In this issue:
Fire in the datacenter is a burning issue. Who cut that cable? Windows news and events. IT tools that can manage Windows 10 22H2. VMware tips. Learn Linux online for free! Press or touch? You have to believe in magic. Wouldn’t a better replacement be transparent Aluminum? Plus lots more — read it all, read it here on WServerNews!
This is terrible if it happens to your home. What if it happened to your datacenter? Photo by Daniel Tausis on Unsplash
Got comments about anything in this issue?
Email us! We love hearing from our readers!
Got questions? Ask our readers!
WServerNews goes out each week to almost 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? You can Ask Our Readers for help by emailing us your problem or question. Do it today!
Help spread the news!
Please tell all your colleagues and friends about WServerNews and let them know that they can subscribe to these and other TechGenix newsletters for free by going here. Thanks!!
Editor’s Corner
IT professionals are used to having to spend long hours putting out fires on short notice. This means of course dealing with unexpected challenges like having to mitigate the damage caused when software updates released by Microsoft end up causing more problems than they were supposed to fix!
But while “putting out fires” is a term we usually use metaphorically, recent events in the datacenter world remind us that fires are something real that can happen to the IT resources we manage. For example DataCenter Knowledge, a tech news site from Informa, tells about a fire that occurred at a datacenter near Seoul, South Korea that ended up knocking some major tech companies offline for several hours, and this likely led to significant businesses losses for these companies. Interestingly, the fire was likely caused by failure of lithium ion batteries employed by the backup power systems for the datacenter (DataCenter Knowledge). These batteries are becoming more and more common nowadays, and the fires they may cause can be nasty as this YouTube video illustrates (Firechief). Which is one reason I don’t leave my laptop or phone plugged in overnight—or plan on buying an electric car, because this CNBC video frightens me!
Of course risk is always there in life no matter what steps you take to prevent or mitigate it. And there are some practices that datacenters should adopt to help safeguard their equipment and premises from the danger of fire (DataCenter Knowledge). How prepared is the IT environment you manage for fire detection and suppression? Are you taking sufficient steps to mitigate the risk of business loss, and possibly the loss of your job? A good backup and recovery plan is of course a key component of your fire prevention/mitigation strategy, and not just for datacenters but even for small businesses (TechGenix). What tips or recommendations do you have for other readers for preventing fires from happening in areas where computing devices are being used? Share your knowledge so others can benefit.
We hope that you enjoy this week’s issue of WServerNews, feel free to email us your comments or questions about anything in this newsletter.
This Week in IT
A compendium of recent IT industry news compiled by Your Editors. Feel free to email us if you find a news item you think our newsletter readers might be interested in. And for more tech news coverage see the News section of our TechGenix website.
News about a previously undocumented PowerShell backdoor has been rattling the IT community this week (Bleeping Computer). PowerShell is a widely used automation and control platform and it’s increasingly being used as a vector for malicious actions, and you can find more information about this issue on SafeBreach.
More seriously perhaps is the report about a major fibre optic cable being severed in the South of France which resulted in packet loss and connectivity issues in Europe, Asia and even the USA (Euro Weekly News). Was it vandalism, terrorism or an accident? French authorities are investigating (The Brussels Times).
And Microsoft is reportedly facing GDPR challenges regarding its off-premises data storage in Europe (TechGenix). While the tech industry often follows the “disrupt model” when innovating, the reality is that when governments enact new regulations they can cause more disruption to tech companies than the companies themselves do through their innovations.
