Finally got hired after a 6 month non-paid internship as a Microsoft Security Analyst/sysadmin. Where to go from here?

Hey there everyone.

So back in April I started this non-paid internship at a company that offers a varied catalogue of IT services.
I was put in a team that focuses on Microsoft related stuff and learned a lot of stuff.

As of today, I've officially been hired to work as an analyst (using the microsoft defender suite)/sysadmin (with intune).
I've also begun studying and working on GRC projects (with intune) and started dipping my toes into more infrastructure related projects ( azure, hybrid servers, AD and so on).

While I do like the job and what I do, I feel that, on the long run, only focusing on one tech stack will not improve my skills all that much.

I do like studying and working on the cloud, as a field, and will definitely start focusing on AWS and GCP in the future but was wondering how I could improve myself if I ever wanted to focus on something else.
I'm quite interested in doing some pentest work in the future and I wanted some advice on how to advance my career and on what I could focus on in the future base on your experiences.

As of now I have these certifications:

\- sc-200

\- md-102

\-sc-401

thanks for your help and sorry for all my rambling

https://redd.it/1nibhvk
@r_systemadmin

Imaging using sysprep

Does anyone have any experience with imaging laptops using sysprep? I have been struggling with this all day, I keep getting an unexplained “windows 11 failed to install” error at the end of my installations when sysprep worked completely fine, the dism command showed no errors, and I had no errors when burning the image to an iso , then using Rufus to put that iso onto a USB for imaging. It’s been driving me crazy. I’m using a very simple image where I only installed one program to test if it worked and it’s failing everytime. I’m also having an issue using acronis usbs for imaging as well, I just can’t seem to catch a break, our company doesn’t use intune for deploying, I’m just at a loss on what to do at this point.

https://redd.it/1nibzlr
@r_systemadmin

Change in direction

So I have worked in IT for about 20 years all told.

Mostly at support level, and more recently at an MSP (I know plenty will go "boo") and have enjoyed it. We have some good clients, I've gotten to know them, their systems, their people, so overall good. Was working on going up the chain, eventually wanting to be a full on system admin. I had applied for and got offered a role as one, but the renumeration was laughably low, so much so I'd have been better off unemployed (that's a whole other story though).

But now, I am suddenly in management. My previous manager was not great, so much so I did run-arounds to get answers I needed to do my job, or to help out the rest of my team. So he finally leaves (wahey) and I figure for the hell of it, let's apply.

I get offered the job, and now a few months in, I am actually enjoying it. My team is really happy too. So, while I may want to aim for system admin....maybe I can be a manager, and not part of manglement?

Yeah just thanks for all the help over the years with questions, and interesting topics. I will still remain here as I can always learn more.

https://redd.it/1nie67t
@r_systemadmin

UK IT Recruitment

Hi

I work for a growing financial services company in the UK with 500 users. IT is Microsoft - Hybrid with AD and a handful of servers and infrastructure in Azure, M365 E5, MDE, Intune, Purview, Sentinel, Fortinet,  Backups, security awareness etc. Lots of projects on the go. We have been looking to recruit a ” generalist” to help manage our environment but a couple of months into the process and we have not made much progress.

Job boards: Floods of responses from candidates lacking the skills and experience
Recruitment agencies: The couple we have worked with have not materialised into anything past 1^(st) stage interview.

I realise without knowing specifics (job spec, salary, benefits etc) it’s hard to comment, but I wanted to get thoughts on the UK job market and whether there are recommendations for IT recruitment agencies to work with or other avenues to get someone on board.

Thanks

https://redd.it/1nielwo
@r_systemadmin

SysAdmins who successfully pitched yourself to take over a position: what did you find it helpful to highlight when making your case?

TL;DR: What did you find it helpful to highlight when presenting yourself to take over an existing SysAdmin role?

So a bit of background: I know someone who is employed in a financial services company. Behind the scenes as far as IT is concerned, this company is a mess. The company is roughly 25 or so staff including some working offshore.

The company was failing cybersecurity and compliance audits because of simple things like not using a VPN, RDP over the internet and, well, that should be enough to paint a picture. They previously had a solo person who was "maintaining" things but these audits shone the light on his lack of doing so and he was let go. The company shortly after replaced him with an MSP.

Now since they commenced work, the MSP (to their limited credit) has done things like shifted the whole company onto using a VPN, limited what can be done over the plain internet, replaced PCs that were unable to run Windows 11 with brand new ones that can, retired a very much aged RDP/network/EverythingInOne server with a new (still inadequate) one running a later version of Windows Server, setup proper AD control and permissions and more. However, this MSP has always been difficult to work with and will commonly take 1-2 business days to reply to a ticket or request for something critical, such as an outage that affects everyone's ability to work, nickle and dimes the company for the smallest things (as they do) and more. As such, the director of the company is looking at cutting ties with them and going back to having a dedicated person handling things.

