Webcast: PDQ&A May 2021 - Transcript

SPEAKERS Lex, Kelly, Jordan, JJ

Lex  00:00 --- Well, Hey guys, are we really back?

JJ  00:04 --- We are back? Yeah, you're back.

Lex  00:07 --- Not gonna have me off anymore.

JJ  00:09 --- So abruptly,

Lex  00:10 --- Dang. Well, you know, hey, it's a PDQ patchwork put together. I'm just kidding. We're doing this live from our different studios I guess the way to put it

Kelly  00:22 --- as one way to put it

Lex  00:24 --- the wrong way.

Jordan  00:25 --- is unfinished basement still count as a studio?

Kelly  00:31 --- That's I love the dungeon effect of Jordan. That's beautiful

Lex  00:34 --- audio.

JJ  00:34 --- We've got homes in different area codes.

Lex  00:37 --- There we go. Let's q&a, guys, so throw down your questions and Jordan, I will fumble through them as best as possible.

Kelly  00:46 --- Yeah, all right. Are you guys ready?

Lex  00:48 --- Oh, no, but I never am so excited. Anyways,

Kelly  00:52 --- let's jump in. Here we go. Hey, guys, is there a better way to move packages into folders without dragging or cutting and pasting which breaks links sincerely, john P. Now,

Lex  01:05 --- John, I'm assuming and Jordan jump in at any time, we're talking about moving files that are in your repository that are being referenced by your packages? So the simple answer that there is no, as soon as you move them, you are going to have to go re link them to the new location. Jordan, have you found any easy ways to do that?

Jordan  01:29 --- And no, not really, because I mean, their project is pretty static. I guess you could have like a variable that has kind of like a repository that you put in the variable into the path there, and it would update those links for you. Isn't, isn't that we do have the repository variable. That's that right? There is

Lex  01:47 --- a variable in there.

Jordan  01:48 --- Yeah, just a second variable that is also a UNC path that you could replace that with your positive variable? I don't know. I've never fiddled with that. But that's still you're gonna have to make some changes there. But at least it would be if you're moving between two locations. And those are both static, you would have those two available.

Lex  02:05 --- I, I can't off the top of my head think of an easy way. I mean, there's ways to make it different, but not easy. So let's move on to the next question. Because that was a horrible, sad answer for that.

Kelly  02:19 --- Way to start it out guys way, way to go. Gentlemen, I would like to export a list of users from AD staff on one list and faculty on list two, and import them into PDQ against the username. Is it possible without having the computer name in the CSV? I want to import the CSV into PDQ where staff would have a checkmark in their respective column. Sincerely, Thomas, the Tank Engine.

Jordan  02:47 --- So the import CLI is going to require the computer name for that to work so that it's going to have to be part of the CSV. I don't know if there's a way that you could run the query from AD in such a way to grab both the user and the computer. So they're tied together. But is it definitely to be necessary? I think it might be possible to get both of those depending on how they link

Lex  03:09 --- it that the Import Wizard does run. I mean, if you notice right here, it does run everything against Well, I guess let's see if we got a CSV file like grab on the desktop. Let's see the secret to life Autobot assembly, there we go. So if you notice, when you pull these, it does require the computer name field. So I mean, that is the link to get that data in there. I guess you could do some. I hate to say this, you could probably do some  SQL insertions. And I'm making this face because if you do it wrong, you're going to have to have a bad day with your database. So we're going to try that. Definitely back your database up first. But yeah, I would go with Jordan's try and get the computer name in there too. So anyway, staff true or false say get a checkbox. So  do the next question.

Kelly  04:03 --- All right, here we go. Could you please go over files and directories reports john P.

Lex  04:12 --- Alright, so first, for files and directories report you need to have a file scanner of some type. So Surprise, surprise. Thanks for sending us in early we built a files in directory scanner and this happens to pull all the MCs and system 32 folder in the system. already ran that so now if you go and look at will say BugsBunny just because happens to be highlighted files and directories. There we go. It's been populated. So you do have to run that scanner. It ran that before this. And now building reports on this is pretty simple. So let's do a new report. We'll do a basic report. We'll call this report. I don't know arp.exe because I happen to find that one and I can spell it At this point, you're going to go add some new fields in here. And you're going to go look for files and directories. So let's go get the name and a few other things. So we'll say we get the name of the file, the path, we'll get the product name, product name, that seems to be the product version. And that'll be good enough at this point. Now, for your filters, again, if you're looking for something specific, in this case, we're looking for arp.exe, you're going to go again to files and directories, where the name contains arp.exe, I guess you can do equals and then we'll run that against all computers. And we should see when we go files, paths, different versions, I guess we can group by this and see all the different versions that a r p we've got there we go. So there's a report, you know, it looks like the majority have 10 to 19 something some some one. But again, you need to get that data in first by running a scan. And then your reports are just you'll find the files and directories table and go to town. Jordan thoughts.

Jordan  06:15 --- Now when it comes to talk about reports, I just sit back and be quiet because you know your stuff, so makes it easy for me.

Lex  06:21 ---  Only if I can spell. Anyway, that's one way to do it. But again, go after those files first. So,

Kelly  06:30 --- alright. Okay, here we go. Dear Lex and Jordan, we're using fog to image our computers and snapin with PowerShell to install the application from PDQ Deploy. Using the command line can we prioritize deployment, so any snapin cue in PDQ Deploy will be installed next sincerely, Daniel C.

