Thu, 3/11 • 38:18
SPEAKERS Lex, Kelly, Jordan, JJ
Lex 00:00 --- Hey everybody, it's Lex from PDQ.com. It's q&a. And I got a question for you guys. If someone reports an error, and you're not able to reproduce it, did it really happen? Anyway, q&a guys, send your questions and we'll try and answer them as best we can for you. And let's roll. What do we got first?
Kelly 00:19 --- Dear Lex and Jordan, is there a way to add pre steps and post steps to a package? Sincerely, Chad? M.
Jordan 00:27 --- Yes, one point for Jordan.
Lex 00:29 --- Oh, man, you jumped in. Jordan is correct, you can. Now let's say for example, we wanted to have an open seven zip, which is an auto download package. You'll notice in the center right here, allow me to use JJs awesome highlighter here. Okay, those can't change. We take care of those management. But you can add pre steps. For example, let's say you want it to be a little aggressive and login and user off. We'll do that before we start the package. So send them a nice message. Bye, bye. Yep, I'm doing well today and can't even spell Bye, bye.
Jordan 01:09 --- While you're doing that one in the chat, Ben beat me to the Yes. So that's one point for chat and got it.
Lex 01:15 --- And I will say at the end of it, we want to do a reboot step. There it is. Again, it's always good to send a note. Well, if we leave a person off, they're never gonna see it. So reboot. So you can do it. Now. When the package updates we do maintain the pre and post steps for you. We just replaced what's in the middle. That's a beautiful thing. Anything you want to add to try and steal my point that somebody already stole?
Jordan 01:39 --- I don't need to sell the point. I've already came in second place. But you were very thorough with your third place answer.
Lex 01:44 --- Was it verbose
JJ 01:45 --- Now hold on the chat said no first
Lex 01:47 --- . First they said no to Lex's question. All right. You said no to my question. Yeah. It did happen there. Yeah, it didn't. Alright, so that's how you show your pre post steps. So chat actually has two points. Oh, yeah. Okay, good. We got it. we're gonna go there. Guys, the deck stacked against me anyways, you're not helping? How about next time you answer when in jet, you say this one's for lax. And then we'll boost my score.
Jordan 02:14 --- Oh, he was referring to if you build your own packages and offer the package library. I mean, you could just put a step in front of or after, or you could do nested steps, or a nested package where it will run that one first and go in order. There you go. But as far as actual pre and post, and when you're building it, it's whatever steps you want in whatever order you want.
Kelly 02:35 --- Hey, guys, in inventory VPN clients show specified network name is no longer available error. client is and shows online in inventory and their IP address is correct in DNS. I can't access admin dollar or C dollar when clients are over VPN. Is there a way I can scan them to at least deploy it would be a dream. Thanks. Fidel Rico. Ah,
Lex 03:00 --- all right. Oh, oh, you guys can show the screen fast enough for me to not have it centered. Awesome.
Jordan 03:06 --- I would copy the link that Colby put in there. We have a duck web page on that particular error.
Kelly 03:12 --- One point for Colby.
Lex 03:15 --- You know, maybe I was going to do that. Were you? Nope.
JJ 03:20 --- It's fine. Man. You are already 8points ahead.
Lex 03:26 --- point for Colby. Well done, dude. Right here. Renzo? Awesome, awesome article, guys. That should take care of you right there.
Jordan 03:34 --- If not, I would open up a ticket with support and they can probably help you,
Lex 03:38 --- you know, the other thing you can do, you can always go here in inventory and just, you know, highlight the machine that you have a question about and run the remote repair on it. Because that might give you some insight as to what might be going on there to help remote repair. And then you can run it. This case, I'm okay. So could give us some insight.
Kelly 04:00 --- Hey, guys, can I create a package to just start chrome and know if it launched successfully? We had chrome side by side errors this week, the fix was to uninstall and redeploy. Could I have added before that a step to open say google.com and only continued if that returned an error? Thanks. dovid. H,
Lex 04:22 --- all right. Can you open google.com to verify that's working? We can do that. And when I say we, I'm doing the Steve Jobs we Jordan wrote this and I'm taking credit for it.
Jordan 04:35 --- And as far as to see if Chrome is running it's a good process.
