Adobe Acrobat Pro 2020 end of support Nov 30 – new signed PDFs already broken, need cheap 2024 perpetual / term license alternatives fast

Inbox on Dec 2nd ruined my week.

380 seats of legit Acrobat Pro 2020 we bought outright back in 2020.
Adobe email hits: “EOS Nov 30 2025, your installs no longer validate ISO 32000-2 signatures. New signed docs already show validation errors.”

Every single contract or invoice we get now opens with the giant yellow “SIGNATURE VALIDITY UNKNOWN” banner. Legal is losing their minds, compliance audits looming.

Adobe quote to stay legal:

$72k one-time for 2024 3-year term licenses
or $90k+ yearly subnoscription forever

Foxit pilot was a disaster, redaction sucks.

Anyone found a real volume reseller still moving cheap Acrobat Pro 2024 term / perpetual licenses with proper CLP paperwork? Or are we all just getting forced into the subnoscription hell at this point?

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

NSF I-Corps research: What are the biggest pain points in managing GPU clusters or thermal issues in server rooms?

I’m an engineering student at Purdue doing NSF I-Corps interviews.

If you work with GPU clusters, HPC, ML training infrastructure, small server rooms, or on-prem racks, what are the most frustrating issues you deal with?
Specifically interested in:

• hotspots or poor airflow
• unpredictable thermal throttling
• lack of granular inlet/outlet temperature visibility
• GPU utilization drops
• scheduling or queueing inefficiencies
• cooling that doesn’t match dynamic workload changes
• failures you only catch reactively

What’s the real bottleneck that wastes time, performance, or money?

https://redd.it/1pem1yl
@r_systemadmin

Does anyone else feel like they can't predict how long anything will take anymore?

And how are you dealing with this in terms of setting expectations/SLAs with clients or end-users and not constantly feeling like you can't make even minor guarantees/promises about providing a reasonable level of service?

I keep having situations where the same tasks, projects or issues vary wildly in their turnaround/TTR simply due to stupid, unpredictable, inexplicable sh*t like:

Progress bars getting hung for no reason or the same compute tasks on the same hardware just magically varying in completion times because the devil inside the silicon knows you're in a rush so fuck you and your weekend plans
Downloads taking way longer to complete than normal
Servers being unresponsive/busier than usual, again for no obvious reason
Random service provider/SaaS outages or service incidents that prevent timely access to urgently-needed resources and platforms
Never-before-seen error messages, bugs or crashes in the middle of something you've completed 1,000 times before without issue
Major players like Microsoft/Amazon constantly making rug-pull-stealth-changes to major parts of their ecosystems, core services and UIs that you never see coming until you're frantically trying to do something you've confidently done many times before (like I don't know... logging into a portal) and now you're confidently flailing aimlessly until you submit to relearning their processes for the 1,000th time.

It's these kind of side-tracking bullsh*t detours in the middle of already insane workloads and razor-thin deadlines that I can never find a good workaround/Plan B for.

Am I supposed to be operating triple redundant workflows and processes like I'm flying an airliner or something?

Or is the answer supposed to be that I start every single planned piece of work days in advance of when I normally do, even though that is obviously impossible most of the time?

I feel like I just end up delivering everything a day late and a dollar short because of circumstances that are largely out of my control but that still reflect poorly on me because clients and end-users don't realize all of the complicated, moving pieces at play in performing task X or fixing problem Y.

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

Cloudflare down again?

Can't reach anything cloudflare-hosted from Sweden right now.

https://redd.it/1peq658
@r_systemadmin

Weekly 'I made a useful thing' Thread - December 05, 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/1per9qg
@r_systemadmin

Cloudflare is down again. Two outages in two weeks. Anyone else concerned about the dependency chain here?

Cloudflare is having issues again today and it feels like a repeat of what happened two weeks ago. Same pattern. Perplexity stalls, Claude stalls, auth flows stop responding, and random internal tools start throwing cryptic errors until someone checks the status page.

Two outages in this short a window really highlight how much of our infra hangs off a single external point. It is not just websites that stop loading. It is SSO, API calls, AI platforms, monitoring dashboards and even internal automations that have nothing to do with Cloudflare on paper.