Lex  06:53 --- A Daniel. There is no way to prioritize from the command line. Jordan, you seen anything like that? I know, I haven't. Unless it's been added recently. I think all priority has to be done from actual deployments, I just want to check see how many deployments

Jordan  07:10 --- I can't think of a way to do it with command line just because it's not always a full deployment is doing it. Sometimes it's machines with specific machines within the organ to do it. There's a lot of variables I don't think we could really account for with the command line for that one. So I don't know, if it's in there. I can go check over the chat, because if it's in there, Colby will tell us,

Lex  07:27 --- yeah, I will show you how to prioritize. So if I, instead of hit cancel, I hit OK. So we'll just go grab everything. And we'll say chrome old, which is a ton of machines, 25. Okay, it'll only deploy at a time. And this super dirt test package does have a pause in it. Now you'll notice status wise, we've got these queued and we got some running. So let's get all that running ones there. Let's scroll up and say I want Daffy Duck to be next right click prioritizes target, then that bad boy goes to the top of the queue at this point. So that's how you would prioritize it. And there's Daffy right there.

Jordan  08:12 --- So it makes me think and I wouldn't know how to go about this. And especially where it's always updating be difficult. Like if you did a SQL query against it, you could find one that is queues and change the status to prioritized, but with how, how often that's changing, that seems like something you wouldn't want to mess with, necessarily, especially on a running deployment. That'd

Lex  08:32 --- be kind of rough to keep track of, but yeah, okay. So the other thing is, I just went to help and open a command prompt, an administrative command prompt, these are all the commands you can do from the command line. So there is nothing about prioritization right there. So any to start that show you how to get the things that you can do? 

Jordan  08:57 --- That was a long No.

Lex  08:59 --- There was Well, that was a no, but you can still right click and Okay, that was a 

JJ  09:06 --- no but also no.

Lex  09:09 --- Like, follow that up with a yet

Kelly  09:15 --- resounding no.

Lex  09:17 --- I said it's one other language comedian yet. Nine, nine. Are we

JJ  09:22 --- trying to fill time here? Do we not have enough questions?

Jordan  09:26 --- To add context and why the answer is not gonna change?

Lex  09:28 --- Yeah, good point.

Kelly  09:31 --- All right, on that happy note, gentleman Can I search all deployments by hostname to see what has been done to a certain computer? JOHN p.

Lex  09:41 --- So, john, if you're thinking of doing in deploy, I would say don't go to inventory. And it's really quite simple. Let's open BugsBunny. We'll go to deployments. And there's everything that's been done to BugsBunny from deploy, easiest place to find that I mean, I guess you could filter and do some, you know, grouping in.

Jordan  10:05 --- You could build a report on it. I guess. If you want to fine tune you can present the specific.

Lex  10:10 --- But, if you're looking on a specific machine, it doesn't get any more specific than that. I don't think

Jordan  10:14 --- well, just if you're looking at only interested in failed

Lex  10:18 --- like that is that is a good point. Good point. All right. Ihow was that JJ. We're not sure. Yes.

JJ  10:29 --- Oh, lovely, Lex. Lovely.

Kelly  10:33 --- We are on fire. A Lexan. Jordan, last q&a. I asked whether you have documentation regarding using PDQ Deploy at the end of a CI/CD pipeline, did you have any chance to look into this? Thanks, em be okay.

Lex  10:49 --- So, what you're going to need to do if you want to kick something off after let's say, you know, I think you clarified you know, you want to once certain processes run, you want to be able to have some Autodesk automatically deploy, right. So, this is the CLI. Basically, again, go to the help here again, and then open elevated command prompt. You can run PDQ Deploy, if you hit enter on that, it's going to come back and tell you what you need to do at this point, right? So we need to put in a package right? So dash package. And man, I need to have Deploy up so that I can see what package I'm going to do. Because if you've seen any webcast we've ever done typing is obviously one of my super skills. So seven DASH zip space tonight. updated. Hey, and then your targets. Toast target. Yep, target.

Jordan  11:52 --- So close.

Lex  11:54 --- So it was my job, man. Let me center that. Now that I've typed that I typed seven zip 19. Okay. See, you know,

Jordan  12:04 --- I really liked it. I don't have to type. That's my favorite part of this one. So far.

Lex  12:08 --- I hate you, Jordan. Alright, let's see if I typed that correct. Because seven zip 19 update not found apparently I put too many spaces in there. updated with a D. Alright, so spelling does matter here, guys. Alright, there we go. So now it's deploying to Bugs Bunny. So you can't kick off. Obviously, a command line to that. Not a whole lot of documentation. But at this point, if you come in here and run these, you can, you know, get some information in regards to that.

Jordan  12:45 --- So a way to make it so you don't have to have the exact version is if you do a nested package where you just have a static title, then as you update those packages, the method will still run everything. So be efficient. Just call it seven zip. Yeah, removes the need to track down the latest version on how they've updated. That's a good point.

Lex  13:05 --- So take what I said and just up your game a little bit 

Jordan  13:09 --- zazz it up? 

Kelly  13:15 --- Alright, you ready for the next?

Lex  13:18 --- If I was,

JJ  13:20 --- like maybe

Kelly  13:21 --- dead Jordan's pour in another. It's You can't leave the dungeon. 