This is where I'm looking at stepping in and pitching myself. Admittedly I've almost zero prior professional experience in the field aside from administrating my own homelab and servers, however I'm familiar in an unofficial sense, I suppose, with the sort of equipment they're using for everything, what their RDP/AD host is used for and other relevant factors. They've previously asked for my advice on issues they've had after having already been to their MSP about it as well, so I know they're somewhat interested in me already.

I'm just sort of wondering what the best way to approach/pitch this would be, and how to present myself. Something like this would be quite the deep end learning experience for someone who doesn't have any prior experience in the field, but I've an eagerness and a willingness to learn what I don't know and put to work what I do know. Do I put everything relevant into a PDF attached to my resume and fire it over? How would you approach this?


Thanks in advance for any answers offered. Been a long-time lurker and reader of the sub, honestly didn't think a potential opportunity like this would ever present itself to me, just want to put my best foot forward.

https://redd.it/1nig4y1
@r_systemadmin

The "ball of random bullshit" tickets

Why are there always 1-2 people at any company who contact you on a regular basis, and who can't limit their requests to one or two issues with relevant details. Instead you get 25 different half-coherent mentions of various trash can fires, all bundled into what is either relayed over the phone in a monologue or formatted like someone's first attempt at communication using letters.

>"Hello we need access for Susan to network drive who switched roles with Sarah (who is susan? where did sarah go??) and the fax is not sending bill invoices to LifeCo but working for others, it's printing 500 pages now with just random stuff, and also my computer is slow all of a sudden since a month ago, the server (??) takes a long time to load when selecting file transfers for AMP13 clients (????) and also Susan needs Sarah's phone extension switched to her name and also we moved some of the desks in the office and now many cables will not reach, there was a fire in the staff kitchen yesterday and the phone on the wall did not work to call emergency services when dialing outside numbers, and also there is a presentation at 11am today (it's currently 10:45) and we need the product demo environment reset and populated with test data because Bob deleted the admin account last week"

I've worked at 8 different places over the past 20 years, and there's always someone that does this.

https://redd.it/1nijegx
@r_systemadmin

Microsoft 365 MFA: Initial Setup now no longer offers Security Key as primary option

Hello everyone, I've stumbled across a hitch with our MFA expansion on Microsoft 365 and wondered if this community had some answers.



We bought a handful of FIDO2 keys to test with a month or so ago, and at the time using a Security Key was an option on first account setup, i.e. after you have provided your microsoft ID and password you are then taken to the Initial Setup wizard.



However on testing it now seems like the only options present to the user on initial setup are Authenticator, Hardware Token, and Phone Number.



Why / has Microsoft changed approach here, and is there an option to permit use of a Security Key at this step? For the life of me I can not find a setting for this within the Admin Console.



It is worth noting that we can use Authenticator on this screen to complete the process, then go to Microsoft Account Security page, add a secondary means of MFA (Security Key), and then delete the original Authenticator method, leaving us with just the Security Key. Of course, this is not practical given we intended to be totally hands-off with our deployment.

https://redd.it/1niiurn
@r_systemadmin

Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line (WMIC) removal from Windows

Original publish date: September 12, 2025
KB ID: 5067470

Summary
The Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line (WMIC) tool is progressing toward the next phase for removal from Windows. WMIC will be removed when upgrading to Windows 11, version 25H2. All later releases for Windows 11 will not include WMIC added by default. A new installation of Windows 11, version 24H2 already has WMIC removed by default (it’s only installable as an optional feature). Importantly, only the WMIC tool is being removed – Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) itself remains part of Windows. Microsoft recommends using PowerShell and other modern tools for any tasks previously done with WMIC.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/windows-management-instrumentation-command-line-wmic-removal-from-windows-e9e83c7f-4992-477f-ba1d-96f694b8665d

https://redd.it/1nimb7e
@r_systemadmin

User training

We’re having some problems with user training falling behind due to high turnover.

Who handles training on enterprise apps in your environment? Until recently, we had reliable trusted users who have reached a level of expertise- those folks do most of the in depth training. From my perspective, our job is to install it, we don’t use it and are therefore not experts and by extension not competent enough to provide training.

Edit: thanks for the input, I needed the sanity check.

https://redd.it/1nijs0n
@r_systemadmin

In 2025 Employers are offering IT workers significantly less money

In 2025 Employers are offering IT workers significantly less money that 2014 - 2025. And possibly earlier.