Lex 04:38 --- Yep, get process. Now what? What I am going to do here is we're going to kick this off and basically start the process chrome XC and we're kicking off a much more exciting video. In fact, let me. We'll do this. we'll kick this off to Bugs Bunny, which is running right here. Now the thing you do need to do if you want to see this running, is to make sure that you've run it as the logged in. In logged on user,
Jordan 05:02 --- if you don't ever deploy a user it is going to kick off the Chrome, but you won't be able to see it. The process is hard to find and kill. It's easier just to restart the machine at that point. So make sure
Lex 05:11 --- it's like we did that earlier today.
Jordan 05:13 --- Exactly. We, we did that
Lex 05:15 --- official we that I'm taking credit for. Okay, it was you. Alright, here we go. We'll kick this. And I did a real good job in naming the package new package, like I normally do
Jordan 05:29 --- I know exactly what it does.
Lex 05:31 --- Yep. Deploy once we'll send that to Bugs Bunny. Give that Bugs Bunny as a computer. And the computer actually spelled that right. All right. I should get points for spelling things correctly. Occasionally. Maybe. There we go. Here's the video we put up to start which is the sexy MC bridges dating profile for Jordan.
Jordan 06:00 --- Is it me or just to get handsome in here?
Lex 06:02 --- You got handsome in here real quick.
06:05 --- If Lex is trying to claim up point for this, he didn't center it. And oh, so I yeah. I say the point goes to Jordan.
Jordan 06:13 --- All right, I did it.
Lex 06:15 --- We're not going to the judges on this one. Give me the point.
Kelly 06:18 --- We'll give Jordan a point for being handsome. How about that
Lex 06:21 --- already?
Jordan 06:22 --- For the PowerShell example that he ran.
Lex 06:25 --- Okay, once you let's pop up what we really were looking at there. So here it is. Start your process Chrome. Right. And then if you're looking for a process would be get-process? Yep. So hey, I need some PowerShell there too. After I read it in so
Kelly 06:44 --- dear PDQ guys, how do you uninstall chrome that is installed in the users AppData folder, the uninstalled string and inborn inventory does not work. Thanks, D. Martin.
Lex 06:56 --- You know, there's easy ways to do it. And they're hard ways to do it. And I'm going to show you the easy way to go to our package library and type in Chrome uninstall chrome per user. Okay, now that I've got the point, Jordan, we explain how that works.
Jordan 07:14 --- So basically, the default one for uninstalling just runs against the machine itself where the uninstalled for the app data is in a different location. So if you wanted to build your own, you'd have to figure out where the uninstaller file is on the app data and create a package that runs as logged on user. Similar to what we had to do with Appx before all users worked on the removal. Basically, this is a PowerShell step that does that.
Lex 07:39 --- So that'll do it for you, man.
Kelly 07:42 --- Who got the point there.
Lex 07:44 --- This guy was two thumbs up.
Kelly 07:46 --- Okay, give me I'm nine. No, actually, I'm subtracting from your initial total,
Lex 07:54 --- I will need help.
Kelly 07:57 --- Hey, guys, Inventory and Deploy have been a lifesaver the last couple of days, is there a way without Wsus or SCCM? To block Microsoft updates from installing on machines? After we use to deploy to uninstalling IE KB nerd nerd and 808. nerd. Sincerely, eddi d.
Jordan 08:17 --- Alright, for those that aren't aware, those updates are causing blue screens on people's machines. So if you have installed those, you do want to remove those and have a bad day. As far as blocking by default, by default blocking I'd
Lex 08:32 --- have you'd have to do it I'm gonna go out on I think I do with a GPO wouldn't Yeah,
Jordan 08:36 --- you could do a GPO there's I mean, there's the commandlets in PowerShell for uninstalling, you can specify a KB number making it so it doesn't go out. You have to prevent it from going out. I don't know how to do that. That's
Lex 08:47 --- a tough one. That there's a point for I don't know idk.
Jordan 08:53 --- We went over how to remove it by
Lex 08:57 --- preventing That's the difference.
Kelly 09:03 --- Dear Lex and Jordan, my boss loves to overcomplicate everything, therefore melting my brain to mush before asking me a question. Is there any difference whether I set up a heartbeat schedule versus an hourly schedule for an automatic update package like Google Chrome sincerely shanor.