JJ  13:30 --- He's expected to be stumped.

Kelly  13:33 --- Alright, well, let's let's get to the next one. Is there a way to edit? What is HKEY user? With the current user? Thank you. Without the user being logged on, I have to make a red change to 30 plus users on the same machine. Thanks, again, admin. All of the admins

Lex  13:53 --- out there, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Go ahead and take it on. All right.

Jordan  13:58 --- So with current user, that's going to be whoever's logged in. If you're looking for all users, there is the H key users hive that you can do. You have to have a registry key that follows a pattern for the SID for a user that goes in there. And then you can go through and search for loaded hives and unloaded hives. There is a lot to it. And messing with the H key users comes with some risk. It's not all bad. But I mean, you can do it. If you want to see an example of it in progress, download the uninstall windows Firefox per user. And look at that PowerShell script at the top part of that. Chris wrote that and that goes into how to load the user's hive and filter out so you have all of the actual users and then you could do your changes from there.

Lex  14:46 --- You know, that's how you do it. You know what I do? I'd make a regex put it in a user login script

JJ  14:54 --- and pour another one.

Lex  14:56 --- And I'm not going to call out Marcel for putting that in the chat. Because I want credit for that.

JJ  15:03 --- Oh, yeah, just realize we're not doing points today.

Kelly  15:05 --- Oh, well, I was just thinking.

JJ  15:06 --- Point 1 point on the board.

Jordan  15:13 --- Also Group Policy.

Lex  15:15 --- Yeah. Group Policy is another good one. Yeah.

Jordan  15:17 --- If we're looking to do it with our products, that is how you could do it. And it's super complex and not without risk.

Kelly  15:25 --- All right, next. Sure. Why not? Gentlemen, is there a guide to using PDQ Deploy without using the GUI? If not, can you make me one if I asked politely, pretty pleased duggie K.

Lex  15:40 --- So Doug, I'm going to show you how I learned this. I typed in I went and open the elevated command prompt and started down this path. I don't know. I don't think we've got any. Do you have any documentation that breaks this down Jordan?

Jordan  15:58 --- I, I'm not sure. Exactly. So the first part is going to be making your deploy. So it has everything you need. And it's updating without your input. So all of that you're probably gonna have to do from the GUI. There's just a lot of complexities that the COI can handle. Once you have deploy, where it's doing everything and as you're worried about is running reports and schedules. That's probably something we could write about. by we, I think I can write that.

JJ  16:28 --- If you looked at the blog lately. It's just it's Jordan. And then we've got another author Brock that you seldom see Lex using his his wonderful typing fingers.

Lex  16:41 --- You know, every blog, everything I've ever written has had to go and be rewritten for grammar and for spelling. So they just said, knock it off.

Jordan  16:49 --- Oh, that's that's all of us. There's a team that makes my stuff look almost readable.

JJ  16:55 --- That's true. 

Lex  16:56 --- Yeah. But the amount of work to make yours readable versus mine. It's like, they're like, Hey, we haven't taken caveman one to one. lakh so

JJ  17:04 --- sorry, we have to take your writing credit away, because most of the effort was made by someone else at this point.

Lex  17:11 --- Yep. Yes,

Jordan  17:13 --- that's definitely something we can I think it's a good idea to write it's, it'd be hard to hit for everyone's environment. But just kind of a general after it's built. Here's how you can set it up to run it all from command line. Probably not the automation side. We're not looking to build a portal for users. But but the basics, I could probably write something on that.

Kelly  17:37 --- So are you waiting for me now?

JJ  17:39 --- I think they're waiting to figure out who's point it is.

Jordan  17:44 --- Good point.

Kelly  17:45 --- All right. Oh, hang on. I was just adding another question. Okay. All right. Here we go. Hey, guys, is there a way to run a report or collection for users that have a specific VPN connection setup? I use the built in VPN client in Windows. And in searching for answers, the only things I find are scanning over a VPN, the built in connection is listed under the network connections in Windows, Danny G. Do you need to go back to the first one? half of that?

Lex  18:18 --- Is there a way to?

18:21 --- There you go.

Lex  18:22 --- Thank you. Specific VPN connection. Let's see. First thing I always do when I start looking for this kind of stuff is next. Now if there's a VPN, some VPNs create a nicked Lt. Or at least a virtual Nic. Jordan, I'm looking at you buddy cuz you're the only one on the screen other than me.

Jordan  18:46 --- I'm thinking that this is my far off look of I don't have an answer. So I'm not real familiar with VPN. So my guess is the best way to find out would be by IP. But I think our product returns the internal IP, not the VPN, which means if it is connected with VPN, you might be able to do like a PowerShell scanner that looks for a certain IP range that might tie into your VPN. And then you could run a report based off that PowerShell scanner. But that's purely hypothetical in my brain where I haven't tested any of it, I think it would be possible.

Lex  19:19 --- Now, I guess you could go after if there is a VPN executable that you know has to be on a machine and go after that. And then you at least know what you know, in the files.

Jordan  19:29 --- Right. So he added in the chat as an adapter and he wants to see the computers that have it. So are the adapters not showing up on that? network property space he just had. That so yeah. If it's not showing up right there, then absolutely PowerShell scanner that goes in and scans. All of those adapters would be the way to go. Would they if they are not physical adapters, but virtual?

