Michael Reinders

As an IT admin, preventing your users from using simple or known-hacked passwords has become critical for the overall security of your enterprise. An excellent step to take is to plan for and deploy Azure AD Password Protection. In this article, I’ll walk you through installing the Proxy service and DC agent in your on-premises…

As an IT pro, enhancing your home lab with new capabilities should be a continual process. Being able to simulate and get hands-on experience is crucial, and this is where the Microsoft 365 Developer Program lends you a helping hand. After joining the program, you can sign up for a free, renewable Microsoft 365 E5…

Having a ‘home lab’ as an IT pro offers multiple methods to add value and efficiency to your job duties and responsibilities. In this article, I’ll look at what is a home lab, what you need to set one up, and how it can help you to progress throughout your IT pro career. What is…

If you’re an IT pro working with Active Directory, you can use Group Policy to configure the Windows environments of your users’ computers and your enterprise servers using Group Policy Objects (GPO). However, the struggle to reach an intuitive and secure environment is real. In this article, I will explain how to create a GPO,…

Group Policy is an infrastructure feature in Active Directory that allows IT pros to manage their users’ Windows environments and servers. In this article, I will explain in detail what is Group Policy, what is a Group Policy Object (GPO), and how to adjust the policy settings to meet your security needs and compliance requirements….

The Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2) allows Windows 10 and Windows 11 users to run a Linux distribution without using a virtual machine. Recent versions of Windows 10/11 make it very easy for developers to get started with WSL2 and run Linux repositories natively. In this article, I’ll explain how to install WSL2 on…

Microsoft Stream, which is part of Microsoft 365, is a video creation and collaboration service available with nearly all license and pricing plans. Learn about its noteworthy features including the ability to record your screen and yourself, catch up on your company’s Teams meeting recordings, and distribute your videos across your Microsoft 365 tenant. What…

Many of you have been using Azure Active Directory Connect to manage your hybrid identities and synchronization of users from Active Directory to Azure Active Directory (recently renamed Microsoft Entra ID). This modern technology is called Azure AD Connect cloud sync. In this article, I’ll walk you through the installation and basic configuration of Azure…

Microsoft Lists is the evolution of the SharePoint List feature. Several years ago, the Microsoft brain trust set out to make this ultra-powerful tool more accessible to the masses. By removing ‘SharePoint’ from the marketing pages, and making it ‘an app’, they succeeded in surprisingly productive ways. In this article, I will explain what is…

Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, and Education editions contain a free virtualization software named Hyper-V. The underlying code works nearly the same as what’s provided in Windows Server. In this article, I will discuss how to enable Hyper-V on Windows 10, how to create your first virtual machine, and briefly talk about nested virtualization. How to…

Installing and using OneDrive for Business will help your users be more productive with their files, from any place with an Internet connection. Do they know how to access the OneDrive website? Do they know how to use the OneDrive sync app in Windows? Read on to discover everything you need to know about how…

Many IT pros probably take for granted sharing files on their predominantly Windows environments and local area networks. Although several protocols are available, Server Message Block (SMB) is clearly the most prevalent. This article examines how Windows file sharing works over ports 445, 139, 138, and 137. Quick overview of SMB SMB is a client‑server…