Michael Niehaus
Announcements!
Celebrate the life of VBScript
(oofhours.com)
Microsoft announced more of the timeline for VBScript this past week: Windows 11 24H2 makes it a
By: Michael Niehaus submitted:May 31 2024
Microsoft announced more of the timeline for VBScript this past week: Windows 11 24H2 makes it a
removable "feature on demand" (FOD), and sometime in 2027 is expected to be turned off
By: Michael Niehaus submitted:May 31 2024
Blogs, Articles, and Posts
Automatically update PowerShell 7.4 with WSUS or SCCM
(oofhours.com)
Microsoft enabled automatic updates for PowerShell with the release of PowerShell 7.2; that
By: Michael Niehaus submitted:Jan 3 2025
Microsoft enabled automatic updates for PowerShell with the release of PowerShell 7.2; that
continues now with PowerShell 7.4.
By: Michael Niehaus submitted:Jan 3 2025
Installing updates during Autopilot: Windows 11 edition, revisited again
(oofhours.com)
This seems to be a frequent blog topic, with posts going back to 2019: So why bring this up yet
By: Michael Niehaus submitted:Jan 26 2024
This seems to be a frequent blog topic, with posts going back to 2019: So why bring this up yet
again? I blame Gary Block
By: Michael Niehaus submitted:Jan 26 2024
Send MDM commands without an MDM service using PowerShell
(oofhours.com)
Sometimes you run into something completely by accident; other times, it's more of a building
By: Michael Niehaus submitted:Sep 2 2022
Sometimes you run into something completely by accident; other times, it's more of a building
process based on work that you've done in the past.
By: Michael Niehaus submitted:Sep 2 2022
Windows Autopilot health check: An experiment in Graph API scripting
(oofhours.com)
We have talked to a number of customers over the past months who have run into challenges with
By: Michael Niehaus submitted:Jun 15 2022
We have talked to a number of customers over the past months who have run into challenges with
Windows Autopilot - sometimes these were simple configuration issues, other times they were self-inflicted pains (e.g. deleting Azure AD device objects associated with a registered Windows Autopilot device). But as we learn more about the types of challenges encountered, we get better at detecting those issues (and eventually we'll try to prevent them from happening). To help with the detection process, I've published a new script called AutopilotHealthCheck.ps1 to the PowerShell Gallery. You can install it using PowerShell quite easily, along with its pre-requisite modules.
By: Michael Niehaus submitted:Jun 15 2022
Windows device provisioning with Workspace ONE, part 2: Apps and policies
(oofhours.com)
In the first part, I got to the point where I could successfully get a device into a managed state,
By: Michael Niehaus submitted:Aug 9 2024
In the first part, I got to the point where I could successfully get a device into a managed state,
but that doesn't mean the device is actually usable.
By: Michael Niehaus submitted:Aug 9 2024
Projects, Scripts, and Modules
New Autopilot Branding release
(oofhours.com)
It's been a while since there was an actual release of the Autopilot Branding script, although there
By: Michael Niehaus submitted:Sep 26 2025
It's been a while since there was an actual release of the Autopilot Branding script, although there
were a few "preview" releases as we worked out kinks in the processes. Things are looking reasonably good now (thanks to feedback from several people on the preview versions), so a new 3.3.0 release was published.
By: Michael Niehaus submitted:Sep 26 2025
New enhancements to Get-AutopilotDiagnosticsCommunity
(oofhours.com)
It started off as a simple change: I was annoyed that the "Observed Timeline" in the output from the
By: Michael Niehaus submitted:Feb 9 2024
It started off as a simple change: I was annoyed that the "Observed Timeline" in the output from the
Get-AutopilotDiagnosticsCommunity (and the older Get-AutopilotDiagnostics script too) had events in the wrong order.
By: Michael Niehaus submitted:Feb 9 2024
Updated Media Tool available
(oofhours.com)
Back in 2023, I posted a Media Tool app (which uses PowerShell behind the scenes) to download
By: Michael Niehaus submitted:Aug 16 2024
Back in 2023, I posted a Media Tool app (which uses PowerShell behind the scenes) to download
Windows 10 or 11 media, for both x64 and ARM64 architectures.
By: Michael Niehaus submitted:Aug 16 2024
Updated UEFIv2 module posted
(oofhours.com)
Since Microsoft has posted some documentation that makes use of my UEFIv2 module, I figured I should
By: Michael Niehaus submitted:Oct 10 2025
Since Microsoft has posted some documentation that makes use of my UEFIv2 module, I figured I should
fix the module so that it's compatible with PowerShell 7.
By: Michael Niehaus submitted:Oct 10 2025
Fun
A complete history of MDT (abridged)
(oofhours.com)
Way back in 2008, I published a blog post (now captured by the Wayback Machine) that gave a concise
By: Michael Niehaus submitted:Jan 23 2026
Way back in 2008, I published a blog post (now captured by the Wayback Machine) that gave a concise
history of BDD, now known as MDT. Eighteen years later, I can now complete that story and expand on some of the items in more detail. (I will refrain from getting too carried away, hence the abridged part of the title, because you probably don't care to read a small novel.)
By: Michael Niehaus submitted:Jan 23 2026
We need entertainment during ESP…
(oofhours.com)
We've all sat and watched the Enrollment Status Page (ESP) during an Autopilot provisioning process
By: Michael Niehaus submitted:Apr 5 2024
We've all sat and watched the Enrollment Status Page (ESP) during an Autopilot provisioning process
- it's pretty boring overall, showing information that isn't really useful (e.g. what does "Preparing for mobile device management" really mean)
By: Michael Niehaus submitted:Apr 5 2024