Lex  19:56 --- I'm not sure it's interesting question. He says,

Jordan  20:01 --- No, they're not there. So yeah, so I don't know the command line on top of my head. But there's a lot of networking tools that we commonly do with command line that are in PowerShell. Now, Brock, Brock has a couple blogs on those. So just a PowerShell scanner that skin scans machine for all the network adapters looking for the one, it should be able to find that. And then you can run a report or collection based off the PowerShell scanner.

Lex  20:26 --- I'm going with what Jordan said.

JJ  20:28 --- Yeah, so it's semi stumped. Now that we have a PowerShell scanner, we were not as stumped as we used to be

Lex  20:35 --- to try to get-netadapter. It's what Collin Jay says.

Jordan  20:39 --- It's always nice that I can just say, yeah, use PowerShell and then not have examples.

Lex  20:49 --- For those anymore,

Jordan  20:50 --- you know, when I say use PowerShell, I'm very confident I can do it in PowerShell. Just not live on the webcast.

JJ  20:57 --- Take a drink,

Kelly  20:59 --- please.

Lex  21:00 --- scope.

Kelly  21:03 --- Alright, moving on. Next up. Dear Lex and Jordan, have you guys looked at the new Autodesk 2022 deployments, they changed everything to create a deployment. But is everything the same to push it out? Sincerely, Danny G.

Lex  21:20 --- Danny, I haven't looked at the 2022 deployments yet. From what I remember last when I was working on that, if you go through the customization tool in that it does build a batch file that you can run and probably dissect to, to build it that way. If it's still building that batch file. Yeah, I would imagine you could probably run it as a network. You know, a network deployment using the batch file.

JJ  21:46 --- Yeah, if the process has changed quite a bit, we'll have to do some homework. So we may we may end up doing a new blog on this just in case,

Jordan  21:55 --- the process has changed. But it didn't change for all of their products. It's a gradual thing. So we wrote off on writing a new one until it was relevant for more of their products, because not everything that they have follows a new process. There's the old and new. But if enough of it has rolled over now, it might be worth looking into and maybe doing a webcast or a blog on the new process.

Lex  22:17 --- We probably should. Yeah.

JJ  22:18 --- point for whoever writes that blog.

Kelly  22:21 --- All right, point. I was gonna say we're going to have to start including brock in our point spread here. All right. Hey, guys, how can I patch office 365 using PDQ Deploy sincerely, Aleksei

Lex  22:39 --- office 365. Are all those deployments? Are those patches their internet patches? I'm asking because, you know, I haven't done any patching on 365 recently.

JJ  22:50 --- Are you asking if that's roll up?

Lex  22:52 --- I don't know. I'm just like, let's just go look at our office packages at this point. So I imagine since it's not in here, you could probably PowerShell kick off an update. Looking at you Jordan, is that possible? Looks like Greg Colby dropped a webcast link or not a webcast a video link? For the updated differently. We've

JJ  23:22 --- covered this before.

Jordan  23:24 --- Yeah, I'm gonna guess that neither me or Lex were involved in that one. So as far as updating office 365 I'm not familiar with it. I'm not sure if it's, it follows like the same as your model where it is on their cloud service where it has its own command line and PowerShell. So I don't know enough to to dive in without doing more research

JJ  23:46 --- You're right It was Brigg and Josh.

Jordan  23:49 --- It makes sense. Yeah.

Kelly  23:52 --- It does make sense. I'm sure it did when they did it. Alright,

Lex  23:58 --- for asking us.

Kelly  24:00 --- ready for the next question.

Lex  24:02 --- Please.

Kelly  24:03 --- Is it possible to install slash uninstalled pf exe digital certificates? Thanks, Bs. Can I have a mug please Federico a. I'll take that second part. We'll start sending swag out again very soon. We're moving into our new building and most of that stuff is packed away but within the next couple of weeks, we'll we'll be back up and running.

JJ  24:30 --- Soon tm

Kelly  24:31 --- Yes. Now you guys can get back to the first part of the question.

Lex  24:36 --- PFX digital certs I'm unfamiliar with those Jordan.

Jordan  24:40 --- So yes, if it's in the same store as the certain Windows PowerShell you can just load up the the certification space just like go into the C drive you can go to cert colon backslash and that will give you all the certs and you can do all kinds of stuff with them there. But if it's not in that store, I I wouldn't be able to To answer that one.

Lex  25:05 --- So that's a I don't know,

Jordan  25:07 --- oh, and Colby put an import-pfxcertificate. So apparently there is a command in PowerShell. For p effects, there must be different than,

JJ  25:15 --- but I think it does add it to the windows certificate store.

Jordan  25:18 --- If it isn't the windows certificate store, you should be able to just delete it with PowerShell. Then just pointed to that path was in there. And then I'm going to say delete certificate that's not going to be right remove dash certificate, remove-childitem, remove child item, Mark as answered.

Lex  25:39 --- Mr star dot star, there you go.

Jordan  25:41 --- Well, at that point, it is a child item, right? Because you're in the store. So I'm gonna say remove dead child item should be able to get it.

Kelly  25:48 --- Remove-item, you know what I and Marcel already gave the point to Colby, I'm giving him double points for that one. So

JJ  25:57 --- Jordan would have just used, you know, use powerShell

Jordan  26:01 --- I got to the, almost the command get

JJ  26:06 --- off by one

Jordan  26:07 --- has its own child.

