One of These Things is Not Like the Others: Challenge 15: Answer
OK, we admit it: last week we took the easy way out when it came to the Lync Server PowerShell One of These Things is Not Like the Others challenge. When it comes to doing these challenges, it's always easy to come up with a question: you just grab four cmdlets at random and say, "Which of these cmdlets is not like the others?" What's hard is figuring out which if those cmdlets is not like the others. Usually we try to come up with a reasonably good answer to our own question. Last week the best we could do was come up with some kind of answer to our own question. To tell you the truth we basically just threw up a question and relied on everyone out there to come up with a good answer to it. Fortunately, you guys didn't let us down: you gave us all sorts of good answers.
Whew.
In case you missed it, here's the question we asked last week, followed by some of the responses we received:
Set-CsCpsConfiguration |
Set-CsClientPolicy |
Set-CsRgsConfiguration |
Set-CsHealthMonitoringConfiguration |
We have to admit that we were a little surprised by this, but nearly everyone who submitted an entry for Challenge 15 settled on Set-CsHealthMonitoringConfiguration as the one cmdlet that was not like the others. Why? Well, as Johann D., Tom A. and Aleksandr R. all pointed out, Set-CsHealthMonitoringConfiguration is the only one of the four that has a required parameter; the other three cmdlets have only optional parameters. Did we realize that Set-CsHealthMonitoringConfiguration was the only one of the four cmdlets that had a required parameter? We'll answer that question by asking a different question: how in the world did everyone but us notice that?
Ella W., Ramkumar R., and Matt S. also tabbed Set-CsHealthMonitoringConfiguration, albeit for a slightly different reason: as they pointed out, Set-CsHealthMonitoringConfiguration is used only to run synthetic transactions that let you test the health of the system. What the cmdlet doesn't do is impact the behavior of users or of client devices. And, as Matt noted, it's the only one of the four that that doesn't affect voice-related settings. Did we notice any of that? We'll answer that question by asking a different question: why do you keep asking us questions like that? You already know the answer.
There was at least one holdout for Set-CsClientPolicy, however. As Makovec. noted, Set-CsClientPolicy is the only cmdlet that can affect per-user settings; that is definitely not the case with the other three cmdlets. But at least we were aware of that, right? Ah, come on, guys: give us break, OK?
So what was the answer that we had in mind? Well, we're a little embarrassed to admit it now, but we also picked Set-CsHealthMonitoringConfiguration. Why? Well, it was the only one of the four that didn't have anything to do with playing music on hold. Set-CsCpsConfiguration has an EnableMusicOnHold parameter; Set-CsClientPolicy has a couple of music-on-hold parameters; and Set-CsRgsConfiguration lets you set the default file location for Response Group music on hold. But Set-CsHealthMonitoringConfiguration? That cmdlet has nothing to do with music on hold.
Hey, it was the best we could come up with. After all, we're just technical writers: you can't expect us to know anything about the product.
At any rate, thanks to everyone who submitted an answer for last week's challenge. Do we have yet another challenge waiting for you this week? You already know the answer to that question, too.