How to find the latest OS Image from Microsoft Azure Galery

This post is for reference and is intended to simplify the way of finding the latest available operating system image from Azure gallery using PowerShell (I will not get into details how to connect to your azure subscription using PowerShell).
Here is an example of how to get the latest image for Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter edition:

$OSImage = (Get-AzureVMImage | where {$_.ImageFamily -like "Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter*"} | sort PublishedDate -Descending)[0].ImageName

or Ubuntu Server 14 LTS:

$OSImage = (Get-AzureVMImage | where {$_.ImageFamily -like "Ubuntu Server 14*LTS*"} | sort PublishedDate -Descending)[0].ImageName

The logic in these one liners PowerShell is very simple, the output from Get-AzureVMImage is first filtered by ImageFamily and then sorted descending by PublishedDate. The first listed (latest published) image name is put into $osimage variable. Now, "armed" with latest image of the operating system, you can proceed in creating Azure Virtual Machine.
 

Check Microsoft Exchange Services

In this post I would like to share one liner PowerShell, which I'm using in my Exchange test lab environment to check if all Microsoft Exchange services set to start automatically are running, and if not to start them:

"exserver1","exserver2" | % { get-wmiobject win32_service -computername $_ -filter "startmode = 'auto' and state != 'running' and name like 'MSExchange%'" |  % {write-host $_.PSComputername, $_.name; $_.startservice() | out-null }}

In my case there are two exchange servers exserver1 and exserver2, but you can change them to reflect your environment.
I'm also sharing this one liner PowerShell with my students when I'm teaching Microsoft Exchange courses to easily check MS Exchange services on their lab virtual machines. Sometimes not all necessary MSExchange services are started when the lab virtual machines boots up, and there might be problems during student's testing of lab scenarios. This one liner PowerShell is very simple way to avoid that situation.
 

Hyper V VMs revert to snapshot

I'm writing this post because I would like to share my experience of teaching MOC 20341B Core Solutions of Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 with my fellows MCTs. After each module there is a lab in which students can practice with virtual machines reverted to initially created snapshot. Also, after teaching each module I'm reverting VMs to their initial state, before starting to teach the next module.
In order to simplify this task of reverting VMs to their initial state, I wrote quick single liner powershell in which I'm reverting VMs that are running and their name contains 20341B:

Get-VM | ? { $_.state -eq 'Running' -and $_.name -like '*20341B*' } | % { Write-host $_.name ; Get-VMSnapshot $_.name | Restore-VMSnapshot -Confirm:$false }

This single liner powershell can be improved and adjusted to your needs, for example revert VMs on all student's Hyper V hosts ...