Kelly  26:10 --- Alright, next question, guys. Here's something of a feature request, would it be possible to add an option for Windows toast notification when a deployment has completed would be beneficial for both workstation the workstation receiving the toast? You guys are awesome, as always, thanks, Timothy M.

JJ  26:32 --- Can we do this without a feature request? First off, can we do a post step PowerShell. toast notification.

Jordan  26:40 --- So there is a module for PowerShell by Josh King, about handling and dealing with toast notifications, the module would have to be on everyone's device but with the with the PowerShell scanner if you follow the part where the import module should be able to find it is in the in the store for that. So I would recommend looking up Josh king and his module. And that should be able to get you started to get everything you need for that,

JJ  27:08 --- would you be able to run that PowerShell on the console device, the devices that's running the console? Pardon me.

Jordan  27:18 --- So you'd be able to run the PowerShell on anything that has the module and the module is in. It can just be imported. So as long as you're importing the module, wherever you run it, it should be able to run.

JJ  27:27 --- Should we do a blog hint hint? 

Jordan  27:30 --- Oh, that's what you're saying

JJ  27:31 --- Yeah. And that's where I'm kind of leading it that way.

Jordan  27:34 --- All right, then.

JJ  27:36 --- Because I don't know, if we're, if you're asking for a feature request. I don't know when we'd be able to get to it. But if in the meantime, we can come up with something fairly quickly, before our next release. Just as a says a blog topic.

Jordan  27:54 --- Oh, yeah. How after I've looked into it. I know Andrew that works here is familiar with that one. So I'll hit him up and build something out. So how we can track that. Right.

Kelly  28:04 --- All right, we have a bunch of questions lined up. So let's jump into a speed round, shall we guys, I moved my server and the repository is still on the old machine temp server on a workstation, what's the easiest way to relocate the repo to the new server? Alexander in.

Lex  28:23 --- So Alexander, we have got a video on moving that you can watch. Colby, can you pop that one up. But what you're gonna do is you're gonna come into options, preferences, a, and you're going to point your new repository to that new server. Once you do that, it's going to break all those links. And then you're going to go to where the install files were stored. copy those over copy the entire you know, the folder structure and everything over to the new repository and you should be good. may take a minute for it to obviously recover, you get a bunch of warning signs. So let's let me just show you what those warning signs look like. So that one's been moved. So seven zip here in a minute, we'll come up with a warning sign saying I can't find the file because it doesn't exist anymore. So anywho

Jordan  29:24 --- Colby did come through with that link to thank you  Colby towards the end.

Kelly  29:29 --- Another point for Colby. Yeah,

JJ  29:31 --- I think he's like he's squarely in the lead.

Lex  29:34 --- Isn't he always hasn't always been true.

Kelly  29:38 --- Why even keep score at this point? I agree. Ready to move was to move on. All right. Hey, guys need to know what to do on on computers that are remote and on VPN. And PDQ says they are connected with greenlight, but scan status shows Kerberos the target account name is incorrect. The network path was not found and failed to resolve host name. Sincerely, Melvin. Oh.

Lex  30:06 --- All right. Check it out. I'm gonna take over colby's job posting videos.

Jordan  30:11 --- He's promptly admitted in there.

Lex  30:12 --- Yeah. vp? No. So what? Yep. Aim on Colby. Come on

JJ  30:17 --- here. Yeah, he did a he did a KB article,

Lex  30:20 --- I think anywho the big thing is probably your scavenging is having an issue at that point. Wouldn't you agree, Jordan?

Jordan  30:27 --- Sounds like it. Yeah.

Lex  30:28 --- So there is two videos if he goes search our YouTube channel for VPN, and count incorrect, that from Colby. Those things should help you out. Getting that resolved. Again, a lot of times what happens is your VPN, you guys Connect, they pick up an IP, they disconnect, the next person picks up that IP but DNS hasn't refreshed in time. So

Jordan  30:56 --- if I mean, if you're allowed to get very aggressive on scavenging, like more than just a normal scavenging, we have a PowerShell script that will go through and be as aggressive as you want it to be. But it's just one where you might want to make sure that's what you're looking for, because it will be very aggressive on the scavenging and then might cause its own problems,

Lex  31:15 --- like UFC aggressive full contact.

JJ  31:18 ---  Hey, Jordan.

Jordan  31:19 --- Yep, 

JJ  31:19 --- speed round. 

Jordan  31:21 --- Okay.

Kelly  31:25 --- Guys, how do you manage multiple clients slash businesses, different locations from a central location, providing services via VPN from your office? all locations should have custom repository definition. This is actually from Marcel but I didn't have enough room to say Marcel. So m, standing for Marcel?

Lex  31:47 --- How would I do that? multiple clients, different locations, all VPN den. Boy, I can think of a couple of ways to go about it. None of them are real great. I mean, you could have a database for each of them. And then swap database, put a string in and swap the database out for each. So you can work on you know, if I'm working on a pops in client a database stop service pops in? Oh, Jordan, your thoughts.

