Windows 2012 R2 has some similarities to Windows 10, including extra UI enhancements. I don't like most of them, and I'd like to remove them, starting with the 6 extra folders in Windows Explorer. It's well documented how to remove the extra folders in Windows Explorer for Windows 10 (AskVG, HowToGeek, MalwareTips), but this process and the registry files do not work on Windows 2012 R2. I did a DDG search, and all I found were the Windows 10 how-tos.
Is there a comparable fix for 2012 R2?
I watched a video on ITPro.tv about PowerShell Desired State Configuration DSC. They introduce it, and effectively run a script. However, this was their first (real) introduction of scripting too, so I didn't pick up the difference between DSC and regular scripting. I've done some regular scripting before, and maybe they just didn't have that great of an example; it seemed like a regular script could install a role/feature and copy some files just fine. I didn't see the benefit to DSC compared to just a script. Aside from a machine being able to poll for some kind of changes, which they didn't cover in practice, just in theory.
What are the benefit(s) of DSC over traditional scripts; for example "install role, copy file"?
I'd like to run a pfSense box from just a thumb drive (possibly because I don't know why I need a hard drive?). I have tested pfSense booting and running from the embedded USB image, and got it working mostly to my satisfaction. However, I discovered during an unplanned power outage that the config file was not saved. Thankfully, I had backed it up. However, I could not figure out a way to get pfSense to take the config file until I added more hardware (a USB hub and another USB stick with the config file).
Is it possible to have pfSense boot from, run from, and save the config file to the same USB stick? I can get a bigger stick if I need to. Currently I am using a 1GB stick, which I believe is more than sufficient.
I'm currently using this version: pfSense-memstick-2.2.6-RELEASE-i386.img.gz
EDIT: Why would I want to do such a thing?
This is a test, and there is 1 machine behind pfSense that I wish to manage, and Wi-Fi makes that easy.
Carrying on:
The auto-suggessted topics by Server Fault were very relevant. However, I was not able to make use of the answers, and I didn't realize, but I don't have enough rep here to comment to bump them to get answers (I do elsewhere though). I found more chatter about pfSense here than on the Network Engineering SE, so I figured this would be a good place to ask for help.
I discovered pfSense a week or so ago and set up a laptop with 2.2.6 to test it out on. The built in Ethernet port is the WAN (re0), I installed a USB Ethernet adapter (ue0), and bridged ue0 and the Wi-Fi (ath0). I also set up the WAN to route to a commercial OpenVPN provider.
LAN and Wi-Fi can grab DHCP addresses from pfSense, and go out the VPN. However, they cannot talk to each other. I would like for them to talk to each other too. The Wi-Fi is simply for me to manage the single machine on the LAN, not some major thoroughfare of traffic.
If I am successful with this test, I will eventually purpose build a machine to different specs and re-architect things. My intent was a down and dirty, quick test to get things up and running.
I have stumbled across several posts on the pfSense forum, and various SE's, asking for help getting bridging to work, and there are several questions here, all/most of which have answers with "Yeah, I got it working"; but as a pfSense and BSD n00b, I am having a hard time making heads or tails out of their answers or instructions.
I have read the docs on the pfSense page and from what I can tell, the bridge between interfaces should allow for communications.
I have tried following this article and either I did it wrong, or it no longer applies.
This page https ://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=20917.0 was written a long time ago, and I don't know enough about pfSense to really follow his written directions. The part about the extra adapter is what's throwing me for the loop.
Related articles:
http ://serverfault.com/questions/157557/pfsense-with-a-bridge-as-a-lan-interface-traffic-blocked-between-interfaces
http ://serverfault.com/questions/299380/how-do-i-route-between-interfaces-in-pfsense?rq=1
http ://serverfault.com/questions/409043/allowing-traffic-across-the-interface-members-of-a-pfsense-bridge
http ://serverfault.com/questions/362567/pfsense-bridge-on-of-the-network-interfaces
Windows Server 2012 R2, non domain attached, running in VMWare workstation 9.x
I would like to run a logon script to startup/resize BG Info. I have made the *.bat file, and it runs fine. I am new to logon scripts in general, so I'm sure I'm overlooking something basic.
I've created a GPO logon script object and pointed it to my *.bat file. The file ran once, on the first logon after a reboot. It will not re-run when I connect via RDP or if I connect in the VMWare console. It doesn't matter if I disconnect or if I log off the current user.
Are logon scripts supposed to on every logon? Or are there only certain times when they run?
I've done some searching on the net at large and tried disabling the logon script delay, per this MSDN article, but that didn't do what I wanted.
I've seen some articles talk about enabling synchronization, but that seems to mean the scrip will have to run and finish before explorer starts, which I don't think would be good for testing.
EDIT After the reboot, I noticed that if I log off an RDP session or the VM console and log on with the other, the script runs.
How can I get the script to run even if I didn't previously logoff?
EDIT 2
I found this article by Microsoft discussing a similar behavior, but it says that it's only for 2008 and 2008 R2.