The cost of living is going up. The pay for your typical IT jobs appear to be going down.

I would encourage anyone working in IT, not to just accept anything for your salary and know your worth. It's one thing for an employer to to hire someone less qualified to save money, Their choice, but they will spend time an resources training that person. But for qualified people to take a job significantly less than the average pay for that position, is killing the worth of an IT worker. I didn't know if it was just me noticing this, but after asking around, this is happening a lot.

https://redd.it/1niq4xv
@r_systemadmin

Windows Pipes screensaver gave me mega billable hours (funny)

In the early 2000s, I was a contractor that would consult to various firms. One of my clients was an accounting firm running Accpacc accounting software (client / server ). I got frantic calls from them over several weeks that "the server is slow" (NT 4.0). I show up, go to the server, turn on the CRT monitor (which takes time to warm up) and jiggle the mouse to get the login screen. I login, and they go "oh thank god you fixed it" and I would leave, 2 hours later they would call, same problem.

This continued for weeks. Finally I said look I'm just going to camp out here for a day, and get to the bottom of it. I'm hanging out, eating lunch and they said to me "it's happening again" and I ran to the server...and I discovered what the issue was.

Someone had enabled the Windows Pipes screensaver, and the CPU would spike like crazy rendering it...on the server. I changed it back to "black screen". Problem solved.

They were not happy to get the bill it was something like 2-3k.

https://redd.it/1nityjb
@r_systemadmin

Reason for burnout

Saw this video on either insta or reddit. It talked about the reasons for burnout in any sector, and it made a very interesting point. It stated that burnout wasn't due to the volume of work, but more so the lack of structure to how the work was given to you. Also mentioned that managers aren't protecting their staff against predatory behaviour from other departments. As someone that deals with endpoints, everything is an IT problem because it hits the endpoint. Server issues, software upgrades, OS patching, etc etc. Some issues are a lack of training, wrong documentation or straight up HR or finance issues. Definitely not IT. But, it hits the computer, so it's on us. How does your leadership team deal with this?

https://redd.it/1niun8s
@r_systemadmin

Anyone Else Miss Classroom Training?

The pandemic did at least give some us hybrid/WFH which we may still have but I do admit I miss going on courses. I'm in England so it was a a week staying in London or other major city. Great to be away from the office.

Online courses just don't interest me at all.

https://redd.it/1niv4gk
@r_systemadmin

My new job has a resident grouchy wizard... Again.

I recently started a new job supporting a bunch of somewhat legacy stuff as they modernize. As a millennial, I am one of the younger people on the team of mostly genX and some boomers. One of said GenX is treated like a god. Their rude, shitty attitude is not only tolerated, they are coddled because everyone else seems to think they are simply the best and irreplicable. Everything they say is treated as fact and the 'wizard' is extremely territorial over everything they work on so nobody really understands the things they maintain.

In a cruel twist of fate, I've worked with this 'wizard' before at a previous job. Their shitty attitude and hording of institutional knowledge is what inspired me to do completely the opposite in my career. I will train anyone on what I do, share any knowledge that I have. I'll push others to learn critical things I do so someone will know how to do it when I leave. I have learned through personal experience that teaching has greatly deepened my own understanding and that is why I am in a senior position to people 15+ years older than me.

Now I am stuck in a tough position. Though I am younger, I am senior staff and I have knowledge on par with the 'wizard' in many areas, and much more in some. Through my openness, I have gained respect. So when the wizard says "we don't use Kerberos" to our boss in a windows domain environment, how the fuck should I respond!?

That was rhetorical. I'm just pissed I have to dance around some aging jerks office politics when it comes to basic facts because of their enormous ego. This isn't a new situation to me, I've been dealing with things like this for many years.

I'm just sick of having to deal with this living stereotype over and over for decades. I strive not to be that guy because I know what it's like to fix the mess they leave. In this case literally.

Don't be that guy.

https://redd.it/1nj1eo6
@r_systemadmin

What do you name your computers

I admin a small company of about 50 total users. We are about to do a computer refresh. Just wondering what kind of naming convention people use for their computers in AD.

https://redd.it/1nj1iv7
@r_systemadmin

PSA: Chromium 141 will impact OneDrive & SharePoint Offline Access

Chromium 141 (end of September 2025) introduces a new privacy feature that prompts users for local network access!

When users access OneDrive for Web, SharePoint Document Libraries, or Microsoft Lists, they’ll see a prompt. If they hit Deny, they lose performance acceleration and offline functionality in OneDrive for Web.