Jordan  32:14 --- This is one that we attempted in prep for a webcast while ago that we decided it just wasn't worth it, where we were working in logic to where we update the repository based on location. And the issue we ran into was, when packages update on one location, how do we get full mesh with PowerShell. And we came up with a couple other things. We were doing a SQL query to get there. But at the end, we just decided that it's probably best not to have all that in, in one database.

Lex  32:44 --- It was difficult and difficult to attempt that we finally decided, yeah, we're trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. But you may try the database thing and swapping databases per client, if that's what you're doing.

Kelly  33:00 --- Cool. Hey, guys, having issues with laptops is their way to only deploy packages when connected to a specific subnet. When they're in the building, they connect to main subnet. When they're remote. They connect to another. We were planning to ask them to leave laptops here once a week and check for a heartbeat at night. Dave see.

Lex  33:22 --- So you want to deploy to certain subnets? I'm pulling a blank Jordan filter subnet?

Jordan  33:32 --- I mean, is it possible to make a I guess a collection off other IP address that's based on that subnet? And then if they're not a member, that collection doesn't deploy?

Lex  33:41 --- Yeah. Okay. So if you're going to do that, thank you, that's a good one. Let's say you're gonna do computer IP address contains, you're gonna want to do a version comparison. And the reason being is because there's you know, ten dot or 172 196, dot 68, whatever. Do the verse use the version comparison? Or I guess you could use contains, you know, 172 dot 16 dot and run it that way? See, you probably have 30 Yeah, there. Yeah, we can do contains. So it does evaluate that IP as a string. So. So that's one way to do it. And then you can

Jordan  34:19 --- deploy to a C or a B network, it would be straightforward like that. If it's something where it's not a direct where it has, like super, super netting, where there might be variations of that one, it might require a little bit more.

JJ  34:31 --- It might require some regular expressions. Yeah,

Lex  34:33 --- yeah, that is true. And don't ask me to do that right now cuz

JJ  34:39 --- we're gonna speed round, right?

Lex  34:41 --- Oh, yeah, that's right. I would do it, but it's the speed round. Okay.

Kelly  34:46 --- Hey, guys, would it be possible to add sorting folders in inventory? There are only the reports folders, Shannon. Ah.

Lex  34:56 --- Would it be possible? I mean, anything's possible. As

JJ  35:07 --- sorting board what date created?

Lex  35:12 --- There's a lot of Yeah. I'm probably, if it's an enhancement, we'd have to check into that. But yeah, I'm going with maybe it's possible that maybe on that

JJ  35:29 --- I'm confused by the question. Yeah.

Jordan  35:31 --- So if they're just looking for different folders where they can keep different packages in them, you can build, you can make a folder in deploy with it with new folder, but as far as how it sorts I don't know about that. If you're looking at just using those folders to store stuff, that's right there. Right. Unless I'm misunderstanding what they're looking for.

JJ  35:53 --- Well, I think they were asking him, I think they were asking about inventories, specifically.

Jordan  35:57 --- Oh, inventory. Inventory.

JJ  35:59 --- So I don't know, I don't know if they're talking about folders within the Explorer like Windows. And they want to filter it that way. But sorry to cut you off, Kelly.

Kelly  36:09 --- No, no, I was gonna say I think Colby it's saying they want folders for collections.

Lex  36:13 --- Okay. For collections now looks like you can do a new folder for reports. This point. So you could do I guess it collect era collection, and then sub collections. You can do your dynamic collection? One, right? And then your dynamic collection tool as a sub of that one?

Jordan  36:39 --- Yes, we can just use one collection to host the ones you want. Instead of until the collection is actually going to do anything. It's just a title of

Lex  36:47 --- because you can change the icon. I mean, there goes our speed round.

Kelly  36:52 --- went a long time ago.

Lex  36:54 --- Did it

Jordan  36:57 --- I'm gonna blame second scotch, a

Lex  36:59 --- second scotch on that one. Alright, so this is my new folder. And it looks like a folder with a pad in front of it. Here we go.

Jordan  37:09 --- And then that's what actually went down there. Just make sure you don't have any collections that are drilled down based on the parent

Lex  37:15 --- that Yeah, make sure you don't check that guy. All right. Cool.

JJ  37:23 --- I'll take the question is as read?

Kelly  37:25 --- Yes. Does PDQ Deploy keep track of deployed packages from the command line? Greg Kinnear? Right. So

Lex  37:34 --- we did deploy seven zip poorly to Bugs Bunny. There it is. Now, does it tag it any different because it came from the command line? No. But it did track the fact that it was done. And also if we look in Bugs Bunny, we should be able to see what that ID number was 26 under deployments 26 There it is. So does track it. Just one if there's any detail in here that might say it came from the command line? There you go.

Kelly  38:12 --- Hey, guys, is there a way to scan a particular folder on someone's C drive and report the size in PDQ inventory? Frankie B.

Lex  38:23 --- Yes.

Jordan  38:25 --- Yeah, I'm not sure I'm gonna do is Jordan is reboot scanner. Yes.

JJ  38:29 --- Next question. 

Lex  38:30 --- Do with PowerShell. All right. All right. Go

38:33 --- for me.

JJ  38:36 --- I don't know if we have the ability or the means time to show it.

Lex  38:40 --- There is but is yet. Okay. Do

JJ  38:43 --- we have a KB or a webcast or video that we've done on this before?

Lex  38:49 --- There's one git the polls user profile size so you can modify that to go point to the C drive

JJ  38:55 --- colby just posted? Is that we're referencing?

