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Russell Smith, the Editorial Director at Petri IT Knowledgebase, has over two decades of hands-on experience in IT, in both small business settings and government IT infrastructure projects.
Russell started writing for Windows IT Pro Magazine in the early 2000s. Since then, he has contributed insights to various IT publications, including Petri and CDW. His authoritative voice has resonated across industry blogs, where he dissects complex topics into an ‘easy read’.
Russell has authored over a thousand articles, each a testament to his depth of knowledge. His expertise doesn’t stop there: he wrote a book on Privilege Management and co-authored another for Microsoft’s MOAC series. Moreover, Russell’s commitment to education shines through in the courses he crafted for Pluralsight.
He is also presenter on his own YouTube channel, This Week in IT, and the current presenter of Petri Dish.

This month’s Patch Tuesday for includes a cumulative update (CU) for Windows 11, which was made generally available October 4th. In total Microsoft released patches addressing 71 CVEs in Windows, Edge, Exchange Server, .NET Core, SharePoint Server, and many other products. Two of the CVEs patched this month are rated Critical, and 68 Important. And…

Sharing content with users external to your organization and managing guest user access in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams can be confusing to understand and difficult to manage. If you would like to know more about this important aspect of cloud security, download this free eBook. AvePoint dives into policy considerations you need to make…

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
Petri’s Endpoint Management 1-day virtual conference is now available to view on demand. At the end of last month, Petri hosted a full free day of learning, covering topics like how to manage devices using Microsoft Intune, how to deploy new hardware with Windows Autopilot, and managing security updates with Windows Update. The management of…

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
Microsoft announced yesterday that it is updating the search experience in its desktop client for Teams. While we wait for Teams 2.0, a complete revamp of the desktop app announced earlier this year, Microsoft is bringing a much-needed update to the way search results are displayed. Starting in November, Microsoft will roll out the changes…

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
Windows 11 is generally available this week on October 5th. But while some have dismissed it as just Windows 10 with a fresh coat of paint, there are changes that Microsoft says lead to improved performance, reliability, and security. In this article, I’m going to look at Windows 11’s new features and how Microsoft’s new…

Microsoft announced September 22nd that Azure Virtual Desktop now supports Azure Active Directory (AD) joined virtual machines (VM). With this update you can now: Join Azure Virtual Desktop VMs directly to Azure AD Connect to VMs from any device with a username and password And automatically enroll VMs with Microsoft Endpoint Manager (MEM) Before the…

It’s been a relatively quiet month for Windows as Microsoft gets down to finalizing Windows 11 for an October 5th release. What you need to know Windows 11 is faster than Windows 10 New Surface hardware is announced Passwordless sign-in comes to Microsoft consumer accounts Windows Server 2022 reaches general availability Windows 11 is faster…

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
Microsoft announced earlier this week several new features to Teams Phone to update the platform for modern cloud calling and to integrate calling better into people’s workflow. As many companies shift to hybrid work and more use collaboration solutions like Microsoft Teams, there has been a significant increase in phone use. To address this challenge,…

Petri’s GET-IT: Endpoint Management 1-Day virtual conference is a full day of free learning where we will be diving deep into how you can improve the way you manage your endpoints and learn from industry experts and MVPs about best practices, available tools to streamline your operations, and what’s coming soon with Windows 11. The…

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
In this article, I explain how the recently discovered flaw in the Exchange Server Autodiscover protocol can leak user credentials. And how to mitigate the issue in your environment. Microsoft Exchange Server Autodiscover protocol leaks thousands of user credentials Researchers at security company Guardicore have released details of a security issue in the Autodiscover protocol…

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
As we quickly approach Windows 11 general availability, scheduled for October 5th, Microsoft has revealed that Windows 11’s speed should be significantly boosted, even on identical hardware. In a recent YouTube video on the Microsoft Mechanics channel, Microsoft provided an exclusive look at performance optimizations, improvements to the servicing model and orchestration engine, and details…

This month, Microsoft released a fix for the MSHTML zero-day that emerged earlier in September. And it fixes a serious remote code execution bug in the WLAN AutoConfig service. There’s also a fix for a serious bug in Apple iOS. So, let’s get started! Microsoft fixes MSHTML zero-day Earlier this month, Microsoft released a security…