Comparing AD Group Member Count & SCCM Collection Membership

Recently there was some concern that our SCCM 2012 R2 collections that referenced/queried Active Directory security groups weren't updating or syncing properly.

A simple way I wanted to confirm if this was the case, was to compare the number of assets in a particular AD group with its corresponding SCCM collection.

After some quick research, I discovered a relatively easy PowerShell method to count the number of members in the Active Directory group.


I opened an elevated Powershell window (aka, right-click & Run As Admin...) and ran the following:

PS C:\Windows\system32>  $users = Get-ADGroupMember -Identity 'ADGroupName'
PS C:\Windows\system32>  $users.Count
160
PS C:\Windows\system32>  $users |Export-Csv -path C:\temp\psexport.csv

The first line sets the $users variable.
The second line returns the member count.
The third line exports the members & info as a CSV to the path specified.


So I got the count of members in the AD group, which was 160, and went ahead and exported the information to a CSV file to open within Excel.

Next, I opened the SCCM collection to show the members (can also right click the collection name and click Show Members).  The collection was showing a count of 106 members in the collection information.

On the device membership list screen, do Ctrl + A to select all members, then Ctrl + C to copy the list.
Last, paste the copied data into Excel.


Finally, I used the "Ablebits Data Merge Two Tables" wizard tool to compare the two excel spreadsheets using the computer name as the key.

I had the SCCM info as the main table, and the AD info as the lookup table.



Using the tool's result column (MTW Status), I looked for all non-matching entries - i.e. entries that are in AD group that are not in the SCCM collection.

I found 54 assets that are in the AD group but do not show up in the SCCM collection.  In fact, these assets did not appear to be in SCCM at all.

Further investigation revealed these computers to be dead accounts in Active Directory, so they were inactive altogether and could actually be deleted from Active Directory since they were either disposed or no longer on the domain, etc.

In the end, we proved that SCCM was updating its membership based on the active computer accounts in the AD security group, as expected.



Sources:


Computer in AD Not Appearing in SCCM:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/5923a17c-3994-4bd0-8811-ce2f2e8593f0/computer-in-ad-not-appearing-in-sccm?forum=configmanagerdeployment


How To Export a Collection to CSV in SCCM 2012:
https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/259637-how-to-export-a-collection-to-csv-in-sccm-2012


Powershell Count Members of an AD Group:
http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/skepper/2016/05/31/powershell-count-members-of-a-ad-group/


Ablebits Data Merge Two Tables in Excel Tool:
https://www.ablebits.com/excel-lookup-tables/index.php

Set Outlook as Default Mail Client on a Mac

The following instructions are to update the default mail client that opens when trying to use certain links on a Mac, from Apple Mail to Outlook, without needing to add an account to Apple Mail for accessing the Mail preferences.  I tested it with Outlook 2016 for Mac successfully.

There is a Microsoft utility that allows users to make Microsoft Outlook their default mail application.

Scenario:  The user desires Outlook to open a new email whenever they click on a mailto: link in an email or website.  Clicking on a mailto: link opens the default email application and Outlook is not the default mail application, until you set it as such.

Steps:

1)  Direct download the SetDefaultMailApp.zip file here:
https://msdnshared.blob.core.windows.net/media/2017/12/SetDefaultMailApp.zip

2)  Double click the downloaded .zip file to expand it and reveal the SetDefaultMailApp icon

3)  Double click the SetDefaultMailApp icon, and select "Open" to proceed through any security warnings

4)  In the Default Mail Application window, click the dropdown menu and choose the "com.microsoft.outlook" option, then click the "Make Default" button

5)  Once set, quit the Default Mail Application from the top menu bar or by pressing the Command + Q keys at the same time





Sources:

Mac Outloook Support Utilities -
https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/office_for_mac_support_team_blog/2017/08/10/mac-outlook-support-utilities/

Delete Specific Auto-Suggested URLs in Chrome

For whatever reason, it started happening that whenever I wanted to navigate to cisco.com in Chrome, it would auto-suggest and auto-populate a sub-address that went to a Cisco QoS PDF page.

Super annoying.

I was able to delete that specific auto-suggestion by doing this:

1)  I typed in cisco.com but didn't press enter - I just let the auto-suggestion populate in the bar.

2)  Then, I arrowed down (and or back up if needed) to highlight select the URL it kept defaulting to.

3)  Finally, I pressed Shift + Delete keys at the same time to delete the populated auto-suggested URL.


Last I tested by trying to navigate to cisco.com, and was able to go directly to the Cisco home page.

The process should be the same for FireFox, according to the source article below.





Sources:

How to erase specific autosuggested urls from Chrome, FireFox, and IE -
https://www.pcworld.com/article/2098431/browsers/how-to-erase-specific-autosuggested-urls-from-chrome-firefox-and-ie.html