Michael Reinders

Active Directory groups are essential tools for managing and organizing users, computers, and other resources within a Windows domain. This article will provide an in-depth exploration of Active Directory (AD) groups, including their types, purposes, and best management practices. Whether you’re a seasoned IT professional or just beginning your journey with Active Directory, this guide…

This guide aims to help you understand how to navigate and use the Windows Local Group Policy Editor (LGPE) to enhance your Windows desktop environment’s security, performance, and usability. What is the Local Group Policy Editor? The Windows Local Group Policy Editor is a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in that allows you to manage and…

Hotpatching is a powerful feature in Windows Server 2025 that allows administrators to apply security updates and patches without requiring a system reboot, minimizing downtime and ensuring continuous operation. This article provides an overview of how to enable Windows Server 2025 Hotpatching. We’ll cover prerequisites, step-by-step instructions, best practices, and troubleshooting tips. What is Windows…

This week, Microsoft re-released the November 2024 Exchange Server security updates, now known as November 2024 SUv2. The first release didn’t go so well. The original updates, which went out on November 12, 2024, caused issues with data loss prevention (DLP) rules and transport rules, leading to disruptions in on-premises email flow. You can find…

Microsoft has been accused of using customer data from its Microsoft 365 applications, including Word and Excel, to train its AI models. The controversy arose from the “Connected Experiences” feature, enabled by default in Office apps and allows for Internet-based functionalities like document co-authoring. Critics argue that this feature could be used to scrape user…

Back in June 2024, Microsoft announced the new ‘Copilot+’ PC specification and device type. They also gave a demonstration of Windows Recall, a controversial new feature that takes periodic snapshots of your computer screen, capturing what you’re doing, so you can ‘go back in time’ and remember that website you were doing research on, or…

This week at the Ignite 2024, Microsoft announced many new features coming to the company’s web browser, Edge for Business. Because today’s work environment looks very different from just a few years ago, Microsoft continues to adapt to the new hybrid landscape and offer more security-focused features to keep your organization safe and protected. Cybersecurity…

At their Ignite 2024 tech conference this week, Microsoft announced a restructuring of sorts for Windows Server Management features and SKUs and brought them under Azure Arc. They are advertising the features as a ‘free add-on’ bundle for companies utilizing Windows Server Pay as you Go, or active Software Assurance (SA) agreements. This is why…

At Microsoft’s Ignite 2024 tech conference this week in Chicago, Redmond announced the first ‘Cloud PC’ device—a purpose-built solution called Windows 365 Link. With a public preview starting now, they are expected to be shipping or generally available in April 2025. “…a small Windows-based OS designed to connect you to Windows 365 in seconds” –…

How do you add a new domain controller (DC) to your existing Active Directory (AD) domain? In this post, I will show you how to quickly add a new DC to AD. This article applies to: Windows Server 2025, Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2022, and Windows Server 2016 Check the domain and forest functional…

In this guide, I’ll show you how to add a new forest to your existing Active Directory environment. There may be compliance or security requirements dictating you add a new forest. This article applies to: Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2022, and Windows Server 2025. However, just a note, you can add…

In this guide I’ll show you how to add a child domain to an existing forest. If you have, for example, contoso.com as your single Active Directory forest domain, you may want to add some logical separation. You can add a child domain, corp.contoso.com, to your forest during the DC promotion wizard. This article applies…