Microsoft has gotten too big to fail, and their support shows it.

I have a ticket open with them for months, for something that should basically be a "yes/no" from them. My ticket has been assigned to someone from a 3rd world country who barely speaks English, who closed my ticket out as soon as I had some PTO, and who finally agreed to escalate it. Now it's been stuck with no response from them for weeks.

Microsoft knows they can make their support as absolutely atrocious as possible and there is nothing we can do about.

And yes, before you ask, I did DISM my SFC needfully.

https://redd.it/1oq6u0q
@r_systemadmin

With all the recent changes around VMware (price hikes, licensing changes, and the Broadcom acquisition fallout), our boss is asking us to start evaluating migration paths away from VMware.

We’re a smaller team ( just two of us managing around 150 VMs across on-prem infrastructure) and VMware has worked well technically, but it’s becoming less sustainable financially and administratively.

We're not running a massive data center, but we do need: stability and solid hypervisor performance, simple VM management (GUI or at least sane CLI), reasonable support for backups, templates, snapshots, etc., easy onboarding (nothing that takes weeks to spin up or learn)

I’ve started looking into Proxmox, XCP-ng, and Nutanix, but there’s a real gap between what looks good on paper vs. what holds up in production. We’re also not ruling out a partial move to the cloud, but we’re not 100% ready to be all-in on AWS or Azure just yet.

If you've already started (or completed) a VMware migration, what route did you take and what lessons did you learn the hard way?

https://redd.it/1oq0zco
@r_systemadmin

PoE+++?! WHEN WILL THE MADNESS END?

Planning switch refreshes for next years budget and I see PoE+++ switches now?? How many pluses are we putting at the end of this thing before we come up with a new name?

I just thought it was silly and had to make a post about it.

https://redd.it/1oqaif0
@r_systemadmin

Gmail is Enforcing Hard Rejections Starting Nov 2025 for Bulk Senders

Google just announced the next phase of Gmail’s bulk sender enforcement - and it’s a big one.

"Starting November 2025, Gmail is ramping up its enforcement on non-compliant traffic. Messages that fail to meet the email sender requirements will experience disruptions, including temporary and permanent rejections."

This means ff you send 5,000+ emails a day to Gmail, compliance is no longer optional. You have until November 2025 to fully authenticate your domain or risk hard rejections.

Until now, non-compliant messages were usually filtered to spam or quarantined.
Starting November 2025, they’ll be bounced or dropped entirely \- skipping the spam folder altogether.

This is Google’s final move to eliminate unauthenticated bulk mail.
Check your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC now - don’t wait until Gmail starts rejecting your emails.

https://redd.it/1oqb1t9
@r_systemadmin

What's your best "I inherited this" good/bad story?

A while back, I was hired as an administrator for a mid-sized medical practice (\~40 providers with around 200 support staff) with a 5-person IT team over several buildings on a medical campus.

My Manager gave me a lay of the land tour and took me to our Medical Records/Billing Building, walked me into the server closet, and showed me the single server responsible for the entire billing system.

The problem: The server's front was approximately 2 feet from the building's Water Heater pressure relief valve, pointed straight at it.

So that was an immediate conversation of:

Me: "How long has it been like this?.."

Manager: "5 years"

Me: "We need to change this..."

Manager: "Yeah, but they don't want to mess with the building due to the asbestos... "

Me: "Ok........mental note stay the fuck away from this building > So what have we got for backup on this?"

Manager: "It runs an xcopy/robocopy* to another server daily."

3 weeks later:

As I document things and try to understand how my IT kingdom currently operates... I review the backup jobs/setup for various devices, and I review said backup for this server.

Me: "Hey, where is "billingfs" physically located?"

Manager: "It's over in Medical Records/Billing."

Me: I quickly walk over to the building, enter the IT closet, and find "billingfs" directly above the billing system server, still well within the blast range of the Water Heater pressure valve... Also, I notice its RAID array is degraded...

My Resume went out that night.

https://redd.it/1oqc0hs
@r_systemadmin

What is your org's policy about access to "separated" user accounts

Suppose a user leaves your company, and their account is either deactivated or archived. An employee asks for access to the entire email account to find information they think it contains.

I believe that giving somebody full access to another user’s entire email account can create problems as now that user can see stuff like performance reviews, HR and other potentially sensitive data. To avoid this, I have been asking them what they are looking for and using our e-discovery tool to find the information if it exists. Most people are OK with this, but some people demand full access to the account.

How does your organization handle this type of request? Do you have any policies in place?

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

To the good supervisors: thank you.

So, I work help desk, and recently had a run in with an extremely rude customer. Long story short, he was having VPN issues, and I called him with the intent to help. However, as he answered the phone, he immediately began to cuss me out. He insulted me and my coworkers with the entire vocabulary of offensive words. After about ten minutes of this verbal abuse, I ended up falling for the bait…

He threatened to move to another IT company.