Windows news
More hot news on the Windows front regarding the recent release of Windows 11 22H2:
Windows 11 Phishing Protection Feature Poses Potential Risk (ITPro Today)
Windows 11 22H2: Troubleshooter for upgrade blocker “printer driver” released (Günter Born)
Microsoft fixes Windows TLS handshake failures in out-of-band updates (Bleeping Computer)
And here’s a surprising change concerning Windows 11 that caught some of us off guard:
Windows Terminal is now the Default in Windows 11 (Windows Command Line blog)
There’s also some good news coming in the next release of Windows 11 especially in the area of managing software updates. You can read about it under What’s New in this blog post from Microsoft:
Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25227 (Windows Experience blog)
On the other hand, if you’re still running Windows 10 then it’s even money whether you’ll be able to upgrade to Windows 11 even if you wanted to:
Report claims almost half of systems are ineligible for Windows 11 upgrades (Techspot)
But with Windows 10 version 22H2 now GA, maybe you won’t want to upgrade to Windows 11!
Microsoft Releases Window 10 Version 22H2 (Redmond Channel Partner)
And if you’re still running Windows 8.1 or even Windows 7 then take courage because Microsoft hasn’t forgotten you:
Microsoft back ports brute force protection of administrator accounts for Windows (Günter Born)
Windows Server news
Just one need-to-know item from Microsoft concerning Windows Server some of our readers may need to be aware of:
DCOM authentication hardening: what you need to know (Windows IT Pro Blog)
Upcoming webcasts, workshops and conferences
Got an event, conference or webcast you want announced in our newsletter? Email us!
Looking for Windows virtual events from Microsoft? Check out this page on their website!
Also be sure to check out the following event listings:
- Redmond Channel Partner’s calendar of upcoming Microsoft conferences for partners, IT pros and developers.
- TechRepublic’s 2022 tech conferences and events to add to your calendar.
- FOSS Force’s list of upcoming Open Source Events.
Got comments about anything in this issue?
Email us! We love hearing from our readers!
Meet the Editors!
MITCH TULLOCH is Senior Editor of WServerNews and is a widely recognized expert on Windows Server and cloud technologies. He has written more than a thousand articles and has authored or been series editor for over 50 books for Microsoft Press and other publishers. Mitch has also been a twelve-time recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award in the technical category of Cloud and Datacenter Management. He currently runs an IT content development business in Winnipeg, Canada that produces books, ebooks, whitepapers, case studies, courseware, documentation, newsletters and articles for various companies.
INGRID TULLOCH is Associate Editor of WServerNews. She was co-author of the Microsoft Encyclopedia of Networking from Microsoft Press and collaborated on developing university-level courses in Information Security Management for a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) program. Ingrid also manages Research and Development for the IT content development business she runs together with Mitch.
Subscribe today to WServerNews!
Subscribe today and join almost 200,000 other IT professionals around the world who subscribe to our newsletter! Just go to this page and select WServerNews and you’ll receive it every Monday in your inbox.
IT Workshop – tools, guides and useful stuff
Got a product or solution or some other resource you’d like to tell our readers about? Email us!
Our TOOL OF THE WEEK is the list of IT tools that Microsoft has published on their Tech Community site which can be used to support the just released 22H2 version of Windows 10.
RSS seems to be making a comeback these days, so if you manage cybersecurity for your company you should subscribe to the new RSS feed for Microsoft’s Security Update Guide (SUG).
If you reside in the USA and use Microsoft 365 Personal or Microsoft 365 Family edition, you will now be eligible for enrolling with their new Identity Theft Monitoring service (Redmond Channel Partner).
Here are some MORE TOOLS our IT pro colleagues have recently recommended:
- AlertFind generates enterprise notifications to communicate important information, monitor responses and verify staff safety. In an emergency, reach every employee on every device instantly (IgniteTech)
- Atoms makes it easy to manage chroot environments on Linux platforms (It’s FOSS)
- Patch Tuesday Dashboard takes some of the pain and confusion out of staying on top of the flood of patches coming out of Redmond.
Tips and Tutorials
Got tips or tutorials you’d like to recommend for our readers? Email us!
