You might not even notice until you need it, but when you install the RSAT tools on Win 10 for 1709, the DNS manager console is missing. That’s exactly what happened to me. I needed to add some records in DNS and oops, where is it?

Well, there is a KB article on it, so there is a fix. :¬)

1. Check if KB 2693643 is installed, if so uninstall it
2. Create a temporary directory to put stuff in it
3. Create a “installx64.bat” file with the following content: [assuming you run a 64 bit Windows] <pre class="lang:default decode:true">@echo off md ex expand -f:* WindowsTH-RSAT_WS_1709-x64.msu ex
   cd ex md ex copy ..\unattend_x64.xml ex
   expand -f:* WindowsTH-KB2693643-x64.cab ex
   cd ex dism /online /apply-unattend=”unattend_x64.xml” cd ..
   dism /online /Add-Package /PackagePath:”WindowsTH-KB2693643-x64.cab” cd ..
   rmdir ex /s /q</pre>

4. Create a “unattend_x64.xml” file with the following content:

<pre class="lang:default decode:true ">&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;   &lt;unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:setup" description="Auto unattend" author="pkgmgr.exe"&gt;     &lt;servicing&gt;  
&lt;package action="stage"&gt;  
  &lt;assemblyIdentity buildType="release" language="neutral" name="Microsoft-Windows-RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Client-Package-TopLevel" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" version="10.0.16299.2"/&gt;  
  &lt;source location="." permanence="temporary"/&gt;  
&lt;/package&gt;     &lt;/servicing&gt;   &lt;/unattend&gt;</pre>

5. [Download the RSAT tools](https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=45520) and put the msu file in the same folder
  
[<img class="size-full wp-image-704 aligncenter" src="http://blog.vvittig.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/2018-02-08_15-45-30.png" alt="" width="243" height="83" />](http://blog.vvittig.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/2018-02-08_15-45-30.png)

6. Start a command prompt with administrative permissions and run the &#8220;installx64.bat&#8221;

Once completed, you should have your full set (including DNS) of RSAT tools back

Resource: <https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4055558></li> </ol>

The WordPress 4.9.3 update introduced an updating bug: after auto-updating to 4.9.3, WordPress will no longer update automatically.

What to do?

WordPress has published an explanation of the bug and detailed instructions for “handraulic” updating; the TL;DR version is:

Simply visit your WordPress Dashboard → Updates and click “Update Now.”

Source: https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com

I keep seeing many posts with people struggling to execute code on remote machines, it is usually not due to permissions issues, (enable PS Remoting), but mainly due to the fact that they forget that the remote machine does not know the value of the locally assigned variable.

Using (new way) PSv3+

With PowerShell Version 3 and newer, $using was introduced.

If you want to pass a local variable to the remote machine , just add $using: in front of the variable name (e.g. $using:localvariable), and the local value will be given on to the remote machine. This is so much simpler and easier to read than the ‘old’ argumentlist way.

# Using '$using'
# PowerShell v3+
$localvalue01   = 'SampleValue01'
$localvalue02   = 'SampleValue01'

Invoke-Command -ComputerName $remotecomputer -ScriptBlock {
    write-output $using:localvalue01
    write-output $using:localvalue02
}

Argumentlist (old way)

In this sample, we are looking at using an argument list to pass the values of the variable to the remote machine.

You define the values you need per usual on your local machine, and then you add an $argumentlist as parameter.

The order you list the variables is important, as the one first variable listed is addressed with $args[0], the variable next to it (to the right) is addressed with $args[1] and so forth.

# Argument lists
# PowerShell v2 and lower
$localvalue01   = 'SampleValue01'
$localvalue02   = 'SampleValue02'

Invoke-Command -ComputerName $remotecomputer -ScriptBlock {
    write-output $args[0] #holds the value for $localvalue01
    write-output $args[1] #holds the value for $localvalue02
} -ArgumentList $localvalue01, $localvalue02

Reference: about_remote_variables

I keep forgetting this and have to look it up the few times I need it… so I’m going to post it here:

1. When setting NTFS permissions, select local machine (not the domain or whatever)
2. Add “IIS AppPool\DefaultAppPool”

(Don’t forget to change “DefaultAppPool” here to whatever you named your application pool)

That’s it ¯_(ツ)_/¯

The application has failed to start because the side-by-side configuration is incorrect

Ugh, yeah one of those… alright let’s have a look…

# install your service
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework[64]\[version]\InstallUtil.exe [path to application]

# uninstall your service
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework[64]\[version]\InstallUtil.exe /u [path to application]

So after (successfully) installing it, it does not want to start, so we have to do some tracing.

Eventlogs tells you only so much unfortunately so we look in the SxsTrace.exe  for help

# start trace
C:\windows\system32\SxsTrace.exe Trace -logfile:log.etl

# try to start your service
# press ENTER to stop the trace

# parse the trace logs
C:\windows\system32\SxsTrace.exe Parse -logfile:log.etl -outfile:SxSTrace.txt

This will open the SxSTrace.txt file which will have all the information about the error.

If that did not create any helpful information (but I hope it did) there are other steps that might help:

Sfc /scannow
sfc /scannow /offbootdir=c:\ /offwindir=c:\windows (If above fails)

and let’s try DISM

DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Scanhealth
DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth

Last resort options are a System Restore or updating .NET to the latest version.