Lex  38:57 --- No, no, I thought that on my own thing. You know, Kobe, you need to change your display name to Lex.

JJ  39:06 --- I was just impressed. I was just impressed. likes that you knew anything about GitHub?

Lex  39:12 --- Shut up. I know plenty.

Kelly  39:14 --- I know things.

Lex  39:15 --- I know. Plenty.

Jordan  39:17 --- I know stuff. Lots of hubcaps.

Kelly  39:21 --- Alright, continuing on with the air quotes speed round two weeks ago, did I understand correctly that there is no way to differentiate a package that fails because of conditions from one that fails when attempting to install case. We have 1607 and 1809 ltsc. We have to update packages nested in one Windows Update package, but must set to continue on error. Josh see.

Lex  39:49 --- Right. There's a failed right there. Conditions due to log on user condition. Okay, there you go. So Good

Jordan  40:01 --- is the status will tell you if it failed based on the condition, but I'm not sure exactly what we're looking for past that one.

Lex  40:06 --- Let's go see what number was that one on Bugs Bunny, we should see that failed? Do we see failed attempts in here? BG info. There it is. So you can do report on conditions not met. There's places to look.

Jordan  40:24 --- But as far as he's wanted to continue, if it's failed, I believe it just kind of continue on failure Hall that's either way or not is there's not a way to specify continue based on the error message that I know of.

Lex  40:36 --- And the other question, this failed and stopped, right? I mean, let's say it failed and continued, right? It's not gonna report that error here. You'd have to look in the log in inventory. Here. If it failed, like, say it's failed. Step not run dude, architecture condition. Right. So that's, you'd have to? I don't know, that'd be I could probably do it in sequel looking at the deploy database? I don't think there's anything? I don't know.

Jordan  41:06 --- Yeah, so the error is gonna show up there, no matter what. But as far as if you want to continue on failure only for certain types of failures, we don't have a way to specify that it's either a continuing failure or stop on failure. I hope I hope, I hope we're getting to the question on that one.

Lex  41:24 --- Just a couple answers for you.

Kelly  41:26 --- They're ready to move on.

Lex  41:29 --- Let's do that

JJ  41:29 --- should  be a way to signal that.

Kelly  41:34 --- Alright, I think we got like five more questions here. Can custom inventory fields be created in the server client mode? If so, do they have to be created at the server rather than one of the client consoles? Katherine a?

Lex  41:48 --- Yeah, I've never tried making one as a client. But I mean, they're all going to be stored on the server.

Jordan  41:57 --- I think you can make it on the console. But it's still going to store on the server. Yeah, I think I wish we had it set up so we can test that one.

Lex  42:07 --- No, we, we, we could someday. But yes, instead, we'll move on to the Yeah, but there we go. Now we're moving on.

Kelly  42:16 --- Alright, now we're moving on. Is there a limit to how many heartbeat deployments is reasonable for the system to be checking? Can the queue be overloaded? Ellen L.

Lex  42:28 --- Can the queue be overload work backwards? Can the queue be overloaded? I think it's possible. It could be really your heartbeats determined by inventory under preferences networking. Your network excuse me, okay. So if you have, let's say, five 6000 or more machines, right? Ultimately, the thing that you're really worried about is responding this heartbeat trigger before it finishes. Or the see the heartbeat right now, the heartbeat trigger only matters when a machine goes from an offline to an online state. So I guess if you've got, you know, let's say 1000 machines to get turned on at the same time, and they all come on, it could overload. But the nice thing about deploys, it's only a deploy eight at a pop or every set and performances. So from the deployment, I don't think you'll overload it. You could overload how often you do the heartbeat, though. And that was all under a minute. I think.

Jordan  43:28 --- Well, it's important. Remember, the RP is not necessarily going to kick off I know speed round, but it is not going to reboot. Now, not necessarily. It basically has to check in as offline, and then check in as online. So there's a good chance with 300 seconds set that it's going to reboot before it even recognize it's offline. So based on your settings, you'd have to be very aggressive for it to overload I think, yeah.

Lex  43:55 --- What I said only with more detail

Kelly  43:58 --- there. Dear Lex and Jordan, is there a way to force a reboot for computers powered on over X amount of days in PDQ. JOHN s?

Lex  44:08 --- Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So the first thing you want to do is go build yourself a really cool dynamic collection called up time greater than x will say 14 days in this case. Okay. uptime is located in the computer table. Greater Than 14 will give that No, okay. And I got 27 machines been running more than 14 days. Now a couple of ways to go about this one, you can schedule this reboot or you can go to Tools and say, reboot. And if you hit that ok button, which I'm not going to do right now no reboot. Or you can schedule reboot and evening. You may I will say this right. This information right here is only as good as your Last scan. So if you were going to build a package and run it at night, I would say, step one in your package, do a scan step, run the computer and first can verify that the machines haven't been rebooted since then. And then run your reboot step. And only Well, let's just go show it. Since I'm causing all kinds of quickness here, right? There's, there's

Jordan  45:22 --- never, but at least we're all contributing.

