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It’s a Lock! TappLock wins.
I took the summer off from the gym. I played a lot of golf, I wasn’t in the right mindset, it doesn’t matter why… I just did. I started back this week, and it was painful. Fortunately, one aspect of the pain was easily resolved. In my gym bag there were two padlocks. The first,…
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Windows 10 1809: What’s New
Last night I was pleased to hear that, as predicted, Windows 10 version 1809 dropped at the Microsoft Surface event in New York City. While it may or may not be available for you via Windows Update this morning, I downloaded the ISO yesterday and went right to work. Well, to be more specific, I…
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Surface Pro Firmware Patch Leads to WTG Woes
I have been a huge proponent of Windows to Go (WTG) since it was first announced in Windows 8. I love being able to run Windows off a USB key, because it allows me to use any computer as my corporate environment. That is the theory; the practical is that I use my personal device…
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PowerShell: A Colourful Experience
One of the topics I inject into every one of my classes (and frankly, most of my customer conversations) is how to do whatever we are doing in PowerShell. Scripting is one of the ways I make my life easier, and I recommend my students and customers use the knowledge I share to make their…
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Windows 7 End of Life and Extended Support
When Microsoft released Windows 7 in October, 2009 the vast majority of users (both corporate and home) were still running Windows XP. While they had released Windows Vista three years earlier, it was never widely accepted. The improvements over the then six-year-old operating system were revolutionary, especially for the vast majority of users who eschewed…
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Domain Controller Ports
Recently I was asked by a client to produce a list of firewall ports that are used by Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS), specifically those for domain controllers. This is what I came up with: TCP and UDP 389 Directory, Replication, User and Computer Authentication, Group Policy, Trusts LDAP TCP 636 Directory, Replication, User…
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Rosh Hashanah 5779
Dear friends, family, and readers, Sunday evening we will be celebrating the Jewish New Year – the year 5779. Rose Hashana is a time of reflection. We are meant to ask forgiveness of those we have wronged, and forgive those who have sought our forgiveness. When these traditions were introduced, probably until the mid-nineteenth century,…
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IPv6: Be gone!
Let me start this piece by stating that I am not advocating that we all ignore IPv6. There are many reasons to use it, and there is nothing wrong with it. Sure, it is more complicated than we may like… but then again, so was IPv4 when we were first introduced to it. But alas,…
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A PowerShell Gotcha
I was bulk-creating users for a test environment today, and in doing so, I borrowed a script from an article online, which set the password for all users to ‘Pa$$word’ I usually use a variation on the same for test environments, but I opted to leave this one as it was. The script worked. A…
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Server 2016 Versions & Builds
When Microsoft introduced the Operating System as a Service with Windows 10, a lot of people got started getting confused because of the different version numbers and build numbers, all the while Microsoft was telling us it was really the same operating system. Okay, I think we have it clear now… three years later. So…
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April Updates Bring May Frustrates
Okay, I know the grammar in my title is terrible, but I know so many people (including myself) who have had a number of frustrating issues that arose from Microsoft’s April patch cycle. I will not go into all of them, but one in particular has been annoying me of late. Okay… but this is…
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Deleting User Profiles
“How do I delete old users from a Windows 10 computer? I log in as an administrator, navigate to c:\Users\, and delete their tree.” NO! In fact, HELL NO! There are several reasons why you might want to delete a user profile from a computer. ranging from termination of employment to reallocation of systems to……
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Stored Passwords–Beware, and know.
How many passwords do you have? How many of them are unique? How many of them would cause you, should they fall into the wrong hands, grief, hardship, financial loss? Now what would you say if I told you that anyone with a very little bit of knowledge could access all of those passwords, and…
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Recovery Image Oopsie…
In a recent article I told you all how I had to recover my Surface Pro, and downloaded a Recovery Image from Microsoft in order to do so (See Surface Woes). As I went through the process of finding that image download, I could not help thinking that so much of the process seemed… outdated. …
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Delegating Control in Active Directory
I have been saying for years that a good IT department in a secure, well-managed infrastructure will give their end users the tools they need to do their job… and nothing more. If that is true for end users, shouldn’t it also be true for the IT department themselves? It is frustrating to see the…
The World According to Mitch
The day to day ramblings of an IT Professional (and so much more…)
The World According to Mitch 