Jordan 09:23 --- So there's definitely a difference. You're I don't know, Jordan, you want to take us through I'm gonna take this one. Heartbeat is only going to initiate when a machine that is offline shows us online on the next time it checks in where our schedule is gonna attempt every hour no matter what.
Lex 09:37 --- Now, I'm going to add to that so I can steal his point. If the machine is offline, and it comes online, like let's say someone turns it on and turns it off again before the heartbeat and the heartbeat is set here under your preferences and inventory. Under network. Mine's every 300 seconds. So what happens is, let's say someone turns it on, does a little seven or whatever then turns them off. Before that heartbeat catches that it was on. Okay. Again, Jordan is correct. It has to go from a no to a yes. And then it does take about two minutes in between there to actually kick off any heartbeat schedule. Doing it every hour. I guess. So if you put it in a retry queue, and you could and I would, I don't like using the retry queue. It's not it's kind of a brute force method. I mean, it's going to try, you know, within an hour of the last time it tried to just do that. Again, heartbeat schedule in that case is a lot more. Let's look for refined, more clean, maybe. Yeah, you're just looking at me, like, flail. What's next? Well,
Jordan 10:45 --- the hourly is going to run no matter what, whether it's going to be effective or not, the heartbeat is going to make sure the machine is on first. But it might not like if the machine never shuts off, it never going to run.
Lex 10:55 --- That's a good point. I think we beat that one to death. And to hit down a rabbit hole probably didn't need to go
Kelly 11:00 --- which I don't know what to do. Because you too did such a wonderful job answering that question. But Colby had already posted.
Jordan 11:08 --- A link is posted good enough?
Lex 11:10 --- He didn't say anything.
Jordan 11:11 --- Unless the people in the chat have clicked on the link read the entire document and verified that it had the information they're looking for. It doesn't count.
Kelly 11:18 --- I'm gonna give you each a point. How about that? Hey, guys, can you scan the registry for Hkey_current_user key? d Martin?
Lex 11:31 --- Yeah, you can do it. You know, here's the thing, your work, you know, you know, here's the gamble there, right? Is the person logged on at the time you're on the scan is the right person logged on that you're expecting to see it, you know what I mean? So, again, it just depends on the timing of the scan and who is actually logged on at that moment.
Jordan 11:51 --- Yeah, so if you have, if you build a PowerShell scanner to scan the registry and have it set to scan as the logged on user, it will scan as whoever is logged on. And if no one has logged on, it will scan it all, but it will overwrite whatever data is in there. So you want to make sure that that part is accurate before you move forward with it. Otherwise, you might pull in some bad data you're not expecting. Now
Lex 12:13 --- , there's, there's there's a definite level of maybe in there, maybe it depends on who's logged on, or maybe depends. There's definitely a level that depends on it. It depends on who's logged on depends on when you run it,
Jordan 12:24 --- run as logged on, you can absolutely do it. You can also if you want to get really complex, you can load unused current users. We do that with the firewall with one of our Firefox packages, but it's you're really messing with stuff that's just
Lex 12:37 --- there's a gamble there. If you messed up a user.dat file and on that bad day, bad day, so just be aware of what you're doing if you do that.
Jordan 12:48 --- None of us
Kelly 12:49 --- I gave it to Jordan. Yeah. Unless Jordan unless you don't want the point.
Jordan 12:55 --- I'll take the point. I don't I don't need to earn points to accept
Lex 12:58 --- Hey, Sean are and this may not be for this one says point for lex.
Kelly 13:02 --- Well, you got one because I split some points before. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, maybe
Lex 13:08 --- I'm gonna use that until it disappears off my screen. just keep doing that dude.
Kelly 13:14 --- All right. Hey, guys. I recently installed a few apps via deploy as the deploy user. However, users are not able to delete or rename the icons created by the install without admin privileges. Where did I go wrong? Thanks, Steve. W.
Lex 13:30 --- First of all, if you have your end users not set up as admins that is going right in my book. Wouldn't you agree, Jordan?
