Short Fast Code: April 2013

Problem Steps Recorder is a cool tool in Windows 7+ and Windows Server 2008 that can record a users actions as a series of images. See this technet article for more information about the tool. Here is the list of command line arguments you can use to automate the tool.

psr.exe [/start |/stop][/output ] [/sc (0|1)] [/maxsc ]
    [/sketch (0|1)] [/slides (0|1)] [/gui (o|1)]
    [/arcetl (0|1)] [/arcxml (0|1)] [/arcmht (0|1)]
    [/stopevent ] [/maxlogsize ] [/recordpid ]

/start         :Start Recording. (Outputpath flag SHOULD be specified)
/stop          :Stop Recording.
/sc            :Capture screenshots for recorded steps.
/maxsc         :Maximum number of recent screen captures.
/maxlogsize    :Maximum log file size (in MB) before wrapping occurs.
/gui           :Display control GUI.
/arcetl        :Include raw ETW file in archive output.
/arcxml        :Include MHT file in archive output.
/recordpid     :Record all actions associated with given PID.
/sketch        :Sketch UI if no screenshot was saved.
/slides        :Create slide show HTML pages.
/output        :Store output of record session in given path.
/stopevent     :Event to signal after output files are generated.

PSR Usage Examples:

psr.exe
psr.exe /start /output fullfilepath.zip /sc1 /gui 0 /record 
    /stopevent  /arcetl 1

psr.exe /start /output fullfilepath.xml /gui 0 /recordpid 
    /stopevent 

psr.exe /start /output fullfilepath.xml /gui 0 /sc 1 /maxsc 
    /maxlogsize  /stopevent 

psr.exe /stop

Notes:
1.    Output path should include a directory path (e.g. '.\file.xml').
2.    Output file can either be a ZIP file or XML file
3.    Can't specify /arcxml /arcetl /arcmht /sc etc. if output is not a ZIP file.

A handy way to add a user as an administrator to a PC/Server remotely using Sysinternal PSExec Tool. You can download the suite of products here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb842062

Once the tools are downloaded, find the psexec executable and run the following:

In this scenario, we are adding user "agorilla" to the local Administrator's Group on a server named svrapp01.

Then, from the cmd prompt, enter the below command and hit enter:
c:\Sysinternals>psexec \\svrapp01 cmd

The return will be something like this:

PsExec v1.97 - Execute processes remotely
Copyright (C) 2001-2009 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7600]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

This opens a remote cmd shell on that server at "C:\Windows\System32.
Next, enter this:

c:\Windows\system32>net localgroup administrators domain\agorilla /add

The return is:
The command completed successfully

Then close the connection:
c:\Windows\system32>exit

The return is:
cmd exited on svrapp01 with error code 0

Short Fast Code

Problem Steps Recorder Command Line Arguments

Add a user to Administrator group remotely