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

What’s the hardest task you’ve have to do at minimum more than once in your career.

I’ll start. Running and terminating cat6 in a clean room, full suit, rubber gloves, trying to crimp rj45s while sweating your ass off with latex gloves has gotta be some sort of hell

https://redd.it/1oreo1i
@r_systemadmin

Just hired for a startup

I just got hired at a startup, their first sysadmin ever. Also my first ever job, so kinda excited! I was wondering where should I start?


\- MDM for the macbooks the company gives out? (about 5 in the whole company)

\- Network (as in blocking and tracking)

\- Company storage

\- Or something else I am missing

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

Anyone figured out a sane way to clean up OneDrive junk from ex-employees?

We archive mailboxes and disable accounts, but OneDrive always turns into a black hole. Anyone automated this in PowerShell or using a third-party tool?

Is it really worth it to remove it? or You guys leave the data forever unless you come across storage issue?

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

Privileged Access Workstation architecture?

We are giving all IT employees a separate laptop for admin access to separate their standard access (emails, web browsing) from their admin work (Intune, Entra, on-prem).

Is there any reason the following wouldn't work and be more secure than what we are currently doing (which is standard access and admin access in the same device)?

--PAW is Entra-joined and Intune-managed
--VM on the laptop via Hyper-V is on-prem AD-joined and has access to on-prem resources via Entra Private Access (the client is installed on the VM, not the laptop proper)
--PAW itself is logged into using cloud-only admin account (a step below a Global Administrator but mostly has admin access to third-party SPs and basic Entra functions like password resets)
--VM is logged into via on-prem admin account
--PAW (non-admin) manages all cloud resources
--VM manages all on-prem resources, such as Windows Servers and Linux servers


Edit: I had a list above but Reddit ruined the formatting.


https://redd.it/1orpk9t
@r_systemadmin

What are you guys using for tech time tracking? The built-in ConnectWise timer is killing my team's morale.

I need to vent, but also genuinely need advice. We're an MSP and we use ConnectWise for our PSA. The built-in time tracking is a complete disaster.
It's clunky, our techs hate using it, and half the time they forget to log their hours, which means our client billing is a nightmare to reconcile. We're losing money on the admin side just trying to clean up the mess.
I'm ready to switch to a dedicated, lightweight time tracker. Something that's simple for the techs to use and gives us clean reports without a dozen clicks. I've seen some people mention using separate tools like Monitask or Harvest alongside their PSA.
For the other MSP folks here, what's your stack? Are you actually using the built-in stuff, or have you found a separate tool that doesn't make everyone want to pull their hair out?

https://redd.it/1orsn0p
@r_systemadmin

25H2 breaks remote search on SMB shares (server index ignored)

I'm running into a reproducible issue with Windows 11 25H2 where File Explorer no longer uses the server-side search index for SMB network shares.

What works:

Windows 11 22H2 → network content search works (uses server index)
Windows 11 24H2 → also works

What doesn't work:

Windows 11 25H2 (upgrade from 24H2) → no content results, only filenames
Windows 11 25H2 (fresh install, clean VM) → same issue

Server side:

Tested with Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2022
Windows Search Service enabled, shares are indexed
Other clients (22H2/24H2) get instant content results from the server index

Symptoms on 25H2:

File Explorer does not do "RemoteIndexedSearch" anymore
Only filename search works, no file content results
"Include in Library" is missing in the right-click menu on network folders (Windows thinks the location is not indexable)
Windows Search (WSearch) service is running
Same user, same domain/network, same SMB share

So it looks like:
25H2 broke remote indexed search over SMB. Could be a search protocol change, security change or a regression.

Anyone else seeing this?
Is this a known issue? Any workaround or registry/GPO fix?

I also submitted this to the Feedback Hub (already getting lots of upvotes).

Would be super helpful to know if others can confirm or if Microsoft acknowledged this somewhere.

https://redd.it/1ors6bh
@r_systemadmin

How to prove IPv6 is disabled?

So, Management asked me to disable IPv6 on our Windows machines. Now I know that disabling IPv6 is not a good idea but unfortunately I can't do anything about it, so I went ahead and disabled the IPv6 using a registry key per the following article and deployed it to machines using GPO:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-server/networking/configure-ipv6-in-windows

Now the problem is that with this method, the "Checkmark" in the network adapter is still there and I have no idea how to Prove that I have disabled it. Is there any tool or method that reports it's disabled?

https://redd.it/1orv6ij
@r_systemadmin

IT Director rant - Onboarding

Our new IT director has made quite a few changes since he started but the one that bugs me the most (right now) is onboarding.

We have a ticket system (Freshservice) that handles onboarding but he insists on scrapping it.

He wants the HR dept to email IT with the name of the new hire and the manager. After that, we need to conduct an interview with the manager to see what is needed.

These managers barely have time to talk (always in meetings) so we need to play phone tag so we can ask the same questions onboarding already had asked in our previous set up and manually create tickets from it?

It is just so annoying to me. Our company just acquired another one and we are pushing them to do the same.

Ugh.

https://redd.it/1orxeb3
@r_systemadmin

Future Job prospects

Hello, I am an IT in the US Navy. I have been thinking on getting out on shore duty as I am about to reenlist for that. I was thinking what certs I should get. Background, I have an IT schooling NEC from my A school, a Top Secret clearance, ePolicy Orchestrator and VMWare experience, along with SubLAN COMPOSE 4.0 experience. I deal with unlocking user accounts to LAN health/security monitoring How should I go about getting into the civilian aspect of my field?

https://redd.it/1orzx7x
@r_systemadmin

Yubikeys in Entra, still being promoted for MS Authenticator

We have a few admin users who we have supplied yubikey keys to for their admin accounts, however when they login they are still being promoted to set up the MS Authenticator. I’ve gone though the CA policies and can’t see anything in there that could be causing it. Does anyone have any ideas?

https://redd.it/1ort2e2
@r_systemadmin

Feeling Like a Fraud

I am an IT Systems Administrator at a company of ~500 employees. I am the sole IT worker. I started there as an IT Technician, but after my coworker left, they promoted me to IT Systems Administrator, no interview or anything. They then closed my old position, leaving myself as the only IT staff.

I graduated college less than 2 years ago and am now tasked with maintaining and updating this 24/7 infrastructure. I feel that there is too much for me to do and I cannot learn fast enough (I understand that this is a pretty common mentality in IT). Even as a Systems Administrator, I feel I have a very rudementary knowledge of Networking and Active Directory.

Can anyone give me any advice on how to work on these skills? Unfortunately, as I work on my own, I do not really have the opportunity to learn from someone senior to me.

I understand homelabbing is how most people learn, I just don't really know where to start at this point.

https://redd.it/1os9mzn
@r_systemadmin

iGPU and RDS

Should RDS have good enough performance for watching 4k or whatever videos if session host has iGPU (CPU with integrated graphics on chip)?

https://redd.it/1os2sj1
@r_systemadmin

very niche post - sysadmins working at a larger org using employment hero

We’re past the point of People and Culture slamming an unstructured ticket into our PSA, but at the funny size where that team still like Employment Hero (no SuccessFactors or Workday on the horizon yet).

Does anyone here have automation using data coming from Employment Hero into an on-premise AD?

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