Jordan 13:37 --- Yeah, I regret to inform Colby's already got this one. Okay, what do we have to say you have to be an admin to edit files in the public user profile. So if the icons are going public user you have to be admin if it goes into their personal user profile they can you know
Lex 13:51 --- it's surprising how often Colby and I have the exact same thoughts I was gonna say those words verbatim
Jordan 13:57 --- exactly like that exactly like that because I paraphrase what he typed so now you're just allow
JJ 14:02 --- How convenient
Lex 14:04 --- Does that surprise anybody? Colby gets out when I think
Kelly 14:11 --- point Colby can PDQ upgrade my users Alexander in
Lex 14:18 --- I'm still working on it being able to deploy a shot because I put that on a regular schedule and that would upgrade me most of the day. I mean, I guess the the fact that I'm still me
Jordan 14:28 --- No, no, no, you're stuck with what you got.
Lex 14:31 --- I'm gonna deploy some coolness to you.
Jordan 14:35 --- As far as shots I did build the inventory tracking system where I added the option where you could pour yourself a shot and it would take down your add remove milliliters from your total alcohol content really
Lex 14:47 --- have you have you scanned your network and founder Talisker.
Jordan 14:50 --- No I had to build up my inventory manually. I wasn't that advanced.
Lex 14:56 --- This is what you do in your spare time. It was for a webcast. Oh scrolling All right, you got paid for it. I can't get paid for that. Fun.
Kelly 15:08 --- Dear PDQ fellers, thank you for these live streams, I just watched building a smart schedule. Most of our workstations stay online but laptops do not. Is there a good way to use heartbeat for laptops and cycle through the groups for workstations on the same schedule? Josh C
Jordan 15:28 --- you could have multiple triggers where there's the heartbeat and the other one, that way, it will kick off automatically when the laptops Come on, and then just, it will still attempt on the other times it will bypass them, you probably want to check that ping before. Ping before deploy at that point, right, make your online or offline.
Lex 15:48 --- And I guess again, the other thing I was just thinking is like, key, you can use PowerShell to alter your collection, you can use PowerShell to alter you know all kinds of things. If you get past the sequencing, you can do so much I mean you can put any kind of filter you want now into that cycle. We were thinking about Can you think of any OFF TOP of your head we were talking about last week? When we did that one?
Jordan 16:15 --- Oh, I junk that as soon as the webcast was done, like it shut your brain off. It was incredibly useful, but I don't need it now.
Lex 16:23 --- I just know you were excited. We could do anything. I was very excited. And then who did it? Okay, but think of this right? You don't just have to change one parameter. You can change multiples of the PowerShell.
Kelly 16:37 --- Hey, guys, we have a ton of machines with multiple different certs for different VPN portals. Is it possible to create an inventory report of which machines have which portal cert? I've tried a few times but I can't seem to get the machines to return a value with my scan profile. Thanks in advance Anthony. l.
Lex 16:57 --- All right. I'm bringing up scan profiles. First thing off top my head where certs are stored? They are stored file wise and they are all stored in the registry also right? Yeah.
Jordan 17:11 --- And you can use PowerShell scanner ... nobody put this in chat. This is all me. You can enumerate certs with the cert and backslash in PowerShell and I'll grab all sorts of machines.
Lex 17:23 --- Well, Colby shares the same mind. If you know, here's the thing. There's a couple ways to go about that. And I'm gonna say what comes to mind you can enumerate search with the search backslash.
Jordan 17:35 --- I didn't look at that. Thank you, Lex. I'm gonna try that. Thanks. I'll see i'd just probably get child item and then just starts going back slashes would grab all of them if you know the name, you could try to do like a foreach loop where it whittles out the names or if the name is this, then they'll grab only the specific search you're looking for.
Lex 17:54 --- So, summary PowerShell scanner Colby we put out there and Coby gets the point you know, are you sure man? I was summarized?
Kelly 18:05 --- I kind of gave that one to Lex.
Lex 18:07 --- Okay, my boy. Thank you.
Jordan 18:09 --- What's the scoreboard looking like? Alright,
Kelly 18:10 --- so here's the scoreboard right now. Well, okay, Lex. I'm getting rid of the eight points that you cheated and gave yourself so Lex is tied with Jordan with four points. Colby individually has three but if you combine the chat with Colby, they're ahead with five.