I told him “go ahead. Find another IT company”.

I look back at it now and find it hilarious how he seemed speechless at first at how I talked back to him. It was as if he expected me to just sit there and take the insults. He was silent for a good ten seconds before he asked for my name, flabbergasted. I gave him my name.

I told my boss, he pulled the recording, and calls me in for a meeting. He tells me he is going to write me up as it’s company policy. However, he is going to “mysteriously lose” the document. He tells me next time to just hang up, or put the call on hold and notify him or any other superior. Looking back, that’s what I should have done. But, I am grateful that my boss was understanding. He even said that he can’t wait for their contract to end so they can just dump them.

So, for all the good bosses out there that believe in their employees: thank you. 🙏

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

Weekly 'I made a useful thing' Thread - November 07, 2025

There is a great deal of user-generated content out there, from noscripts and software to tutorials and videos, but we've generally tried to keep that off of the front page due to the volume and as a result of community feedback. There's also a great deal of content out there that violates our advertising/promotion rule, from noscripts and software to tutorials and videos.

We have received a number of requests for exemptions to the rule, and rather than allowing the front page to get consumed, we thought we'd try a weekly thread that allows for that kind of content. We don't have a catchy name for it yet, so please let us know if you have any ideas!

In this thread, feel free to show us your pet project, YouTube videos, blog posts, or whatever else you may have and share it with the community. Commercial advertisements, affiliate links, or links that appear to be monetization-grabs will still be removed.

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

Reminder: Include Intune network endpoint on your furewall.

Microsoft Intune will start using Azure Front Door IP ranges (tagged AzureFrontDoor.MicrosoftSecurity) for network service endpoints as part of the Secure Future Initiative (SFI). This change is mandatory by December 2, 2025 to ensure uninterrupted device and app management connectivity. Without this update, Intune services may fail to communicate properly, impacting device compliance and app deployment.

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

Dear lord its hard to land a job these days

Om not sure where im failing on the technical side. Im talking basic help desk stuff. Granted I've done far above help desk so I've narrowed my mindset to just be entry level help desk guy (ie, mapping network drive wont map the dns but can via ip and know the dns of it is broken) but I tend to over think and answer basic then follow up with advanced troubleshooting.

One job I blanked on a basic "how do you add a laptop to domain". Im used to intune and its been years since I did it, muchless have issues with users cannot login due to trust issues, thus needing to log into the laptop and removed it via settings on this pc and adding it back.

At this point ill take some job thays 20/hr. Of i can work around the world id take it and move to Colombia and live the nomad life until I settle down there.

But I cant even land a job for that.

https://redd.it/1oqhmp8
@r_systemadmin

People that take photos of every slide at a conference like you're at a concert.

They're gonna share the slides anyway at the inevitable feedback email, or you can just ask the presenters, or send them an email.
Sitting there and zooming in like a madman and taking photos of every irrelevant slide is the exact same as taking photos of fireworks and it makes you look kind of dumb.

https://redd.it/1oquo6v
@r_systemadmin

What’s 365’s alternative to Workspaces Notebook.LM

I’m with a Google Workspace organization, have been for the last half decade.

I’m trying to figure out what is the 365 solution for adding documents and allowing people in the organization to talk to the two podcast hosts about the data that you’ve provided?

We’re using it for a lot of our own data, and it’s honestly catching things we never did! Then we go and review, and it’s right… amazing really!

But, I’m looking at 365 as a possible solution too, and I’m not finding the platform that’s there for this feature. Can you all help me?

https://redd.it/1oqw4x8
@r_systemadmin

Very large company being acquired by much smaller company. I work for the larger company. Should I stay?

First post on Reddit, hope I don't pork this by this being in the wrong spot. So I work for a 10,000 person company. It's super debt ridden. Stock has been low. Along comes another big competitor in the space (2000 person company) and they are in process to acquire my company through a stock merger deal. The deal, outside of government regulators stopping it, is going to go through. Closes in June '26.

I work in security with a senior noscript. And being naturally nosey I see that the other company is hiring security positions. About a week after the public merger announcement I notice they are basically mirroring positions that we currently have in my particular niche of a department, including management.

So this being a bit of a weird situation where a younger fresh company is acquiring a fortune 1000 (ex fortune 500), I want to know should I stay or should I go? I see posts saying ride it out as there's upsides but I'm pretty unsure what that upside would be for me personally. Maybe I keep my job, most likely I think I'll lose it but I have never been through an acquisition before and honestly this situation doesn't mirror what I've been reading up on i.e. big company acquires smaller company.

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

Is there a catchy term for this?