Lex  45:25 --- We're all contributing, there's a computer info scan, right? I did my part, we're gonna need to reboot step right next. But we're only going to run this reboot step on machines that are a member of uptime greater than 14. Now I didn't put up there we go here, your uptime greater than 14. So that's the way I would do it. And then you can do it, you know, do it in the middle of the day, with a message like Screw you, you didn't reboot your machine, so that they know you did it. Just kidding. But so they know you care that you care. That's right. So

Jordan  45:58 --- Darrell says exclude servers from this one.

Lex  46:01 --- Well, then you go back here and you say, exclude servers, right? Oh, oh, here we go. Easy. Being a winner, winner chicken dinner. And I did that all in under a minute. If you'd Count 10 seconds per second. Don't try. Don't try and do the math.

Kelly  46:27 --- final two questions.

Jordan  46:29 --- Speed is relative

JJ  46:32 --- to two questions at once.

Kelly  46:34 --- But you have no idea how badly I wish I could do that. After deploying to a group of PCs and I have a PC that fails, I would redeploy by right clicking on that PC. In the past the PC would be the only target to pull into the deploy screen. Now the whole group is pulling in when only one computer is selected. Is this a bug or change by design? Thank you, Jay Franzen.

Jordan  47:02 --- I think there's two options. One that redeploy failed and redeploy. All right.

Lex  47:08 --- So there's redeploy. This is going to fail again, I think redeploy. Right? And then if you did it from up here, and need to redeploy, it's gonna redeploy it to all of them. No, Bugs Bunny in that case, but that's the only one in that one. Right. There we go. If you did a read a play up at this level. Yeah, I think, yeah, they kick them all off. So

Jordan  47:34 --- but I believe in the read, I have control but on the deployment details, if you scroll down, I think there's

Lex  47:39 --- plumbing details to the

Jordan  47:41 --- right more outside of that pane to the next pane over.

JJ  47:46 --- That's Simon says.

Lex  47:49 --- Okay, here goes I'm

Jordan  47:50 --- hovering over with my mouse. Can't you see it?

Lex  47:54 --- I'm using the highlighter. Am I in the right place? Jordan? Cuz I'm alone. You are not. Okay. Where am I going?

Jordan  48:02 --- So there is a deployment details to the right of that window up a little bit. Up. Next one. Yes, scroll down on there. in there, it has a list of deployment successes and failures and you can hit redeploy on only the failures.

Lex  48:17 --- Hang on. Let me let me find a failure. replay and failures. Now I hate driving when I don't know where I'm going up

Jordan  48:26 --- and down just a little bit there you go to fail. So we hit redeploy from the to failed is only going to grab the failed ones.

Lex  48:31 --- Perfect.

JJ  48:34 --- What a sneaky sneaky feature.

Lex  48:36 --- I can blind leading

JJ  48:38 --- I never knew that existed.

Jordan  48:40 --- Use my words to explain it. But I need to get louder and see if that helps. Always.

JJ  48:46 --- Just drink more and talk louder.

Lex  48:49 --- Get up on that mic.

Kelly  48:51 --- point for Jordan. Well done. 

Lex  48:54 --- Come on. Do I get any points for driving poorly?

JJ  48:58 --- We talked about this in the pre show Lex.

Lex  49:00 --- Yes, we did. That's right. Okay.

Kelly  49:03 --- All right. You ready for a final question?

Lex  49:05 --- I hope it's easy. All right.

Kelly  49:07 --- Final question. Is there a way PDQ could fully enable a machine for TPM? Is there already a package developed from PDQ for that sincerely? a meal or email p?

Lex  49:23 --- Go ahead, Jordan.

Jordan  49:25 --- Tell me what TPM is it's. I mean, I don't know if I've heard of an app, but it's not clicking PowerShell TPM. But I'm sorry, I don't know anything about it to weigh in on that. And I apologize.

Lex  49:37 --- What is TPM Trusted Platform

Jordan  49:41 --- with lots of people with that in their

Kelly  49:43 --- Trusted Platform Module.

Lex  49:45 --- Yeah. Doesn't look like we got a prebuilt package that has the word trusted in it.

Jordan  49:49 --- Security encryptions security hardware device. So as you can see, I'm learning from the chat as we go. So I don't answer that one.

Lex  49:57 --- I do you do with PowerShell I didn't read Jordan Collin J. tire pressure monitor. Thanks, Chad.

JJ  50:10 --- We have to end on this one.

Lex  50:12 --- My belt. Kelly makeup one that I can answer. Good.

Jordan  50:17 --- How many is too many?

Kelly  50:21 --- Well, I think it would be about this time we would say camera too. Oh,

Lex  50:25 --- all right. Everybody Sorry, that was so painful.

Jordan  50:29 --- This was not our finest hour. I think we had some good answers.

Lex  50:34 --- I think we pointed people in a lot of decent directions. And definitely when you stumped us we look like idiots

JJ  50:40 ---  threw some curveballs. Good job.

Kelly  50:42 --- Nicely done.

Jordan  50:43 --- I will be doing research into TPM now because I don't like hearing about things in PowerShell. I've never heard it before, especially when it sounds like it's incredibly useful. So maybe a blog will find out.

Lex  50:54 --- Thank you guys for watching. I'm Lex.

Jordan  50:57 --- I'm Jordan PDQ.com.

Kelly  50:59 --- Thank you for being a part of our webcast today. If you had questions that we were not able to get to today, feel free to reach out to our support forums. Thanks again for joining us, and we'll see you back here next week.