Jordan 18:31 --- That's fair. So the audience is actually
Lex 18:33 --- so what we're learning here is everybody in chat smarter than us. So where it gets asked us it's fun. I love it.
Kelly 18:42 --- They have the hive mind. They're like the Borg.
Lex 18:44 --- The hive mind. I like it. By the way, Sean our where's the point for Lex you were going to hook me up man.
Jordan 18:53 --- I like Timothy's idea where you kind of built on it where you grab all the certs and then just have dynamic collections to sort of that way. That is brilliant. is not the check-in point.
Lex 19:04 --- Just No more points for them. Thanks, Shawn.
Kelly 19:10 --- Hey guys, do you have any plans to add more features to the message deploy step something like an option to accept decline or delay a deployment or changing the title of the message? If not, do you have any recommendations for allowing users to choose if we're when a deployment runs? Thanks, Ryan. F.
Lex 19:29 --- Now adding more features to the message step itself No, but if you go watch the webcast called Building intelligent packages, I'm going to take credit for Jordan's work we Jordan wrote some PowerShell it does that it will allow them to delay in the PowerShell is included on that so I think it's called Building intelligent packages. It was within the last two three weeks that we did this one?
Jordan 19:53 --- Yeah, it was not long ago.
Lex 19:56 --- Yeah, really recent. Check it out. It's in there. You can definitely do that. It's a little bit of PowerShell.
Jordan 20:02 --- And you might want I don't think it went super professional with my messages that popped up. So you might want to correct those. But everything else should be good to go.
Lex 20:10 --- Loud noises
Kelly 20:16 --- Is there a way to do an IP config release and IP config renew from deploying? I've tried but it fails after it releases. Thanks, Matt.
Lex 20:27 --- Okay, IP config release, right releasing an IP, right? I'm just walking through the logic here. the IP gets a new one. And then wouldn't at that point, if it's got a new IP, your DNS would be off. So you need to refresh your DNS on the inventory console before you do anything else.
Jordan 20:48 --- Yeah, well, you probably beat me to this one. And they're each on their own line, it will fail. But if you just put an ampersand and then put it both on the same line, oh, it's gonna send the entire command and then it will do a release/renew. Oh, it might not report back correctly to you, but it should. Okay. Bring them back online with a new address.
Lex 21:04 --- For Shawn,
Jordan 21:06 --- I would have said I just waited for you to be quiet as my father's waiting.
Lex 21:10 --- Shut up. Actually,
Jordan 21:11 --- I thought it was seeing what ampersand so I would have been wrong. So thank you.
Kelly 21:15 --- So given that one, two chat,
Jordan 21:17 --- is that what we're doing that was chatting to Shawn directly?
Lex 21:20 --- Yeah. Definitely.
Kelly 21:25 --- Lex Jordan, and the hive mind. Can you do a quickie on saving PowerShell credentials in a file so they can be used on the PDQ server instead of having a password in clear text. Thanks, Brian. AW
Jordan 21:40 --- say six weeks ago, we did a webcast on this where I went over different ways to create credential objects. If it is, I'm saying my own words just to get JJ upset with me. So if it's only on that machine, you can just create a PowerShell credential in that one import from that machine it is specified to the account and the machine to decrypt at that point. It is going across multiple machines and you'd have to create a key file and then you can access both the key file and the encrypted document to unlock those
Lex 22:10 --- harder the screen of I'm playing for points here.
Jordan 22:15 --- You're going to Chris's blog, because I pirated heavily heavily from Chris
Lex 22:20 --- wants you to know I typed it in by hand I did not copy what Colby put in check. That's the hard note
JJ 22:27 --- any anytime someone says "Um" take a point away
Kelly 22:30 --- Yeah, I know.
Jordan 22:32 --- I do not like this. Yeah,
Kelly 22:34 --- then we're gonna end up with dead air and have that as long
Lex 22:37 --- as you don't dock me for the word Absolutely. I can't not say it.
JJ 22:41 --- Now that one's fine.
Lex 22:42 --- All right, that was fine. It's only um .Absolutely okay to say that absolutely.
JJ 22:48 --- Try not to go into excess
Jordan 22:51 --- now it's on my brain? Okay, next question. Let's move on.
