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Adventures with house IT

I'm currently experimenting with PowerShell but my scripts won't run even though I've got every local permission. The error message indicates it's a GPO problem.
"No problem" le me thinks and calls IT hotline.
After 2 incompetent and unprofessional technicians i've still got no solution. I'm waiting for the second tech to call back because he "needed some time to get to know PowerShell" (he is a trained and certified SysAdmin).
During my call he couldn't decide if it was a GPO problem or not.
And this is just one story of their incompetence...

Comments
  • 3
    > "trained and certified sysadmin"
    > doesn't have any knowledge on PS
    > doesn't have the guts to tell that he's not proficient in that field

    Verdict: Certified Microshit enganeer. How difficult can it be to admit that you're not a pro at everything? I'm a sysadmin so if someone asks me a programming question that isn't bash scripting.. well, I don't know. Or when someone asks me a question about gears and mechanical stuff while I'm an electronics guy. Knowing your limits, it isn't difficult. Then again, this could very well be a case of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
  • 4
    @Condor IT field has an ego and arrogance problem.

    Too many people on high horses that refuse to admit they don't know everything.

    I mean, just take a look at the cesspool we call SO.
  • 4
    @Condor well he SHOULD know this. we have some kind of curriculum for SysAdmins and basic knowledge is part of that. PowerShell was contructed for SysAdmins iirc.

    he called me 4 times today to test several ideas he had. Spoiler: it was still the GPO which restricted it. Not my script, not our IM program, not Outlook (i dont even know how someone could think that). Also he told me to restart my computer. Not because he changed something just as a "fix" because "thats windows".
    Yeah windows is shit but i dont think restarting would change anything.
  • 3
    @KittyMeowstika well Windows is known to Re Boot while Linux is known to Be Root for a reason 😛 and knowing whether it's a permanent or a temporary state issue is half the battle, right. Like on my Android I had my BlackPlayer EX crap out on me, so I cleared cache, didn't work, rebooted, didn't work either, finally checked on Google Play and apparently it was a known bug. An update was rolled out already so that was nice..

    Troubleshooting is a process by which you follow bread crumbs - hints, and reboots are usually among the initial crumbs.. even when troubleshooting servers, rebooting is one of the first things I do,.

    Powershell is indeed made for sysadmins.. well, Windows sysadmins at least. Being a Linux sysadmin here (I despise Windows Server after seeing how one of the nonprofits that I work with has a shared inbox for all their workers for the organization here, just because Microsoft lets them shell out non-existent money just to get an extra mailbox on the domain that they already own.. I think that's fucking vile. So no PowerShit here. That being said, I'm quite intrigued by its object-oriented nature.

    As for whether sysadmin means PS.. no idea, but I wouldn't expect too much on it.
  • 2
    @Condor PowerShell is not windows exclusive. It's cross platform and can be applied on linux aswell.
    I know that restarting is a common troubleshooting mechanism. I didn't wrote that but i told him i already rebooted my notebook. So it was more of a 'i don't believe her' act
  • 2
    @KittyMeowstika not that anyone does apply it on Linux though 🙃 but I get your point.
  • 0
    @KittyMeowstika restarting and logging back in, is a easy way to say "open and admin cmd prompt and run gpupdate /force", just easier for end users who probably don't have admin privileges and know how to restart more likely than they know how to open a command prompt. That's assuming he actually made changes the to the gpo in the first place.
  • 0
    He could also be thinking it is gpo but it could be your local execution policy.

    Set-executionpolicy RemoteSigned

    If it isn't that it could also be AV detecting the script for some reason.
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