Automate Your Desktop Support Life with PowerShell: No More Manual Clickathons

Introduction:

If you’re a Desktop Support Engineer, you know that a lot of your day is spent on the same repetitive tasks: resetting passwords, installing software, troubleshooting basic user issues—you get the picture. What if I told you there’s a way to automate most of that busywork? Say hello to PowerShell, your new best friend.

With PowerShell, you can automate everything from creating users to installing software. It’s like a secret weapon that makes your job way easier and gives you more time to deal with the real problems (like users who still don't know how to find the Start button).

So, grab your toolkit and let’s PowerShell our way to efficiency!

Step 1: Open PowerShell (No, Seriously)

Yep, this one is easy. To get started, hit that Windows key, type "PowerShell," and press Enter. Don’t worry—it’s already installed, so no setup needed. Now we’re ready to roll.

Step 2: Know Your Basic Commands

Before we go full automation ninja (ironically, it's also a name of RMM), let’s cover a few essentials. PowerShell is powerful, but you don’t need to learn it all at once. Here are a couple of beginner commands to get you started:

• Get-Help: If you’re stuck (or too stubborn to ask), PowerShell’s built-in help command will guide you through the syntax of just about anything.
• Get-Service: Need to check if a service is running on a machine? This command will list them for you, so no more endless clicking through Services.msc.
• Stop-Service: If a service is causing trouble, you can stop it without touching the mouse.

Type them into PowerShell to see what’s happening on your system. It’s like peeking under the hood of your computer without getting your hands greasy.

Step 3: Automate Software Installation (Because Installing Manually Is So 2010)

How many times have you had to install the same software on multiple machines? Way too many, right? Let’s automate it with PowerShell.

Here’s a simple script to install software from an MSI file:

Start-Process msiexec.exe -ArgumentList "/i C:\Path\To\Software.msi /quiet /norestart" -Wait
        

This command launches the installer in silent mode (no more clicking through "Next" a million times), and it even waits until the installation is done before moving on to the next step. Just replace the file path with the location of your MSI file, and you’re good to go!

Step 4: Automate Password Resets (Because Who Remembers Their Passwords Anyway?)

One of the most common tasks in desktop support is resetting user passwords. Doing it manually every time can get old fast. Here’s a script to reset a user’s password with a few keystrokes:

Set-ADAccountPassword -Identity "username" -NewPassword (ConvertTo-SecureString "NewP@ssw0rd" -AsPlainText -Force)        

Swap out "username" and "NewP@ssw0rd" with the actual username and the new password. Done! You’ve just reset a password in record time. No more slow clicks through Active Directory Users and Computers.

Step 5: Automatically Restart Stuck Services (Because “Have You Tried Restarting It?”)

Let’s automate the process of restarting a service that likes to freeze. Here’s a script that checks if a service is running and restarts it if it’s not:

$service = Get-Service -Name "Spooler" 
If ($service.Status -ne 'Running') { 
Restart-Service -Name "Spooler" 
}        

This checks if the Print Spooler (because printers are always a problem) is running. If not, it automatically restarts it. Customize the service name depending on what you need. Run it and let PowerShell take care of the annoying part.

Step 6: Set It and Forget It—Scheduling Your Scripts

You’ve got some awesome PowerShell scripts, but you’re not going to run them manually every time, right? Let’s automate the automation by scheduling these scripts to run at specific times.

Open Task Scheduler, create a new task, and set it to run your PowerShell script at whatever interval makes sense. Daily, weekly—PowerShell will handle the heavy lifting while you sit back and drink your coffee. Or troubleshoot Karen’s printer...again.

Well, you did it! You just automated some of the most common desktop support tasks, and it wasn’t even that hard. Now that you’ve gotten a taste of what PowerShell can do, the possibilities are endless. Whether you’re installing software, resetting passwords, or checking on stuck services, PowerShell has your back. Please let me know if there is any future help or guide I can provide.