Kelly 22:55 --- guys. Is there a way to report on all the updates needed per machine as compared to all machines needing a specific update? Thanks, Pedro.
Lex 23:08 --- Oh, I'm getting the point for this because I'm going to do this. This is how I do it. If you go into inventory, okay, you look at our collections. We use the word old if you follow this same naming scheme. This report is super easy. New report. Basic report. computer name member of collection name, filter, filter and wrong button member of collection name contains old I like to put the little parentheses down around that run that against everybody probably should name that old apps we're gonna run it anyways and then you can group I like to group by computer in this one to see who the bad boy is. Right click group by Babbitt needs five updates. There they are. Then you auto schedule that or you look at it weekly, and make sure you're on top of your game there.
Jordan 24:09 --- There's also a PowerShell scanner scanner built on the GitHub, GitHub PDQ, PowerShell / scanners where it will go through and I'll let you know available Windows Updates per machine.
Lex 24:20 --- You suck i want we're go to the judges. I want points.
24:26 --- Okay, I don't have a horse in this race. Colby is the one that put the link in there. I still want points.
Kelly 24:31 --- I'm going to give you a point. I will also give Colby a point oh,
Jordan 24:35 --- you know that that's that's like a pity point. No, because his was PowerShell which makes it better.
Lex 24:42 --- I think we should go to the hive mind me or Colby.
Kelly 24:47 --- Oh, don't do that. I want to know you're going to be disappointed.
Jordan 24:51 --- Oh, actually, it's so far. It's
JJ 24:52 --- PowerShell gets to the point.
Jordan 24:54 --- PowerShell gets the point. Yeah, there you go. The point
Lex 24:57 --- PowerShell gets to the point.
Kelly 25:05 --- Alright, hey guys, we have run into a few computers being restarted or shut down by the end users. But the uptime is not updated. Ran path nerd nerd on the affected computer. And the time matches the uptime. Have you come across this problem? T law Not to be confused with T pain?
Lex 25:27 --- Well, t pain, I mean t law.
Jordan 25:31 --- The check came in with turn off fast reboot. Outside of that, I didn't even know about that one. I don't have an agreement. So I'd say yeah, fast reboot from the chat.
Lex 25:42 --- You know, I was gonna honestly, the thing, first came to mind is okay, your computer info scan is going to grab that information. So depending on when that was run last will depend on how up to date that is. As for you running in the Wi Fi, you know, that kind of thing? Yeah, it looks like fast reboot might be the culprit there. So I'm hoping I'm adding something that you need to know about depends on the last time you scan your computer info as to how correct that data is.
Jordan 26:13 --- It's overwhelming and a lot of people run into this. So you know, it's definitely one for the chat. I
Lex 26:20 --- had no idea forced to reboot, and then run the
Jordan 26:23 --- scanner. And then it looks like a local machine system current control set, session manager.
Kelly 26:30 --- Point chat.
Jordan 26:33 --- Definitely.
Kelly 26:35 --- Dear Lex Jordan and hive mind, how can you use PDQ to force a BitLocker password backup to AD sincerely, Eric D.
Lex 26:45 --- And right out the gate native way to do that. So normally what I would do is like hmm, can we do PowerShell? Can that be done in PowerShell?
Jordan 26:55 --- So you can write anything you want to an object in Active Directory if you have the set tools or even just the Active Directory command that I've never done anything with BitLocker and PowerShell to answer definitively.
Lex 27:09 --- Okay, I'm kind of stumped at this point.
Jordan 27:11 --- Yeah. So as far as writing into it, yeah, it'd be get dash at object AD computer where you specify the name. And then which attribute we're going to update. We're going to set dash AD computer. That's for the Active Directory side. I just I don't know for a bit liquor. locker. liquor, liquor. There we go. more drinks for you today.
Lex 27:33 --- Yeah, okay. Well,
Kelly 27:36 --- just for that Jordan gets the point.
Jordan 27:38 --- Good news. I won't hear about this ever again. That was just gonna let it go.
Lex 27:48 --- Would you like some more bit liquor? Jordan?
Jordan 27:51 --- Yes.
Lex 27:53 --- Yes, please. Go, man. You just want a bottle. You want a bottle? What else we got?
Kelly 28:02 --- All right. I want to pad my resume with any plans for a PDQ admin certification? JB?
Lex 28:11 --- It comes with a picture of me. Fox is still doing it like an uncle Rico? I don't know.
JJ 28:18 --- We send you one of those papers that you get in kindergarten for reciting the whole alphabet.
Kelly 28:26 --- You know, we've actually thought about this from time to time. And I guess the sticking point that we've had is the fact that for the most part, our product, you know, deploying inventory can be very easy to use right out of the gate. They're quite intuitive. And, you know, to be honest, we didn't want to give the impression that someone had to, you know, get a certification to actually use the products because you don't but it is, you know, it is powerful enough and deep enough that Yeah, we probably could. We could do something like that. Not saying we're going to but we could do it. Did I just get a point?
Lex 29:02 --- No. You did. Yes. That'd be that'd be a heck no.
Kelly 29:08 --- Crap. Oh,
Lex 29:09 --- you're actually listening to me now. Wow. What happened when I wanted points?
Kelly 29:16 --- All right, we are ready to move on. Alright, guys, why are there so many Adobe Reader packages? Which one do I use? Can PDQ figure it out? For me, Jeremy G.
Lex 29:27 --- just figured it out for you. There are, I guess, let's go to Adobe. There's a bunch of I guess it's personal preference. I mean, some of them update on a more regular basis with the more up you know, I guess more features in that on a more regular basis than others. I don't know.
Jordan 29:50 --- It. We don't like it either. But there's so many offerings from Adobe that we have to supply. Yeah. As far as which one's best.
Lex 29:59 --- That's up to you. That really is, I would say, if it was me, okay, here's my opinion, I want to touch the machines the least amount possible. So if they've got a long term release, that's the one I would probably pick
Jordan 30:12 --- up on you. Oh, Ben recommends Foxit reader, which we also have.
Lex 30:18 --- There's a twist.
Kelly 30:21 --- really up to you. point goes to chat, then
Jordan 30:23 --- yeah, I'll take it. Yeah. If the answer is use Foxit,
Lex 30:29 --- use Fox
Kelly 30:32 --- I see an almost 100% return of access denied to the computer service manager when scanning machines on domain number two with PDQ inventory on domain number one, I am certain I'm running the scan as a domain admin on domain number two, any pointers gergeti.
Lex 30:53 --- Right. So two domains. First thing I would look at is when you added those machines in inventory, just making sure they have the correct scan user. So to do that, see what machines have a certain scan, you can right click on it and go look at select your scan user. Just verify that probably an easier way to do that is to re-sync them. I mean to lose a little bit of data but resync them and just verify you've got the right admin credentials. If you're using the right admin credentials, I don't know Jordan, thoughts?
Jordan 31:27 --- If you have the right credentials, and is still not working, that might be something to send into solutions to I can't think of anything I wouldn't be
Lex 31:35 --- firewall problem with it.
Jordan 31:37 --- I can't answer on this one. I will drink. You will drink. I will drink.
Lex 31:44 --- So if your credentials are right, check my support at this point. Let's give support the point for that one.
Kelly 31:50 --- Lex, I'm going to give it to you because you directed them to a resource that may have the answer. There we go.
Lex 31:56 --- Wow. So if I start going now ask Jordan and ask Colby after this. There's the resources for your points?
Kelly 32:03 --- No, this is your one time Oh.
Lex 32:06 --- Trying to understand the rules.
Kelly 32:07 --- Alright, looks like we have three questions left. Dear Lex and Jordan, is there a way to have a non admin to trigger the running of a report for example, uptime on all computers, Jason C,
Lex 32:22 --- non admin to trigger the running of a report. First of all, if you're going to do that, I just do it not a report, if you already got the report built, just have that run on a schedule. Now, if you're trying to trigger it to run because of something happening in the database, no easy way to do that.
Jordan 32:38 --- And if you have random users able to do it, you might have licensing concerns.
Lex 32:42 --- Yeah, there would be licensing concerns there. So the best route, you know, run it every, you know, schedule it here, again, just the new auto report. The scheduling, you'll recognize it looks pretty much you know, trigger wise the exact same as the rest of it
Jordan 32:57 --- yet there is the CLI, which would let them run the report if they have permissions on PDQ to run the report to kick it off. But once again, it comes down to every admin that deploys against it and needs a license.
