Is containerd a practical production choice for Windows Server containers?
A client requires our software to run on Windows Server 2022 or newer. The application is written in Go and is currently packaged for Linux with Docker Compose…
Windows Server
Is it safe to disable the ILS_ANONYMOUS_USER account?
I found an account named ILS_ANONYMOUS_USER in our environment. It was created in 2004 and has the description "Anonymous Account for ILS Server." Some documentation claims it may…
Are the September 2026 Windows Server out-of-band patches still causing problems?
Has anyone else continued seeing issues after installing the September 2026 out-of-band updates for Windows Server? In my environment, RDP still fails intermittently, some servers require two or…
Are the September 2026 Windows Server out-of-band updates still causing problems?
Has anyone else continued seeing issues after installing the September 2026 out-of-band updates for Windows Server? In my environment, RDP is still unreliable, some servers require two or…
Cluster Service Won’t Start: “A Specified Authentication Package Is Unknown”
Our Exchange SE server is a Windows Server 2022 Standard VM running on ESXi. After the server was updated overnight, the Cluster Service would no longer start. Event…
Import-DfsrClone fails with Error 9111 on Windows Server 2022
I'm trying to use DFS Replication to keep a large file share synchronized between SERVER1 and SERVER2. The full dataset is closer to 80 TB, and the files…
Can someone review and test my PowerShell certificate renewal script?
I'm developing a free, open-source Certificate Authority for use on local networks. It can automatically renew web-server certificates. Since it is designed for internal environments, I created a…
GoDaddy R1 Certificate Works in Edge but Fails in Chrome
I'm troubleshooting an internal IIS website that uses a GoDaddy SSL certificate. Edge considers the site secure and builds a chain through "GoDaddy TLS Root CA - R1,"…
How Should I Prepare for an Onsite Systems Administrator Interview?
I've worked at an MSP for about four years, starting in help desk and field support before moving into a Systems Engineer role earlier this year. My experience…
Why Aren’t Some Domain Controllers Recording User Logon Events?
We use a User-ID agent on a Windows server to read logon audit events from domain controllers and map IP addresses to usernames. The setup works at four…
Why do Windows Credential Manager entries stop authenticating after a few days?
We recently installed new software on 10 Windows PCs. The application connects to a folder on a server, and the vendor instructed us to save the server credentials…
RDS hosts intermittently show a permanent black screen until reboot
We run an RDS farm with more than 15 session hosts. Four heavily used servers belong to the office collection, and they have recently started showing a recurring…
RDS hosts intermittently show a black screen until reboot
We run an RDS farm with more than 15 session hosts. Four heavily used servers belong to our office collection, and they now frequently give users—and even administrators—a…
Moving from 2nd-Line Support to Sysadmin: What Should I Focus on First?
I'm starting a new role that will be more focused on systems administration at a young, rapidly growing company. The infrastructure and processes are still being built, and…
How should I add redundancy for a small Windows Server and Hyper-V environment?
I work for a small managed-services provider and need to improve resilience for a client. Their current setup is one physical Windows Server 2022 host running two Hyper-V…
Moving from Support to Systems Administration: What Should I Focus on First?
I'm starting a new systems administration role after more than 10 years in IT, mostly in first- and second-line support. My experience includes Windows Server, Active Directory, Group…
How Can I Extend Drive C When a Recovery Partition Blocks It?
One of our virtual machines is running low on free space on Drive C:. I want to extend the volume, but a recovery partition is located directly after…
How can I allow RDP only through WireGuard on a Windows Server VPS?
I manage a Windows Server 2022 VPS that currently accepts Remote Desktop connections over its public IP. I installed WireGuard and changed the Windows Firewall rules so RDP…
Can I delete a Hyper-V checkpoint without merging its changes?
I have a Hyper-V virtual machine with a chain of six checkpoints. I want to keep the VM exactly as it was at checkpoint 3 and remove checkpoints…
Can Windows Server 2016 Datacenter Be Upgraded In-Place to Server 2025 Standard?
I'm planning an in-place upgrade from Windows Server 2016 to Windows Server 2025. Microsoft lists that version jump as supported, but I've discovered the existing installation is the…