I am curious what the sysadmin community thinks. Is this just the reality of relying on massive edge providers, or are we getting too comfortable with architectural bottlenecks that fail in unpredictable ways? Are any of you actually planning around this or is it just accepted cost of doing business now?

https://redd.it/1peqk0l
@r_systemadmin

Which is the Best EML to PST Converter For 2026?

I am looking for reliable and best EML to PST Converter, which can easily convert bulk EML files to PST as I am in trading firm so get wide range of EML files from small to large sized EML file. I want to access or import EML files to Outlook PST format. That's why, I need a reliable solution.

My recommendation are simple, the tool can easily convert large number of EML files into PST format without losing any data. I have thousands of EML files collected from different email clients so it should be able to handle batch conversion smoothly.

The tool should also maintains the original folder structure, preserves email metadata, and keeps attachments intact throughout the process. The tool must offer simple user-friendly interface and support to Windows and Outlook versions.

Recommend a professional EML to PST converter for bulk migration

https://redd.it/1pes12h
@r_systemadmin

I think its time to look Cloudflare alternatives.

The Cloudflare centralization risk is no longer theoretical. It’s time to talk about "Eggs in One Basket."
We are watching half the internet go dark again today (Dec 5), barely a few weeks after the November 18th outage.
20% of the web went down because of a single bug in their Bot Management logic that "failed closed." When a single vendor's feature update can inadvertently wipe out that much traffic globally, we have reached a dangerous level of centralization.
we talk about high availability and redundancy for our own stacks, yet we are routing everything through a single proxy that is becoming a SPOF for the entire internet.


https://redd.it/1per48w
@r_systemadmin

Cloudflare down again?

Is Cloudflare down again? Started receiving a lot of "500 Internal Server Error cloudflare" error messages now on various websites.

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

Cloudflare outage now in status page

From https://www.cloudflarestatus.com/

'These issues do not affect the serving of cached files via the Cloudflare CDN'


... I think they do

EDIT: That line has already been removed from the status page

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

blue tally for 120-laptop youth nonprofit?

We are a small after-school youth nonprofit with about 12 staff, 160, 180 teens per semester, and roughly 120 laptops plus some tablets and a handful of desktops.

Right now all device tracking is in one Google Sheet I inherited. It is… messy. I have been looking at moving to an actual IT asset management tool instead of spreadsheets. BlueTally came up a lot in searches, seems focused on hardware, talks about lifecycle logs, integrations with intune/jamf, SOC 2, etc. But most of their case studies are big companies or higher ed, not tiny nonprofits.

Given our scale (120-ish laptops, maybe up to 150 in a few years, no full-time IT), is a dedicated tool like this worth the money and overhead, or is it total overkill and I should just fix the spreadsheet and processes?

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

Trying to prevent them shooting themselves in the .... foot

Background ... I work for an MSP. This particular client has a PUBLICLY VISIBLE service that I manage behind a proxy. The proxy has been having issues for the last couple of weeks which is causing availability issues in my application. The client has decided to pull the service off of the proxy. In other words, they want me to put a Windows-based server bare to the internet with no proxy, no edge scanning, no nothing .... just basic firewalls.

Now, I recognize that the platform is THEIR property and they can do whatever they want with it. But I also think that the biggest thing they pay me for is expertise to protect them. And so I feel like I have a moral obligation to just tell them no. I'm the one who has to turn the wrenches, so to speak, to make this happen. I could just flatly refuse to do it. Or maybe just demand it in writing and suck it up.

IN short ... client asks you to do something INCREDIBLY stupid. Do you cheerfully pick up the ticket and work it without complaint? Do just do your best to warn them and then work it? Or do you tell them "I don't want my name associated with something this stupid."?

https://redd.it/1pexfa9
@r_systemadmin

Sooo, what brand memory to buy now?

Buying Crucial RAM has been the default for me for many years. I never even looked at any other brand.

Now that Crucial is gone, what are you guys doing for memory upgrades? I realize this is a difficult time now with the DRAM shortage and price hikes. But assuming normal market dynamics (which will hopefully return), who do you trust for DRAM?

https://redd.it/1pf158c
@r_systemadmin

CIO and CTO want Office icons back on desktop again....

Way back in the day the Microsoft Office Pro installer had the ability to create shortcuts for the Office programs on the desktop as part of the installation by using the /admin switch and then configuring the option to do so.

