panel - Location Settings.
I haven't find any registry setting made for this once when I turn it on manually. If I find any registry setting I could have used that registry option to enable it but unfortunately there is no change in registry.
thanks in advance
Praveen.
Actually, I just used Procmon to see which reg key was being changed and see the key is named 'SensorPermissionState'. If the checkbox is checked (i.e. it's turned on) then the value is 1.
If you clear the checkbox it gets set to 0x00000000
So this should turn it on (seems to require you to be in Admin Shell):
Set-ItemProperty `
-path 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Sensor\Overrides\{BFA794E4-F964-4FDB-90F6-51056BFE4B44}\' `
-name sensorpermissionstate -value 1
And to turn it off
Set-ItemProperty `
-path 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows nt\CurrentVersion\Sensor\Overrides\{BFA794E4-F964-4FDB-90F6-51056BFE4B44}' `
-name sensorpermissionstate -Value 0
I know that I can set a runonce key in the Win7 registry globally, which will be executed no matter which user logs on the next time, using this registry key:
HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
I need to do an initialization only for a specific user, so I wonder if there is a way to programatically (using Powershell) set a runonce-entry that is only executed if one specific user logs on, also if this user is not an Administrator.
Do you know of a way to do this? Thanks.
I think this question and the other (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10908727/how-can-i-programatically-find-a-users-hkey-users-registry-key-using-powershell) are related:
Anyways, here is how you do it:
$User = New-Object System.Security.Principal.NTAccount($env:UserName)
$sid = $User.Translate([System.Security.Principal.SecurityIdentifier]).value
New-PSDrive HKU Registry HKEY_USERS
Get-Item "HKU:\${sid}"
Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKU:\${sid}\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce" -Name Command -Value "notepad.exe"
I'm running a Windows Service (Hudson) which in turn spawns a PowerShell process to run my custom PowerShell commands. Part of my script is to unzip a file using CopyHere. When I run this script locally, I see a progress dialog pop up as the files are extracted and copied. However, when this runs under the service, it hangs at the point where a dialog would otherwise appear.
Here's the unzip portion of my script.
# Extract the contents of a zip file to a folder
function Extract-Zip {
param([string]$zipFilePath, [string]$destination)
if(test-path($zipFilePath)) {
$shellApplication = new-object -com shell.application
$zipFile = get-item $zipFilePath
$zipFolder = $shellApplication.NameSpace($zipFile.fullname)
$destinationFile = get-item $destination
$destinationFolder = $shellApplication.NameSpace($destinationFile.fullname)
$destinationFolder.CopyHere($zipFolder.Items())
}
}
I suspect that because its running under a service process which is headless (no interaction with the desktop), its somehow stuck trying to display a dialog.
Is there a way around this?
If it's still actual, I managed to fix this with having CopyHere params equal 1564.
So in my case extract zip function looks like:
function Expand-ZIPFile{
param(
$file, $destination
)
$shell = new-object -com shell.application
$zip = $shell.NameSpace($file)
foreach($item in $zip.items())
{
$shell.Namespace($destination).copyhere($item,1564)
"$($item.path) extracted"
}
1564 description can be found here - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb787866(v=vs.85).aspx:
(4) Do not display a progress dialog box.
(8) Give the file being operated on a new name in a move, copy, or rename operation if a file with the target name already exists.
(16) Respond with "Yes to All" for any dialog box that is displayed.
(512) Do not confirm the creation of a new directory if the operation requires one to be created.
(1024) Do not display a user interface if an error occurs.
If this is running on Vista or Windows 7, popping up UI from a service isn't going to be seen by the end user as you suspected. See this paper on Session 0 Isolation. However, does the progress dialog require user input? If not, I wouldn't think that would cause the service to hang. I would look for an option to disable the progress display. If you can't find that, then try switching to another ZIP extractor. PSCX 1.2 comes with an Expand-Archive cmdlet. I'm sure there are also others available.
Looking at the documentation for PowerShell, it looks like the -NonInteractive option may help here