Let’s focus on virtualization this week with a special focus on VMware:
General availability: Simplified disaster recovery for VMware machines using Azure Site Recovery (Azure Compute Blog)
Using VMware Converter for P2V Migration (Physical to Virtual) (Windows OS Hub)
Zerto Hyper-V to VMware (PeteNetLive)
Why are so many VMware customers still on vSphere 6.5 & 6.7? (vSphere-land)
A Comprehensive Guide on Micro-Segmentation (TechGenix)
Adding Drivers into VMWare ESXi Installation Image (Windiows OS Hub)
VMware: Install PowerCLI (PeteNetLive)
VMware fixes critical Cloud Foundation remote code execution bug (BleepingComputer)
How to Use Microsoft PowerShell Core on Linux Virtual Machines (TechGenix)
Freebies!!
Got a freebie you want to offer our readers? You can reach almost 200,000 IT pros worldwide with our newsletter—email us!
Worried about getting your organization’s data encrypted by variants of the MafiaWare666 ransomware? Avast has released a free decryptor to help you recover your files! You can learn more about it in this article on Bleeping Computer.
Learn Linux online for free with Linux Foundation Courses from edX (TechRepublic)
Planning on adding a new hire to your IT team? List your first job opening for free on SysAdmin Job Hub!
Factoid: Press or touch?
Our previous factoid didn’t generate any responses so let’s move on to this week’s factoid:
Fact: Buttons beat touchscreens in cars, and now there’s data to prove it (Ars Technica)
Question: Why am I not surprised? Do any readers of our newsletter actually prefer in-car touchscreens to plain old physical buttons, and if so, why? Email us your answer and we’ll include it in our next issue!
Fun videos from Flixxy
You just have to believe in magic as Olivia Newton-John told us back in 1980. “Magic” was third most popular single released that year and was eclipsed only by Blondie’s “Call me” and Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall, Part II”. Those were the days. Let’s see some magic videos…
Lawyer-Magician Theron Christensen vs Penn and Teller
https://www.flixxy.com/lawyer-magician-theron-christensen-vs-penn-and-teller.htm
Incredible Magic Trick: The Lottery Illusion
https://www.flixxy.com/incredible-magic-trick-the-lottery-illusion.htm
Darcy Oake’s Jaw-Dropping Dove Illusions
https://www.flixxy.com/darcy-oakes-jaw-dropping-dove-illusions-britains-got-talent-2014.htm
French Magician Dazzles
https://www.flixxy.com/french-magician-dazzles-at-americas-got-talent-2017.htm
And Finally
The odd, the stupid and the remarkable. Good for your mental health.
Newegg Slaps $520 Upcharge on RTX 4090-Equipped Pre-Built Gaming PC (Tom’s Hardware)
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/newegg-up-charging-pre-built-4090-by-520
[Oh joy, a new word (upcharge) from the marketing world. Is there also such a thing as a downcharge?]
Google wants to take on Dolby with new open media formats (Protocol)
https://www.protocol.com/entertainment/google-dolby-atmos-vision-project-caviar
[And Google is doing this out of the goodness of their hearts towards audiophiles? Or is it to find a new way to fill their overstuffed coffers?]
Weighted blanket increases melatonin (Uppsala Universitet)
https://www.uu.se/en/news/article/?id=19544&typ=artikel
[Hugs in bed work pretty good too zzz…]
Transparent wood could soon replace plastics (Phys.org)
https://phys.org/news/2022-10-transparent-wood-plastics.html
[Wouldn’t a better replacement be transparent Aluminum?]
Hey reader! Got an amazing or weird or funny link you’d like to suggest for this section of our newsletter? Email us! But please make sure that it’s G-rated as in “Gee whiz”, “Golly!”, “Good grief!”, “Gaaahh!!” and so on. Thanks!
Please tell others about WServerNews!
We hope you enjoyed this issue of WServerNews! Feel free to send us feedback on any of the topics we’ve covered—we love hearing from our readers! And please tell others about WServerNews! It’s free and always will be free—and they can subscribe to it here. Thanks!!!