Fix: Configure the local network browser policy on managed devices. This suppresses the prompts, keeps offline access intact, and preserves performance.

https://redd.it/1nj4th7
@r_systemadmin

Are you still mostly running Cisco, or have you switched some gear to other vendors?

Hey folks, curious about how others are handling this.

Our org has been a mostly Cisco shop for years—core and distribution layer are all 9K/9300 series, and a lot of the edge access is Cisco as well. We get pretty deep discounts, which helps, but man, list prices are still insane if you look at them without the discount. Sometimes it feels like you’re paying double for the “brand” rather than actual capabilities. We did a small test with Arista in one of our DCs, mostly to see if we could consolidate some of the fabric. Tech-wise, it worked fine, but the automation and existing workflows we have for Cisco made it more trouble than it was worth. So for now, Cisco still dominates in our environment.

How are you balancing Cisco vs other vendors in your network these days?

https://redd.it/1nj7sth
@r_systemadmin

Is AI really improving cybersecurity?

 I keep seeing vendors throwing around “AI-powered” this and “machine learning detection” that, but mostly it is just dashboards, alerts, and noise. From what I’ve seen, the real issue is that AI usually gets bolted on as another point solution…. instead of being built directly into the network. That makes it too slow and blind to a lot of traffic.  I have not  yet tried platforms that bake AI into a SASE platform. So i cant tell whether they make any difference. Thoughts?



https://redd.it/1nj9sv1
@r_systemadmin

Big-Wig security manager wants to convince us plotters aren't printers

The dipshit know-nothing in charge of system security started arguing with our management about whether plotters count as printers. Apparently he doesn't think it's enough that they reproduce digital documents onto paper like printers do, use the same protocols that printers do, and are setup on the same print server that printers are.

I'm pretty sure the reason is somebody doesn't want to follow the configuration guides for printers, and he's trying to find a way to tell them they don't need to do the things required by our regulations.

I do not approve.

https://redd.it/1njbezx
@r_systemadmin

How do you get your entire company to actually care about and acknowledge security policies?


We have policies. Nobody reads them. We need attestations and it's like pulling teeth to get people to complete them. The manual tracking of who has and hasn't acknowledged policies is a time sink. How do you create a culture of compliance and, more practically, how do you automate the tracking and reminding so it's not a constant manual hassle?

https://redd.it/1njbak9
@r_systemadmin

Best enterprise password manager? (~200 seats, mostly Mac + Windows)

Our company has about 200 users split between Mac and Windows, and is finally serious about a password manager. While I'm all for security, im also under immense pressure to find a solution that is cost-effective and provides demonstrable ROI and business value, and I have smug morons breathing down my neck over this. The budget is tight, and I'm frankly exhausted by the current trend of freemium products that does nothing but lock essential features behind paywalls.

I've personally been burned by services like Defguard and Rustdesk, where after investing time in setup, I find features critical for even basic team setup requiring monthly subnoscriptions, often without month-to-month options. It’s just not sustainable and completely defeats the purpose of self-hosting for me. I want as much control over data as possible and ideally, no recurring subnoscriptions. Also if I mess this up, the aforementioned morons will have a field day, and I dont wanna give them the satisfaction. 

Every other option feels like a bait-and-switch, using self-hosted or open source as a marketing scheme only to push enterprise SaaS pricing. 

Because of this im heavily leaning towards solutions that offer transparent pricing or, if finding this unicorn is possible, an open source self hosted option. Not likely possible tho if I’m being honest with myself here. Vaultwarden looks decent, allows me to host my own instance, theoretically cutting costs and increasing data control, but thats all there is to it i guess. KeePass and its various clients are also appealing because they operate entirely offline and don't require server infrastructure, inherently free beyond initial setup.

Finally, Passwork claims to offer enterprise-grade security at a sustainable cost with a 30% lower TCO than competitors, which is an interesting claim. However, I need to dig into that to ensure it’s not another hidden subnoscription trap, and I haven’t found many reddit threads about it either. I have no first hand reviews of it, so I’d like those if someone has experience with it

I understand developers need to eat, and I'm not against paying for quality software or support. I regularly donate to projects I value but the "pay a cloud service amount to self-host" model is again just not sustainable for us and imho predatory for the most part.

For those of you who've successfully implemented an enterprise password manager on a budget, particularly with self-hosted solutions, what were your total costs? And do please share if you ran into any vendor lock-in or surprise paywalls, and how you avoided them.  Seriously, would appreciate the advice. And sorry for the ramblings, I’ve been under some stress lately

https://redd.it/1njcpcn
@r_systemadmin