Lex 33:11 --- And the other thing to point out, it's only as good as your last scan. So if I run a scan, on Sunday, I can run that report all week until I run that computer info scan. And information is not going to change. You might want to kick the scanner off, then the report just to get updated info.
Kelly 33:32 --- Dear Lex and Jordan, if we have Windows Updates part of the auto updates in PDQ Deploy, how do we decline the latest Windows updates, Joshua C
Lex 33:44 --- decline of usually what I would do, we'll just do my windows 10 here right let's say there is a schedule below schedule for this new schedule and targets. Collections if I grab one real quick check what you're going to do instead of deleting the schedule, what you end up doing is just disabling the schedule. If I had one up available, I would just do this real quick. 64 bit old triggers will say it runs on Friday. I don't care about the time right now and package options stop pointers once they succeed. There is your part of your schedule, you can right click and just disable the scheduling. Those little green things went gray and there is no next runtime. That's how I would do it so you don't have to rebuild the schedule. I just disabled it until you determine that it's okay to turn back on. That's Jordan.
Jordan 34:42 --- This is a good reason to have a lab or test environment where that will download and update right away and if you find problems like we did find it this late update and you can if you give yourself five to seven days disable the schedule before it goes live. And then the next time like when the update for this one for the blue The blue screen patch comes out, it will reset the timer on that schedule and you can just restart it and it will go from that point.
Lex 35:07 --- There you go. Just see no, I, I'm pretty sure. Here's a plug for a webcast coming up. I think in a couple of weeks, we're gonna show you how to automate your testing. So stay tuned.
Kelly 35:17 --- Final question of the day. Hey, guys, we have shared computers and people don't log off, I have seen as many as six users logged on. disabling switch users and lock was not helpful. I want to schedule a deploy to log off the extra users leaving the currently logged on user. And if just one lock user alone. Thanks dovid.
Lex 35:42 --- kind of stuck on this one. How do you determine Okay, if they're not doing anything and it's locked? You got a six lock machine? Which one do you pick?
Kelly 35:49 --- Alexander actually has something in the chat
Jordan 35:52 --- related to this question you've heard though, and he was very thorough.
Kelly 35:55 --- Yeah. I think he may have gotten it.
Lex 35:58 --- I'm channeling and channeling what you want to do. It's Hkey_local_machine software Microsoft Windows. It's what Alex says in the chat.
Jordan 36:07 --- The chat will show up for people watching the future. So the show PC PC mode option the sign out button where switch user used to be so it removes which user completely I can only sign out and it's local machine software Microsoft Windows currentversion shared PC and then the key is shared PC mode and the value is one
Lex 36:28 --- so here you go right there guys I just let me center that local machine that's what Jordan was just talking about. Pause it right there you'll be able to grab that I think the drops off the end there. Let me make it a little wider so you can get the whole link there it is. Maybe possibly Nope. We're this way. All right. pause and grab the information right there. I like it Alexander Good job All right, let
Kelly 37:00 --- me give you the final tally. This is interesting. Jordan comes in with six points. Interesting the fact that Lex gave himself eight points to start we discounted those Lex ended up with nine points total. Colby had six for chat and had six. So if you combine that they won with 10 points. Like
Lex 37:27 --- I just want to stick with the fact that if you just added up the way you did it I'm at 9 on top I'm the winner.
Kelly 37:33 --- You are the winner
Jordan 37:34 --- to chat. I'm winning in a game well played.
Lex 37:37 --- Yeah, well played. Yes, winning, winning. Thank you guys for playing along today. This has been a fun pd q&a. We'll catch you guys next week. I'm Lex from PDQ.com
Kelly 37:50 --- Thanks for joining our webcast today. Congratulations Steve W and Josh c winners of PDQ swag. Send us your info at the webcast at PDQ dot com. Thanks again for joining us and we'll see you back here next week.
JJ is a technical creative. He finds joy in programming, automation, and in participating in the artistic sides of things. You'll often find him drinking on Thursdays on the PDQ webcast, rambling and raging remotely at the Bermuda Triangle/heisenbug-tier tech at the studio in SLC.
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