I figure it's common for sysadmins to be working on an application and run into an issue where they have to fix a different-but-connected application in order to get your original application working correctly but when you try to fix the secondary application you discover that, in order to do so, you have to completely update it to the current version which ends up being a bigger project than the original app you were working on.

Please forgive me if there is already a term for this, and please share yours. Here are a few I've come up with.

1. Poo Jenga
2. Purgatory.sys
3. Grounhog Data
4. Update-nado
5. Crap creep

https://redd.it/1oqvwc7
@r_systemadmin

Blocking AI notetakers

We're struggling. People keep going out and signing up for things like read.ai or otter.ai , connecting it to their calendars, and then the notetakers are auto joining meetings.

It's against our policies, so that's being addresed, and we got approval to actively start blocking these things but we can't seem to get it blocked or removed from meetings.

In entra, we've removed and deleted the enterprise app registrations and blocked users from self registering things. The apps are blocked in teams. Yet still they persist. Somehow.

Can anyone offer some way to completely removing these things?

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

If you noticed that OWA / New Outlook was displaying images very slowly this week - you weren't alone.

Embedded / inline images in emails are delayed by 10-20 seconds. In my own experience it was noticed this across multiple M365 tenants, connections and browsers.

Feeding the console logs into a suite of AI tools give back a consistent narrative: "Microsoft screwed up somewhere." - it turns out Stugotz was right!

The issue appears resolved for the time being as of the morning of November 7 in North America.

https://redd.it/1or0p0y
@r_systemadmin

Good day fellow admins. I just accepted an offer as an IT Administrator for a company that currently relies completely on a MSP. They are looking to bring IT in-house with this new role. I will be the go-to for all things IT. Could use some advice.

Sorry for the long post.

So currently the company has no IT personnel whatsoever. I interviewed with the CEO where he asked questions like, "What is Active Directory?". Not because he was quizzing me but because he had no idea, then had a very basic IT skill assessment that was way too easy. I was a server engineer for over 5 years and before that did everything from helpdesk to sys admin. I was laid off earlier this year and have been struggling since to find a full time position so this is a big relief. At the same time I worry I may be in over my head, I tend to over-analyze things. As i said they are looking to bring IT in-house over time. Does anyone here have a similar experience or can let me know of somethings to watch out for?

One thing they mentioned is they are moving to a new building soon. The are working with vendors on getting proposals for running CAT6 cables to replace the CAT5 currently in place and they would like me to take a look at the proposals.

I have an associates degree in Computer Networking and previously held CompTIA Network+, Server+, Security+, and currently have Cloud+ as well as the AZ-900. I am familiar with a lot of different concepts just not really an expert in them.

Any help is appreciated.

Edit: This is a company of about 80 employees.

https://redd.it/1or3fc0
@r_systemadmin

WHO INVENTED ZEBRA LABEL PRINTERS

THEY NEVER FUCKING WORK. WHY WOULD YOU CURSE IT FOLKS WITH THIS ABOMINATION

https://redd.it/1or5wa6
@r_systemadmin

From garbage man to IT

I’ve been in the trades most of my career started plumbing at 14, worked in waste management, and have been driving garbage trucks since 23(now 26). I start IT System Administration next semester, and I’m excited to get into tech(hopefully end up in cybersecurity).

I really enjoy the hands-on work with trades, but my the longevity of my body. I was wondering if you guys could give me advice about the job market or experiences in this career it would be greatly appreciated or recommend any trades that crosses over both paths. (I was thinking instrumentation or industrial or electric work)

https://redd.it/1or8t10
@r_systemadmin

Decommissioned old AD CA Server - several computers lost domain trust. Trying to understand why.

We had an old AD certificate services authority server that we had planned to decommission. We created and new CA server around a year ago, and made sure it was handling all new cert requests, etc. and waited to see if anything broke. It all seemed to be working well, so we then followed the Microsoft documentation for decommissioning a CA server here:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-server/certificates-and-public-key-infrastructure-pki/decommission-enterprise-certification-authority-and-remove-objects

We started getting reports of mapped drives failing. The affected computers all seemed to have lost their domain trust. Can't ping the domain, or any DC. Event logs complaining about not being connected to the domain, etc.

Deleting the computer object and re-joining to the domain resolves the issue.

I'm trying to understand what broke, or what went wrong here with the retirement of this CA server, given that we followed the MS documents, and waited around a year while running on the new CA to remove the old one.

Any thoughts or ideas are welcome!

https://redd.it/1or48ga
@r_systemadmin

How many on-prem DCs you all roll with?

Hey all,

3 branch SMB here, currently rolling a DC at each site. We are expanding two more branches, but they are small locations. I'd rather not invest in 2 or even 1 more DC at the small sites...

In fact, I'm considering dialing down to 2. Do think I'm off my rocker on this and that should i go full resiliency and spin a DC at each site?

https://redd.it/1or65aw
@r_systemadmin