Windows Server 2008, 2012, 2016, 2019 & 2022 How To’s
In a recent article previous article, I explained how switching to DNS over HTTPS (DoH) can give you a massive 30% boost in browsing speed. But I received some comments from readers thinking that SSL between your browser and the website kept them secure, but that just isn’t so. There Read more
Junk Files & Folders? If you have been using Windows for any length of time, you have likely looked at your C: drive and wondered where all those strange folders came from and, more importantly, if you can get rid of them. I have found that a cluttered system isn’t Read more
What is DoH? I’ve spent 30 years in the IT trenches, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that newer isn’t always better, but sometimes, a new protocol actually solves a problem you didn’t know you had. I’m talking about DNS over HTTPS (aka DoH) using 3rd party DNS Read more
What is Edge Scareware Blocker? If you’ve spent any time on a computer from about the year 2010 to now (i.e. EVERYONE), you know that the ‘Your PC is Infected!‘ pop-ups are the bane of our existence, especially when you’re the one who has to explain to a user or Read more
Why Not Add a Print Queue to a Domain Controller When you’re managing a remote branch with only ten users, the ‘Best Practice’ manual often feels like it was written for someone with a much larger budget than yours. We have this exact scenario with a corporate client right now: Read more
If you’ve been following the spinning disk storage world, you probably remember the firestorm Western Digital (now WD) walked into back in 2020. They got caught secretly swapping out the internal tech in their WD Red NAS drives, leading to a $2.7 million lawsuit, failed disks, and a lot of Read more
Veeam Died! I love Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365. It’s light, it’s free for home and small business use, and it has saved my butt a couple of times. BTW, I started using Veeam with our corporate clients more than a decade ago, and still love it for them. Today Read more
Veeam For Microsoft 365 Keeping your data in the cloud doesn’t mean it’s safe. Microsoft does a great job of keeping the lights on, but if you delete an email or a folder and don’t notice for a few months, it’s gone. This is why you need a backup. In Read more
WTF is C:\USERS\WsiAccount ? I’ve been in the IT trenches for over 30 years, and I thought I’d seen every hidden system account Windows could throw at me. From the old-school Guest accounts to the more recent WDAGUtilityAccount for Defender Application Guard, I’ve cleaned them all. But recently, while poking Read more
How To Demote a DC If you’ve been in the IT trenches as long as I have, you know that demoting a Domain Controller (DC) feels a bit like performing open-heart surgery on your network. There’s always that nagging ‘what did I forget’ in the back of your mind. What Read more
Cookies, VPN’s, & Browser Fingerprinting In today’s privacy-conscious world, everyone has been told that clearing your cookies and using VPN’s are the silver bullet for staying anonymous. But here’s the new reality: cookies have been neutered by modern browsers, and the tracking industry has already moved on to something MUCH Read more
Moving to a new computer is usually a cause for celebration, until you have to migrate your server applications. Recently, I went through the process of moving my Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 (VBM365) installation to a new PC. I thought it would be a simple matter of moving my Read more
You may have a perfectly good computer, maybe it’s a bit dusty, maybe it’s a decade old and maybe it does not have a TPM or current CPU, but it runs like a champ. Then Microsoft drops Windows 11 and tells you your hardware is unsupported. It feels like they’re Read more
This is the followup to our article Corporate Domain Disk Cloning Considerations & Solutions. In this article we will evaluate WittyTool’s disk cloning software in the context of corporate domains. The Sysprep Nightmare: Why Admins Look for Alternatives I have been cloning disks since the 1990’s (yes, I am old Read more
Disk Cloning: Not As Simple As It Used To Be As I dive into the prep work for our upcoming comprehensive review of WittyTool disk cloning software with SID changer software (now live), I’ve been spending a lot of time revisiting the fundamentals of disk cloning corporate PC’s. While cloning Read more
If you’ve been following my recent dives into the guts of PC hardware, you know that my morning started with a near-catastrophic system freeze and a mysterious AMD “DRTM” pop-up. After I killed the power and did some digging, I realized I wasn’t looking at a virus; I was looking Read more