We have not done that in some time now, obviously, since the Office installer is C2R and not MSI and apparently there is no supported way to do this with the published configuration information for the XML file during the installation of Office.

The CTO and CIO now want the icons back on the desktop again. I am hoping that I am just missing some obscure entry in the Office deployment tool documentation, but short of that am I looking at noscripting this out with PowerShell and then keeping up with asinine changes to directory struct for Office when and if Microsoft makes some?




https://redd.it/1pf2qn0
@r_systemadmin

Restrict ChatGPT access to company plan only

We allow a small group of employees to access paid ChatGPT Business. How do we enforce sign in / ensure that they do not log out of the company accounts and start using their personal plans instead?



https://redd.it/1pf08g7
@r_systemadmin

I tried read only Fridays today

Decided to just read through emails and see if anything was an emergency. In the mean time I focused on certification training and testing out some things. Was absolutely glorious.

https://redd.it/1pf6o7f
@r_systemadmin

New CIO without technical background relying on consultant

We've got a new CIO with a Finance background and the first thing they've done is brought in an architect to assess everything and create a roadmap for us.

They were an internal hire and have never worked in IT before, so they've needed almost everything explained to them between the IT team and the consultant. I can see the Finance experience coming in handy when trying to optimise costs but it still seems odd to me - bringing someone in that needs to outsource most of the relevant technical skills? Is this normal?



https://redd.it/1pf7awb
@r_systemadmin

How do you guys develop better relationships with colleagues outside of IT?

Hi all, after having been in IT for around a decade, I've been reflecting on a problem I can't necessarily troubleshoot or google my way out of.

Social skills.

Not necessarily technical, but a skill that is needed in order to progress in most corporate environments. I find myself struggling to socialize and foster relationships with others - in that I'm not necessarily an introvert, but have a hard time socializing and developing relationships with colleagues.

How do you guys do it?

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

Cheapest NAS/SAN you would risk your boss' job on ...

You don't have a budget for a hardware refresh, your ESXi hosts can only support up to version 7. Your current disk arrays are a PS6100 and Unity 300.


A Synology RS1221RP+ isn't an insane choice? With the Western Digital Ultrastore? This can buy me some time?

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

Mystery "password spray"

MS Defender is reporting a user account was hit with a password spray at 2AM this morning and that it's assigned the user a high risk... but, when I look at the logs in Entra, there are zero logins or login attempts since the 3rd of December. There is no filtering in place that would hide any logins and when I look at the risk information for the user it shows a last login of the 3rd. Why would there be such a discrepancy between the MS Defender security alert and the Entra logs?

https://redd.it/1pfs0e9
@r_systemadmin

Windows 11 is Microsoft trying to be Apple without doing Apple’s homework

Just tried to map a network drive. Simple, right? Clicked “Browse” in the Map Network Drive dialog and got “Insufficient system resources exist to complete the requested service.”
Opened cmd. Ran net use \\SERVER\Share. Worked instantly.
The GUI is literally a broken wrapper around functional tools. In 2025.
This is Windows 11 in a nutshell. Microsoft is having an identity crisis:
• They want Apple’s clean, idiot-proof aesthetic
• So they keep making the Settings app prettier while half the options still dump you into Control Panel from 2009
• They removed easy access to adapter settings, group policy, proper right-click menus — power user stuff
• But the underlying system still NEEDS those tools because it’s the same janky foundation
Apple gets away with “simple” because they control everything and will burn legacy support to the ground without hesitation. When Apple simplifies, the complexity is actually gone.
Microsoft wants the Apple look without doing the work. So we get:
• Rounded corners on top of Win32 spaghetti code from the 90s
• TWO settings apps (neither complete)
• Ads and Bing in the Start menu of an OS we paid for
• Copilot shoved everywhere while File Explorer still chokes on basic network operations
• Features removed “for simplicity” but the complexity is still there, just hidden behind extra clicks
It’s the worst of both worlds. A dumbed-down interface that pretends everything is fine, while the same old demons run underneath. Power users get gaslit by a pastel UI while troubleshooting problems that shouldn’t exist.
We’re not asking for much. Just stop hiding the tools we need while failing to fix the problems that require them.
/rant

https://redd.it/1pfx0mp
@r_systemadmin