Useful PowerShell commands #

Some PowerShell commands I use for IT support in no particular order.

Clean Windows Apps at OOBE for Autopilot #

This script aims to solve to issues in Enterprise Windows client installations for end users. Namely, the Windows installation comes with numerous unnecessary apps, and Microsoft Store + Winget is out of date, and not yet useable. This is particularly cumbersome when some application installations depend on the Microsoft Store or Winget.

To solve these 2 issues, this script removes all unnecessary apps, and triggers Microsoft Store updates until Microsoft Desktop App Installer is up to date (which contains Winget). These 2 steps should be combined in a single script, because the order of execution is important. Updating Microsoft Store will be the fastest when all apps have been removed, and no other app installation is queued yet.

Make sure that after executing this script, common apps are installed in a different step. Common apps like Calculator, Photo’s, Sticky notes etc.

Deploy this script as a platform script under scripts and remediations. Only assign to devices.

Download and install latest TeamViewer HOST MSI #

At work I ran into a problem where I needed to install the latest MSI version of TeamViewer, without having to update the setup in the future. To get the MSI edition of TeamViewer, one has to use “–installer-type zip” as a WinGet argument. WinGet fails to expand the zip archive when this argument is used and run in a SYSTEM context (E.g. during Intune or SCCM deployment). As a workaround, this snippet lets WinGet download the zip, and the PowerShell code takes care of unpacking, installing and cleaning up.

Copy script to different location. #

When a PowerShell script is run from a temporary location or a read only medium, it can be useful to create a copy first and then execute it.

Remove Windows Apps #

Execute following script as administrator to remove all but whitelisted apps. See $AppWhitelist to see what stays. Use with caution. Everything not defined in whitelist will be removed.

Cleaning Windows #

Configure and execute Windows Disk Cleaner with cleanmgr.exe:

Windows Healthcheck #

Run DISM, SFC and CHKDSK to check the health of a system:

Script fetcher #

List all scripts in a Github repository and let the user select which one to execute as admin. Note that unauthenticated API requests are limited to 60 requests per hour, so don’t expect this to scale big.

Windows 10 preferences #

This is an old list of Windows preferences. Won’t be updated probably.

Windows 11 preferences #

Set Windows preferences with powershell. This list is still incomplete: