Do you bring your laptop on vacation?

I’ve been in IT for 18+ years in a bunch of different roles. Right now, I’m the network admin/manager at a mid-sized business, been here 7 years. I like the job and the company a lot.

Here’s the thing, I don’t have a backup for most of what I do. My IT Director handed this stuff off to me years ago and never looked back. Because of that, I’m basically on call all the time. I dont trust him if somthing were to break and needed to be fixed. Most of the time when hes working on somthing he ends up calling me to step in.

I’ve got a vacation coming up for my 20th anniversary with my wife, and she’s not thrilled that I’m planning to bring my laptop. Her thought is if I have to bring it, the company should pay for the carry-on fee. My point to her is, 99% of the time I don’t get calls. Once in a while, I do, usually something small I can fix in 10 minutes or just walk someone through over the phone. If it was ever a real disaster, I’d fly home anyway.

So, just to settle the debate—do you guys bring your work laptop on vacation “just in case,” or do you leave it at home?

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

Everything Is So Slow These Days

Is anyone else as frustrated with how slow Windows and cloud based platforms are these days?

Doesn't matter if it is the Microsoft partner portal, Xero or God forbid, Automate, everything is so painful to use now. It reminds me of the 90s when you had to turn on your computer, then go get a coffee while waiting for it to boot. Automate's login, update, login, wait takes longer than booting computers did back in the single core, spinning disk IDE boot drive days.

And anything Microsoft partner related is like wading through molasses, every single click taking just 2-3 seconds, but that being 2-3 seconds longer than the near instant speed it should be.

Back when SSDs first came out, you'd click on an Office application and it just instantly appeared open like magic. Now we are back to those couple of moments just waiting for it to load, wondering if your click on the icon actually registered or not.

None of this applies on Linux self hosted stuff of course, self hosted Linux servers and Linux workstations work better than ever.
But Windows and Windows software is worse than it has ever been. And while most cloud stuff runs on Linux, it seems all providers have just universally agreed to under provision resources as much as they possibly can without quite making things so slow that everyone stops paying.

Honestly, I would literally pay Microsoft a monthly fee, just to provide me an enhanced partner portal that isn't slow as shit.

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

Two weeks to Windows 10 EOL

How's your migration going?

https://redd.it/1nu6z90
@r_systemadmin

Windows 10 on embedded devices, separate VLAN for each device?

I work for a manufacturing company that has some major manufacturing equipment with internal computers running Win10. I don't think it is even possible to purchase a new computer for some of them to upgrade to Win11. I am planning to segment these devices away from the rest of our Manufacturing floor, but should I create a separate VLAN for each device, or one VLAN with all Win 10 devices?

I.e. VLAN71 - CNC#1, VLAN72 - CNC#2

vs

VLAN70 - All Win10 embedded machines?

https://redd.it/1nueat7
@r_systemadmin

AI - Rant

Is it just me or is anyone else tired of normal users talking about AI and how we should be using it at our company?

IT sets up CoPilot licensing for users giving them access to build CoPilot agents themselves - but these users are too dumb or too lazy to get to step one of building an agent. They talk about agents nonstop but want IT to build it all for them. You build a CoPilot agent for them that they requested and then they never use it.

End users have all these fancy ideas but no idea how to implement any of them, watch a YouTube video to learn something or go to Microsoft's website to learn something. They all have 365 licenses including Power Automate but cannot create a trigger for Power Automate flow. They all want their hand held but they think because they have these ideas they are a part of the IT department. When you give them all the power they need to execute their wishes but cannot figure out the solution, their last excuse is they don't have enough permissions.

Just because you know what the word AI stands for does not make you a part of the IT team. Have you spent years at the help desk before climbing up the IT ladder? No, you are just another end user with dumb requests.

https://redd.it/1nuix34
@r_systemadmin

Windows 11, version 25H2 is now available

https://admin.microsoft.com/AdminPortal/home?ref=MessageCenter/:/messages/MC1162857

>When will this happen:
For commercial organizations, Windows 11, version 25H2 is available today through Windows Autopatch and the Microsoft 365 admin center. It is also available for download from the Microsoft Software Download Service and Visual Studio Subnoscriptions. On October 14, 2025, it will be available via Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).

https://redd.it/1nuj6hk
@r_systemadmin

"How do I get myself to care about this?" or - "maybe it's time to buy a goat farm?"

TL;DR: lost a job I loved, the IT job market sucks, maybe I should be glad to have any job and quit whining? Not sure if others are experiencing this or what to do about it.

A little back story - I've been doing this for too long probably, this is my 29th year I think. I probably should have changed careers a long time ago but the timing and opportunity has never been right.

Before, during, and just after covid I worked my ass off and earned a pretty good paying spot managing an IT department in a healthcare org in the midwest. I finished a bachelor's degree, started a masters, and piled on a ton of certs in about a 2 year period. I worked very hard, many long days and nights and lots of 50-60 hour weeks at work to handle some bad situations and eventually was rewarded with a very good job and fantastic pay. I LOVED what I did and the people I worked with, and I was personally devoted to my responsibilities. I really cared about what I was doing. I was personally mentored by the CIO and CEO and learned more in a few years than I had in a decade before. I was MOTIVATED.

Company politics changed, the CEO and CIO left, nepotism reared it's head and my position was eliminated so that the new CEO could hire his old friend to lead a reorganized IT structure. I saw it coming but it didn't make it any easier. The environment had turned utterly toxic about 3-4 months before and I realized later on that was them trying to force me out.

I spent a few months trying to figure out what to do next and eventually landed a middle IT management position in a different industry. Pay sucks, the org is backwards, nobody here really cares about what we're doing and overall it's very hard to get motivated to do any of this since nobody else seems to think what we're doing matters.

Every day I struggle with getting going, something that I NEVER had trouble with in the past. I can't make myself care about the work I do beyond doing it to get it done because "it's my job".

The job market sucks, I'd have to uproot my family of wife and 4 kids to move to a different state to make any significant improvement in job prospects, which would be really hard for reasons... In the last 2 years I've applied for over 500 jobs between in-person and remote, and the only ones I've seen offers for were very low paying relative to my experience and qualifications (<80k) or would have been very stressful on my family.

I've been through work burnout before, reinvented myself and my job and come out the other side better and stronger. There was always another opportunity to tackle.

Now this just feels like an impassable wall. There are few/no jobs here, the economy is going to hell. IT jobs are vanishing like a fart in the wind and other options are very limited. This is badly exacerbated by living in a fairly rural area where tech jobs are about as rare as hen's teeth.

Has anyone else dealt with this situation before and how did you handle it. Did you get through it or did you end up raising proverbial goats? Anyone want to offer advice or just tell me to quit whining maybe?

Are things hard for anyone else lately?

Apologies in advance if this is just a bunch of complaining about things everyone else has already talked to death.

https://redd.it/1nul0mb
@r_systemadmin

Hopefully not crying wolf....but RSAT on 25H2 is crashing my PCs

I had this issue a couple weeks ago when 25H2 was "released", but was released as its build number rather than through the pretty finalized version.

With it going live today, I figured I'd download the media again and try again.

Whenever I open something installed by RSAT (AD Users & Computers, for example), my system freezes, clock stops, fans spin up.

I had to wipe 2 computers and start over last time, and right now, it looks like I'll have to either roll back the update, or reinstall and not use RSAT.

So....heads up. Upgrade and fresh install, RSAT seems to not like 25H2.





It was installed with the following noscript Get-WindowsCapability -Name RSAT* -Online | Add-WindowsCapability -Online

I know there's an offline installer, but I don't know if they've made it available yet (or at least where to look for it).

I don't think using the GUI would make things any different...but I'm not sure yet. I rebooted this laptop and now RSAT is working fine after the reboot, which is different from how it acted last week. Last week, I could open the admin tools and I was crashing my system like clockwork.

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

Sysadmin being forced in IAC/DevOps

Hi, first of all, English is not my main language, so sorry if it’s not clear.

 

I’m 40 years old, sysadmin for 10 years now, did level 1, 2, 3 tech before that. Total of 22 years in tech.

I’m the main admin for our Azure, I’ve been deploying, securing and managing all our resources through the portal for years now.

Now I’m getting pushed by management to switch to IAC in DevOps and I feel so underwhelmed and honestly afraid.

I’m no developer and I feel like this is such a big change for me.

Any other sysadmin in the same situation as me ?

Any good place to start learning this ?

 

Thanks

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

The dumb(easy) way to migrate Hyper-V to Proxmox (Qemu)

Hey

For those of you, brave self hosters, who want to scape from hyper-v to proxmox (You will thank me later), here is an easy way to migrate your VMs without headackes.

# Steps

1. Export from Hyper-V (pre-step)
Shut down the virtual machine in Hyper-V.
Export the VM using the Hyper-V Manager to a shared directory: /mnt/agv-nas-exthdd/test-hyperv-proxmox/AGV-LINVSRV06-PWDMANAGER.
2. Copy the VM files to the Proxmox server --> cp -R /mnt/agv-nas-exthdd/test-hyperv-proxmox/AGV-LINVSRV06-PWDMANAGER /root/AGV-LINVSRV06-PWDMANAGER
3. Check Proxmox storage statuspvesm status
4. Locate and confirm the VHDX file location --> Result: /root/AGV-LINVSRV06-PWDMANAGER/Virtual Hard Disks/AGV-LINVSRV06-PWDMANAGER.vhdx--> find /root -type f -name "*.vhdx"
5. Inspect the VHDX disk information --> qemu-img info "/root/AGV-LINVSRV06-PWDMANAGER/Virtual Hard Disks/AGV-LINVSRV06-PWDMANAGER.vhdx"
6. Convert the VHDX disk to QCOW2 format --> qemu-img convert -p -O qcow2 "/root/AGV-LINVSRV06-PWDMANAGER/Virtual Hard Disks/AGV-LINVSRV06-PWDMANAGER.vhdx" "/root/AGV-LINVSRV06-PWDMANAGER/AGV-LINVSRV06-PWDMANAGER.qcow2"
7. Create the virtual machine in Proxmox (VMID 102) --> qm create 102 --name AGV-LINVSRV06-PWDMANAGER --memory 4096 --cores 2 --net0 virtio,bridge=vmbr0
8. Import the QCOW2 disk into Proxmox storage --> qm importdisk 102 /root/AGV-LINVSRV06-PWDMANAGER/AGV-LINVSRV06-PWDMANAGER.qcow2 local-lvm
9. Configure SCSI controller and set the disk as boot device --> qm set 102 --scsihw virtio-scsi-pci --scsi0 local-lvm:vm-102-disk-0 qm set 102 --boot order=scsi0
10. Start the virtual machine --> qm start 102

Ask me anything you need!

https://redd.it/1nun54a
@r_systemadmin

What's the craziest ticket you've ever received as a support staff?

Not exactly most complicated, but the one that makes you want to pull your hair out the most.

Mine is: "It just doesn't work"

lol

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

Can ZTNA really replace VPNs for good?

We’ve been debating whether to retire our VPNs in favor of ZTNA. On paper it offers stronger access controls, but I’m not sure how well it scales for contractors, dev teams, and staff who sometimes need wider access.

For those who’ve already made the switch, did you keep VPNs as a backup, or go all-in? How did your users adapt?

https://redd.it/1nuu15h
@r_systemadmin

1browser antidetect browser for sysadmin use any experience

Has anyone evaluated 1browser or other antidetect browsers for phishing simulations red team exercises or privacy research and found them safe to use in a corporate environment I noticed 1browser offers free profiles and free proxies which speed testing but also increase risk if left running in production what practical safeguards do you use to isolate these tools verify what data they send home enforce logging and network segmentation and involve legal and compliance before any deployment

https://redd.it/1nv0ugs
@r_systemadmin

I've lost even the last shred of hope

I've been working at my current company for about 5 years. At my previous job, I also worked as a sysadmin for around 4 years — a place where I learned everything I know today. When I got hired, I knew absolutely nothing, and my former boss handed me a brand-new laptop in its box and told me to install it and manually join it to the domain. It was a tough but incredibly rewarding time because I was the only sysadmin at a location with 70 employees.

At one point, the entire company's internet went down because my boss asked me to do cable management in the server room — I accidentally connected two ports from the same switch and created a network loop. There were also times when I had to install the BitLocker package on all company laptops (people weren’t installing the pushed package, so I had to remote in and install it myself).

The point is, I had full admin rights. I learned how to use Active Directory, Exchange Server, and laid the foundation for my knowledge in networking and server administration. It was a very stressful but beautiful period.

I left that company because I needed a significant salary increase. When I joined my current company, I was shocked — all the control I was used to was gone. First of all, access to Active Directory was done through a custom tool developed by the company, and I only had access to options like changing names, email addresses, and resetting passwords. I no longer had access to Exchange Center, servers, networks — absolutely nothing.

Four years have passed, and over time, the current company has cut our access to almost everything. All sysadmin-level permissions have been migrated to platforms under the idea of "self-service." Any employee can now make their own changes related to their user account, mailbox, software, and so on.

Now, most of what I do is laptop installations, replacing faulty peripherals, and solving minor issues because colleagues reach out to me on Teams. Over time, I’ve tried to take courses to develop myself in DevOps and Linux. But sometimes I sit and think about how, a few years ago, I was creating policies to optimize company processes, and now I’ve reached the point where I’m just replacing a broken mouse. It deeply saddens me and makes me feel like I’m losing all hope in my professional life.

I want to change something, but I can't find the motivation or the path to take.

https://redd.it/1nv277v
@r_systemadmin

Staff are pasting sensitive data into ChatGPT

We keep catching employees pasting client data and internal docs into ChatGPT, even after repeated training sessions and warnings. It feels like a losing battle. The productivity gains are obvious, but the risk of data leakage is massive.

Has anyone actually found a way to stop this without going full “ban everything” mode? Do you rely on policy, tooling, or both? Right now it feels like education alone just isn’t cutting it.

https://redd.it/1nv3bfg
@r_systemadmin

Oct 2025 Microsoft 365 Changes: What’s New and What’s Gone?

30+ big updates are landing in Microsoft 365 this Oct! From new features to retirements and functionality changes, here’s everything you need to know. 

# In the Spotlight: 

* **Microsoft Entra ID Free Subnoscription**: Microsoft will roll out a new Entra ID free, a no-cost subnoscription to help organizations track tenant ownership through billing accounts. 
* **Limiting MOERA Domain Usage:** Exchange Online will throttle outbound mail from default [*onmicrosoft.com*](http://onmicrosoft.com) domains to 100 messages per day. 
* **Retirement of Legacy MFA and SSPR Policy** – Microsoft will stop supporting management of authentication methods in the legacy MFA and SSPR policies starting October 1, 2025. Move to the Authentication Methods policy in Entra ID. 

**Here’s a quick overview of what's coming:**       

* **Retirements:** 6  
* **New Features:** 8 
* **Enhancements:** 5  
* **Changes in Functionality:** 5 
* **Action Needed:** 4 

# Retirements 

1. Microsoft Defender is retiring the rarely used “*Add to existing remediation*” option for phishing jobs. 
2. Outlook will retire the standalone “*Share to Teams”* experience for users who don’t have the Teams desktop app installed. 
3. *Outlook Lite app* will be retired starting Oct 6, 2025, and new installs will be blocked after this date. 
4. Microsoft 365 subnoscriptions linked to a personal, work, or school account will no longer support the *legacy version of Microsoft Outlook for Mac*. 
5. *OneNote for Windows 10 app* will be retired on Oct 14, 2025. 
6. SharePoint Online will retire the *SP.Utilities.Utility.SendEmail* API on Oct 31, 2025. 

# New Features 

1. Admins can decide *who can create org-wide sharing links* for agents built in the Copilot Studio Agent builders, tightening governance. 
2. Microsoft Purview introduces *Data Security Investigations (DSI)*, an AI-driven tool for analyzing content, visualizing correlations, and refining data protection policies. 
3. SharePoint Advanced Management adds *Content Management Assessment (CMA)*, giving admins visibility into site health, permissions, and lifecycle readiness in one console. 
4. Information Barriers V2 supports *larger and multi-segments with flexible discoverability*; tenants enabling IB for the first time will get V2 by default. 
5. Microsoft Purview DLP brings *Just-in-Time protection for SharePoint,* applying restrictions only when unclassified files are accessed or shared externally. 
6. Microsoft Authenticator enhancements: *removes number matching for same-device sign-ins* and simplifies setup with a new consolidated First Run Experience that *prioritizes Entra accounts.* 
7. Microsoft Entra introduces *cross-cloud synchronization* in public preview, automating user lifecycle management across commercial, US Gov, and China clouds. 
8. Microsoft Teams expands external collaboration by letting admins define *which users/groups can interact with specific external domains.* 

# Enhancements 

1. Microsoft Teams will change the default sender address for guest invites from [*noreply@microsoft.com*](mailto:noreply@microsoft.com) to [*no-reply@teams.mail.microsoft*](mailto:no-reply@teams.mail.microsoft) to improve deliverability. 
2. Microsoft Purview DLP adds *OCR support on Windows endpoints*, enabling detection of sensitive data within images. 
3. Exchange Online GCC High and DoD tenants will gain inbound support for *SMTP DANE with DNSSEC.* 
4. Microsoft is rolling out a *refreshed licensing view* in the Microsoft 365 admin center, providing unified view of user/group assignments, licensing errors tab with resolutions, and a “users without licenses” page. 
5. Microsoft Purview Compliance Portal improves DLP alerts page with a *unified event view, new detail columns, faster load times*, and reduced triage effort. 

# Existing Functionality Changes 

1. Microsoft Purview DLP *decouples email notifications and policy tips*, allowing admins to manage them independently. 
2. Microsoft is modifying the *output format of certain database

properties* in Exchange Online cmdlets. For example, the Database property in the output of Get-Mailbox will change to a fully qualified path format. 
3. Excel for the web Office Script settings are moving from the Microsoft 365 admin center to *Cloud Policy service* for streamlined control. 
4. Microsoft Teams will *shorten meeting URLs* to only include the meeting ID, omitting tenant and organizer details. 
5. Microsoft Graph Beta API will remove the *sendDeviceOwnershipChangePushNotification* property in Oct 2025, as ownership change notifications are now automated. 

# Action Required 

1. Microsoft 365 will deprecate *legacy TLS cipher suites* without forward secrecy on Oct 20, 2025; only approved TLS 1.2/1.3 suites will be supported. Admins must update clients and OS. 
2. Microsoft Entra will enforce *MFA prompts for all credential management actions* on the “My sign-ins” page. Prepare your users to re-authenticate more frequently when performing actions like password changes. 
3. Office 2016/2019, Visio 2016/2019, and Project 2016/2019 will reach end of support on Oct 14, 2025. *Upgrade to Microsoft 365 Apps* or Office LTSC 2024. 
4. Microsoft Defender XDR will *retire the Deception feature* on Oct 30, 2025; customers should shift to automatic attack disruption and exposure management. 

Act now to stay ahead and ensure these updates don't impact you! 

https://redd.it/1nv5bct
@r_systemadmin

Organization Structure

Is anyone else tired of IT reporting to finance in small organizations? We should report to the executive team/owner.

The finance team has no idea what we are doing or talking about and I feel like this diminishes our chances of promotion while finance gets promotions yearly. Also not to mention, the some finance people then claim to be a part of the IT department lmao.


https://redd.it/1nv5c03
@r_systemadmin

Best RMM

I work at an IT company as a student intern. They gave me a task so find the best RMM tool for servers. So meaning i can monitor multiple servers(and the users on them) and execute commands on them remotely like start/stop services, update, restart stuff like that. I want a all in one tool. I've checked out some like grafana but it's mainly for monitoring. What do you guys use and would recommend for windows servers? I've also tried PRTG and looked at grafana but it's mainly for monitoring.


EDIT: Thank you to everyone for the help. I got alot of feedback and tools which i will test. I wish you all the best!

https://redd.it/1nv4ofj
@r_systemadmin

Anyone else drowning in alert fatigue despite ‘consolidation’ tools?

We’ve been tightening up monitoring and security across clients, but every “single pane of glass” ends up just being another dashboard. RMM alerts, SOC tickets, backups, firewall logs, identity events… the noise piles up and my team starts tuning things out until one of the “ignored” alerts bites us in the arse.

We’re experimenting with normalizing alerts into one place, but I’d love to hear how others handle it:

Do you lean on automation/tuning, or more on training/discipline?

Also has anyone actually succeeded in consolidating alerts without just building another dashboard nobody watches?

Feels like this is a universal. What’s worked for you?



https://redd.it/1nva8ir
@r_systemadmin

It was just announced that we where "Invested in" by a private equity group and I am panicking

I have literally never seen anything good come out of private equity, from housing being purchased as assets, to driving companies into the ground like red lobster, pan am ect. I have always heard and believed with decent evidence that private equity groups will 100% fuck you into the ground as a company and extract every dime, bankrupt the company and then fire every one and rinse wash repeat.

I AM ABSOLUTELY PANICKING tbh on the verge of tears, I have never been this upset. We where a company of about 450 or so and family owned, and they are pretty good to us. They are running the "its an investment for expansion" but they are not part of a board and of course hasn't mentioned how much of the company the equity group (a giant one called One Equity Partners) they own.

We are a pretty large iT dept for the company size, however in my dept we are understaffed (not by choice trying to find some one) and It just seems like now we are effed, there going to bring in a outsourced IT like all these places do and well one day be fired.

Does any one have any experience with their company being bought out by Priv equity or work for one, I am absolutely beside myself that the family would sell, but money is a strong drug.

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