My Windows Server Update Services on Server 2012 R2 has had some availability issues over the past few months. The unreliability really picked up in frequency in the past month. It made the problem more apparent to its clients but easier to troubleshoot at the same time. Clients checking for Windows Updates would quickly error out with a code 0x80244021 which indicates the … [Read more...]
Microsoft updates IE New Tab page to nag for Windows 10
March's Patch Tuesday includes a bad example of Microsoft abusing the security update cycle. KB3139929 is an actual security update. It resolves remote code execution vulnerabilities. This security update resolves several reported vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer. The most severe of these vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted … [Read more...]
Showdown! Active Directory Administrative Center vs Active Directory Users and Computers
Old vs new! Batman vs Superman! Active Directory Users and Computers vs Active Directory Administrative Center. It's time for a showdown! Active Directory Users and Computers is the old, familiar approach to managing your domain. It uses a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in to provide the classic three-pane window with a navigation tree in the left, primary … [Read more...]
Configuring Windows Deployment Services on Windows Server
Windows Deployment Services is a role for Windows Server that goes hand-in-hand with Microsoft Deployment Toolkit. Using WDS with MDT, you can have your server respond to PXE requests and provide the MDT WinPE environment to simplify deployment across your network. It should be noted that Windows Deployment Services cannot be installed on the lower overhead, Server Core … [Read more...]
Creating your first VM with Hyper-V on Windows 10
VirtualBox is a popular free virtualization option for the one-off test machine. If you would instead like to gain a little formalization to your virtualization or just want exposure/experience to Microsoft's Hyper-V, it is included with Windows 10 Pro and Enterprise SKUs. Pre-requisites To use Hyper-V, you need: 64-bit version of Windows 10 Pro or Windows 10 … [Read more...]