WServerNews: Building a VMware lab

In this week’s newsletter

Updates on VMware lab article. Final security baselines available. How to uninstall Office. Ain’t so Safe after all. Book plug. Ring worries. Putting the batteries away. Frustration with Windows 10 Snap Assist (Ask Our Readers). Use PowerShell to find user accounts that never logged on.

Lots more — read it all, read it here on WServerNews!

Enjoy this week’s newsletter and feel free to send us feedback on any of the topics we’ve covered — we love hearing from our readers!

 

Got questions? Ask our readers!

WServerNews goes out each week to more than 200,000 IT pro subscribers worldwide! That’s a lot of expertise to tap into. Do you need help with some technical problem or are looking for expert advice on something IT-related? Ask Our Readers by emailing your problems and/or questions to us at [email protected]

 

Editor’s Corner

This week’s observations and ruminations from Mitch Tulloch our Senior Editor…

Updates on VMware lab article

About a year ago I asked my colleague David Barker who is a VMware expert to write up some content for our TechGenix readers on how they could set up a home lab for learning how VMware vSAN works. If you’re not familiar with vSan you can read about it here on VMware’s website:

https://www.vmware.com/ca/products/vsan.html

Anyways, David was happy to oblige with my request and I published his walkthrough in this article:

Get your geek on: Building a VMware home lab (TechGenix)

https://techgenix.com/vmware-home-lab/

This article generated a lot of interest with our readers at the time. And it continues to do so as evidenced by several lengthy comments that were added to the article this last week. I’d encourage any of you readers who work in VMware environments to check out the above article and the reader comments at the bottom of it, and if you have something you can contribute to the discussion of setting up a vSAN test lab, please feel free to add your own comments to the article.

How many of our newsletter readers work in VMware environments? How many of you would be interested in seeing more articles about VMware on our TechGenix website? Please let us know by emailing us at [email protected]

Final security baselines available

Aaron Margosis of Microsoft informs us that the final version of the security configuration baseline settings for Windows 10 v.1909 and Windows Server v.1909 are now available in the latest version of the Microsoft Security Compliance Toolkit:

Security baseline (FINAL) for Windows 10 v1909 and Windows Server v1909 (Microsoft Tech Community)

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-security-baselines/security-baseline-final-for-windows-10-v1909-and-windows-server/ba-p/1023093

How to uninstall Office

If for some reason you should ever need to uninstall Microsoft Office or Office 365 from a computer, first learn how to do it properly by reading these support articles from Microsoft:

Uninstall Office from a PC (Microsoft Office Support)

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/uninstall-office-from-a-pc-9dd49b83-264a-477a-8fcc-2fdf5dbf61d8

Manually uninstall Office (Microsoft Office Support)

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/manually-uninstall-office-4e2904ea-25c8-4544-99ee-17696bb3027b

Ain’t so Safe after all

So it looks like Safe Mode — a feature of Windows that lets you start up the operating system in a basic state using a limited set of files and drivers — actually isn’t so safe after all. Bleeping Computer has the news concerning this, which is one more thing Windows sysadmins have to worry about:

Snatch Ransomware Reboots to Windows Safe Mode to Bypass AV Tools (Bleeping Computer)

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/snatch-ransomware-reboots-to-windows-safe-mode-to-bypass-av-tools/

BTW KnowBe4 has a cool ransomware simulator that can show you whether your PC is vulnerable to a number of common ransomware infection scenarios:

https://www.knowbe4.com/ransomware-simulator

Not sure whether it works yet with Snatch but it’s worth checking out as KnowBe4 was founded by Stu Sjouwerman who started this present newsletter more than two decades ago back when it was called W2Knews instead of WServerNews. You can still find all the back issues of this newsletter archived here:

http://www.wservernews.com/newsletters/archives/

Book plug

A colleague pointed us to this free 400 page ebook on building serverless apps running in Azure:

Azure Serverless Computing Cookbook, Second Edition (Microsoft Azure)

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/azure-serverless-computing-cookbook/

OK OK so it’s only 399 pages, gee whiz…

Ring worries

Remember the horror movie called The Ring starring Naomi Watts?

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0298130/

Well it looks like Amazon has its own horror story involving their Ring smart home security system as this recent news item indicates:

Ring’s Hidden Data Let Us Map Amazon’s Sprawling Home Surveillance Network (Gizmodo)

https://gizmodo.com/ring-s-hidden-data-let-us-map-amazons-sprawling-home-su-1840312279

Actually I preferred Naomi Watts in another horror movie called The Shaft that she did around that time and which also included some laughs:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0247303/

Which is why I always take the stairs instead of the elevator.

Actually it’s for my health.

And speaking of health — have you checked out our other newsletter FitITproNews lately?

https://techgenix.com/newsletter-category/fititpronews/

Got more thoughts about anything in this newsletter?

Email us at [email protected]!

Tell all your friends about WServerNews!

Please let all your friends and colleagues in the IT profession know about our newsletter. Tell them our latest issues can be found at wservernews.com while older issues dating back to 1997 can be found in our archive. And let them know also that they can receive WServerNews each week in their inbox by subscribing to it here. Thank you!

 

Ask Our Readers – Frustration with Windows 10 Snap Assist (new question)

Name Withheld sent us the following question which we ask our readers to try and help us out with:

FINALLY upgraded my W7 PC to W10 in December – everything worked fine — except this morning :(.

Now when I press CTRL RIGHARROW to snap Word 2013 to right edge of screen, it goes right but also snaps UPWARDS so it only fills the TOP RIGHT quadrant of my screen!!

Then if I press CTRL LEFTARROW it snaps to left edge but only fills TOP LEFT quadrant!!!

Everything else snaps fine – no probs with other apps.

All I can say is – WHY????

Fascinating! Do any of our readers have any ideas why this might be happening and how to fix? Email us at [email protected]

 

Tip of the Week

>> Got any IT pro tips you’d like to share with other readers of our newsletter? Email us at [email protected]

Use PowerShell to find user accounts that never logged on

Forwarded to me by JamesT is this PowerShell tidbit which he read on a list he subscribes to and which I’ve edited to anonymize. The goal is to identify any user accounts in the Sales OU of Contoso that have never logged on to Active Directory:

$Users = Get-ADUser -SearchBase

“OU=Sales,dc=contoso,dc=com” -Filter { LastLogonDate -notlike “*” -and Enabled -eq $true } -Properties LastLogonDate | Select-Object @{ Name=”Username”; Expression={$_.SamAccountName} }, Name, LastLogonDate, DistinguishedName

I haven’t had a chance to test this but it looks like it should work.

 

Admin Toolbox

>> Got any admin tools or software you’d like to recommend to our readers? Email us at [email protected]

Increase availability, portability and extensibility for your data with NEW Veeam Availability Suite v10.

http://www.wservernews.com/go/5nesmnsa/

Get rid of corrupt, bloated and scattered PST files by transferring them to a central email archive with MailStore Server. Try it free for 30 days:

http://www.wservernews.com/go/vdv4kwje/

TreeSize Free lets you quickly scan directory sizes and find space hogs:

https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free

WSADReport is a utility to export your Active Directory objects like users and computers to CSV and Excel files for auditing, reporting and scripting purposes:

https://wizardsoft.nl/products/wsadreport

AutoLogoff is the solution for managing inactive Windows user sessions and cleaning up user profiles:

https://wizardsoft.nl/products/autologoff

 

Factoid – Putting the batteries away

Your Editor is off site working on a whitepaper this week for a company so we’ll catch up with reader responses to last week’s factoid in our next newsletter issue. Meanwhile, let’s move on to this week’s factoid:

Fact: Battery fires started in junk drawers more common than we realize: experts

Source: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/battery-fires-started-in-junk-drawers-more-common-than-we-realize-experts-1.4191630

Question: Where do you store your unused batteries? Where do you store your devices that use Lithium-ion batteries? Have you ever had a battery catch fire? What did you do?

Email your answers to [email protected]

 

Subscribe to WServerNews!

Subscribe today to our WServerNews newsletter and join 200,000 other IT professionals around the world who receive our newsletter each week! Just go to this page and select WServerNews to receive our monthly newsletter in your inbox!

 

Conference calendar

>> Got an IT conference or event happening that you’d like to promote in our newsletter? Email us at [email protected]

Microsoft Business Applications Summit

April 20-21, 2020 in Anaheim, California

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/BusinessApplicationsSummit

Microsoft Build

May 19-21, 2020 in Seattle, Washington

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/build

Microsoft Inspire

July 20-24, 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada

https://partner.microsoft.com/en-us/inspire

 

Other Microsoft events

Microsoft Licensing Boot Camps – Dec 9-10 in Seattle, Washington

https://www.directionsonmicrosoft.com/training

 

Infosec conferences

Cyber Security Summit – Nov 21 in Houston, Texas

https://cybersummitusa.com/houston19/

Cyber Security Summit – Dec 5 in Los Angeles, California

https://cybersummitusa.com/losangeles19/

 

Other conferences

European SharePoint, Office 365 & Azure Conference – Dec 2-5 in Prague, Czech Republic

https://www.sharepointeurope.com/

SharePoint Fest – Dec 9-13 in Chicago, Illinois

https://www.sharepointfest.com/Chicago/

 

Podcast Corner

Writing Good T-SQL in 2020 with Pam Lahoud and Pedro Lopes (RunAsRadio)

http://runasradio.com/

The Art of Learning (Virtually Speaking)

https://www.vspeakingpodcast.com/

Zane Lackey on the rush to Azure and securing Web apps against logic flaws (Risky Business)

https://risky.biz/netcasts/risky-business/

Bing, Office 365 ProPlus, and Microsoft Search – Oh My! (Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast)

https://www.msclouditpropodcast.com/

Breaches and browsers (Microsoft Cloud Show)

http://www.microsoftcloudshow.com/podcast

 

New on Techgenix.com

Trench Tales: Poor or missing IT documentation can leave you feeling lost

When you assume responsibility for IT at a company and discover their network and IT documentation is poor or missing, it’s time to start scrambling.

https://techgenix.com/missing-it-documentation/

An inside look at the business of cyberthreat detection and interdiction

What’s it like working as a cyberthreat detection expert whose job is to analyze every threat to our connected world? This interview draws back the curtain.

https://techgenix.com/cyberthreat-detection-and-interdiction/

Integrating Azure MFA with Always On VPN for better security

Cybercriminals never rest, and neither should you. This step-by-step guide shows you how Azure MFA can be integrated with Always On VPN in Windows 10.

https://techgenix.com/integrating-azure-mfa-with-always-on-vpn/

Hybrid cloud keeps getting stronger — but why?

Why does the market for hybrid cloud solutions keep growing? And why are more and more companies and organizations opting for the hybrid cloud approach?

https://techgenix.com/hybrid-cloud-getting-stronger/

Review: Using Site24x7 for Microsoft Azure monitoring

Site24x7 can monitor more than 100 Azure resources in near real-time, giving users actionable alerts and information in one view. Here’s our review.

https://techgenix.com/azure-monitoring-solution-site24x7/

 

Fun videos from Flixxy

Bungee Jumping In A Car Off A Dam

Freddie Flintoff straps himself into a Rover Metro to bungee jump a 540 ft drop from the Luzzone dam in Ticino, Switzerland

https://www.flixxy.com/bungee-jumping-in-a-car-off-a-dam-top-gear.htm

Sandou Trio Russian Bar Flies High

The Sandou Trio performs the Russian Bar act blindfolded at America’s Got Talent – The Champions 2020

https://www.flixxy.com/sandou-trio-russian-bar-flies-high-americas-got-talent-2020.htm

100 Years of Fitness in 100 Seconds

‘Keep fit’ fads and movements from 1910 to 2010 – presenting 100 years of women’s fitness in 100 seconds

https://www.flixxy.com/100-years-of-fitness-in-100-seconds.htm

Fitness Cat

Obesity is the most common nutritional disorder in cats, but here is a foolproof method to make your cat lose weight

https://www.flixxy.com/foolproof-method-to-make-a-cat-lose-weight.htm

 

More articles of interest

Top 10 Virtualization Strategies of 2019

Explore the top 10 virtualization strategies of 2019 to ensure successful data center and virtual environment operations.

https://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/feature/Top-10-virtualization-strategies-of-2019?Offer=Content_Partner_OTHR-_2020January01_TG_A1

VDI in 2020 Will Feature Cloud, Workspaces

Dive into these VDI predictions brought to you by 5 experts in the space.

https://searchvirtualdesktop.techtarget.com/feature/VDI-in-2020-will-feature-cloud-workspaces?Offer=Content_Partner_OTHR-_2020January01_TG_A2

PowerShell Tutorials Capture Attention of Admins In 2019

Take a quick look back at the tips and tutorials that mattered the most to the Windows Server audience.

https://searchwindowsserver.techtarget.com/feature/PowerShell-tutorials-capture-attention-of-admins-in-2019?Offer=Content_Partner_OTHR-_2020January01_TG_A3

What to Consider Before You Deploy NSX

Here’s what you should consider to get the most of out the platform when you deploy NSX.

https://searchvmware.techtarget.com/tip/What-to-consider-before-you-deploy-NSX?Offer=Content_Partner_OTHR-_2020January01_TG_A4

 

Send us your feedback!

Got feedback about anything in this issue of WServerNews? Email us at [email protected]

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