#VSCode #PowerShell #Windows

I love VS Code. It's got all of the features and tools that I need for coding and testing.

When I'm working on a file in the Editor pane and I want to run it or test a command in the Integrated Terminal, I have to manually navigate to the folder where the with a series of cd commands and Tab autocompletes.

If I exit or restart the Terminal, the working directory switches back to the root of my workspace and I have to repeat the process over again.

I have to deal with this annoying quirk dozens of times during the day and it gets very repetitive to keep typing cd.

To make my life easier, I added the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+c on my Windows machine to change the Integrated Terminal's working directory to the folder of the file I'm currently editing. This shortcut basically sends the command cd 'directory of the current file' so I don't have to keep typing it.

#VSCode #PowerShell #Windows #MacOS

I use VSCode for all my coding. One thing I appreciate about the PowerShell module in VSCode is how it recommends best practices inline with my script.

One of the recommended best practices for PowerShell is to use a list of approved verbs that define which words can be used in functions. This makes sense—I love the way PowerShell uses the Verb-Noun structure to keep things standardized and avoid confusion.

Sometimes the recommended list of verbs doesn't include what I'm trying to do, like “Check” or “Verify”. When I write a function using an unapproved verb, VSCode puts an orange squiggly line and these alerts get counted with others that I would consider more important:

This makes my VSCode environment noisy and it can be difficult to sift through all the alerts to try to identify real issues. After some digging, I found a way to hide these alerts without turning off the whole PSScriptAnalyzer feature.

Note: In the code examples, I've removed the signature blocks. Don't change or delete this section in your environment—If you do, you'll need to re-install the PowerShell extension and/or VSCode.

#PowerShell #Windows

Recently, I upgraded my home network to 10gbps switches and routers. I purchased a 10gbps Thunderbolt 3 adapter with ethernet from Amazon for my PC that only had 2.5gbps ethernet. After it arrived, I plugged it in and it worked great with a full 10/10gbps connection.

After a reboot, however, my PC running Windows 11 wasn't able to see it anymore in Network Connections and it wasn't connecting to my network.

This post has a PowerShell script to fix the issue and a brief explanation of where the setting might be coming from.

#OneDrive #Windows #SharePoint #Teams #Microsoft #MacOS

Earlier today, a user was looking for recommendations for which file shortcut to use that would be cross-platform compatible. The user wanted everyone who was invited to a shared folder to be able to click links to other locations without much hassle. If you've used OneDrive, Teams, and/or SharePoint across different devices, you may have run into issues where shortcuts work on certain devices and other shortcuts are un-openable. This can be really confusing if you're working with a group of people that have a mix of device types.

I did a little bit of testing and I can say that right now, the best option for cross-device compatible shortcuts is to use the .url format created on the web in SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams.

This post will go into different file shortcuts across platforms and how to create these .url shortcuts. I'm not focusing on mobile devices because hopefully your users only access files through the official Microsoft apps and are not directly downloading files. This post may save you some headaches going forward.

#PowerShell #Outlook #Windows

I have multiple email accounts that I juggle to support other client tenants, but I keep one primary calendar in Outlook with my work account. Every morning, I go through my other account emails and manually copy over events into my primary calendar so that I don't get double booked. I'm sure there's a better way to manage my calendars, but this has been working for me so far.

This morning, however, I tried to copy a meeting from my alternate account into my primary calendar, but I got the following popup message:

Microsoft Outlook: Copying meetings is not supported.

I'm running Outlook with a Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise license, version 2312 (Build 17126.20126 Click-to-Run) on the Current Channel. I'm running Windows 11 Business with a Windows 11 Enterprise subscription, Version 23H2, OS Build 22631.2861, with Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.22681.1000.0

To fix this issue in Outlook and to be able to copy calendar entries across accounts, I needed to make a change in the Registry.

To make it easier and to give others the ability to deploy this org-wide, I wrote up a quick PowerShell script that changes the value.

#Windows #Azure #AVD

Recently, a company I work with requested a way for users to access a web app that they were hosting on-premises, but didn't want to open up connections to the app to the internet. The app is out of support from the vendor and can't be opened outside of their secure network.

We planned to allow access to the app by instructing users to connect over a VPN, but we found this would be a hassle for users, as they would need to install the VPN client, connect to the VPN, and then launch a browser to access the app. In this case, the site also requires IE11 with a custom extension to be installed. These requirements just to access a single site really made it a headache for users and the Helpdesk received regular tickets from staff who had issues accessing the site.

Instead of the VPN approach, we deployed a Microsoft Edge shortcut in Azure Virtual Desktop. This approach has advantages because it allows users to launch a browser window and jump onto the network that the Host Pool is connected to. If you have your networking configured correctly in Azure, you can access internal sites and apps without going over the internet directly from the client PC. This also allows you to control the browser version and other settings that are configured in the Host Pool. If paired with Intune policies, you can define the browser settings and extensions that are available to users and require certain sites to open in Internet Explorer Compatibility Mode. This could be helpful if you have a legacy app that only works in IE11 and requires a specific extension to be installed.

In this post, I'll show you how to deploy a Microsoft Edge shortcut in Azure Virtual Desktop.

#Windows #Azure #AVD #Intune

UPDATE: On April 18, 2023, Microsoft released a Public Preview of the new Azure Virtual Desktop app in the Microsoft Store. This should fix the issues noted in this post. Download the new app here: http://aka.ms/AVDStoreClient

I recently had an issue with an Azure AD Joined host pool in Azure Virtual Desktop where users could not successfully login using their Azure AD credentials.

In our environment, both the client computer and the Azure Virtual Desktop host computer are Azure AD Joined. The user was able to log in to their Azure AD Joined computer, but when they tried to log in to the Azure Virtual Desktop host computer, they would get an error message:

Couldn't connect. Something went wrong when we tried to connect. If this keeps happening, ask your admin or tech support for help. Error code: 0x9735 Extended error code: 0x0 Activity ID: {e194ae11-b2ed-4d33-9520-c1d5ed140000}

#Windows #Intune

A company I'm working with requested an Application Deployment of Word LTSC using a Multiple Activation Key (MAK) purchased through Volume Licensing in their Intune/Endpoint environment.

This post will discuss the steps I used to package this app.