Use PowerShell to randomly stagger Veeam backup schedules

In previous posts “Randomize your Veeam backups via PowerShell” and “Fixing Veeam Backup v8 Periodic Scheduling” I discussed the unwanted and unexpected changes Veeam Backup and Replication 8 made to is Periodic Scheduling. In summary, Periodic Schedules could no longer exceed a 24-hour period (e.g. you could no longer configure jobs to run every 30 …

PowerShell Get-Date formatting

I sometimes use PowerShell to create files or logs that include the date or time. My preference is to write dates and times from greatest to smallest value. I also prefer to use the hyphen as a delimiter because it is filename friendly. Here are the three most frequently used Get-Date -Format specifiers that I …

Scam/Hoax: Computer System Alert! System has been infected due to an unexpected error!

This evening I mistyped a URL and was redirected to https://virus–alert–warning.com/warning_error.dill (I changed the link to go to a security article). This URL, its error message, and its phone number is a scam. No harm has occurred to your computer and you should not call the number. Simply force your browser to close via Task …

Use PowerShell to require users with the oldest passwords to change their passwords

This PowerShell script will help you find the Active Directory users who have gone the longest without changing their password, and then require them to change their password the next time they logon to a domain resource. Consider this a password policy on a bell curve that targets those users who have the oldest Password …