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Russell Smith

Editorial Director

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.

LATEST

Azure Sentinel Gets Fusion AI Early Ransomware Detection in Preview

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024

Earlier this month, the Azure Sentinel and Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) teams announced the public availability of ‘Fusion detection for ransomware’. Fusion is designed to automatically correlate security alerts that could be related to ransomware. More precisely, Microsoft said the Fusion machine learning model collates alerts detected in a specific timeframe during defense evasion…

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Microsoft Looks to Improve Azure Active Directory Compliance and Security Breach Prevention

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024

Microsoft recently announced that it acquired CloudKnox Security, a security management solution for businesses that use more than one cloud service provider. CloudKnox says that its solutions help IT departments “granular visibility, actionable insights, and control of machine and human identities with excessive high-risk privileges.” Joy Chik, who is corporate vice president for Microsoft Identity,…

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Patch Tuesday August 2021 – Microsoft Bolsters PrintNightmare and PetitPotam Protections

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024

August sees Microsoft release the smallest number of security fixes for its products so far this year. In fact, it’s the smallest batch since December 2019. In addition to new bug fixes for the Windows Print Spooler service and NTLM, there are also changes in the default Point and Print driver installation behavior. Recurring PrintNightmare?…

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Default Keys for Windows Server 2019 and Windows 10 Deployment

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024

In Windows 10, Windows Server 2016, and later versions of Windows, you can perform a full installation of the operating system without needing to manually enter a product key as was the case in versions of Windows before Vista and Windows Server 2008. This makes it much easier to install Windows if you don’t have…

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How to Enable Remote Desktop in Windows Server 2022 for Remote Administration

Last Update: Jun 05, 2025

Remote Desktop Services (RDS) is a feature in Windows Server 2022 that lets multiple users connect simultaneously and access applications and a desktop remotely. Windows Server 2022 Remote Desktop Services can also be used by IT for remote administration. It’s important to understand that if you want to connect to Windows Server 2022 to remotely…

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Microsoft Drops Semi-Annual Channel Releases Starting with Windows Server 2022

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024

Microsoft has announced that it is dropping Semi-Annual Channel (SAC) releases for Windows Server. Starting with Windows Server 2022 there will be only one release on the Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC). It will get 10 years’ support (five years mainstream, and five years extended). Microsoft says that SAC releases in previous versions of Windows Server…

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What’s New with Windows – July 2021 Edition

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024

July and August are usually a quiet time at Microsoft. But this year, there’s a little more buzz than usual as Microsoft continues to prepare Windows 11 for a fall release. Microsoft Store in Windows 11 will not automatically update all Win32 apps In a support document for developers, Microsoft revealed that Win32 apps using…

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How to Enable Telnet Client in Windows 11 and Server 2022

Last Update: Jun 08, 2025

Telnet is a client/server protocol used for accessing remote servers. As the name might suggest, Telnet was originally used on terminals that only required a keyboard because everything on the screen was displayed in text, usually from a mainframe computer. The terminal used Telnet to remotely log in to a mainframe server or other computer….

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Datacenter networking servers

How to Add Windows Server 2022 as a Domain Controller

Last Update: Jun 07, 2025

There is an updated version of this article here: How to Add a Domain Controller to an Existing Domain Windows Server 2022 doesn’t include any significant changes to Active Directory (AD). But you will want to use it going forwards for your new domain controllers because of the improved security it provides over earlier versions…

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Best Practices: Office 365 Tools to Eliminate Email Security Misconfigurations

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024

According to Microsoft, 90% of security threats start from malicious email. And while it would be nice to think that customers using Exchange Online Protection (EOP) should always receive the highest level of protection, the reality isn’t quite so simple. EOP is a complex service. It provides a lot of granular configuration options and the…

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Tip for Opening Large Text Files in Windows 11

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024

Notepad is a simple editor that has been included as an inbox application since the very early days of Windows. Notepad is still part of Windows 11, but it is updated independently of the operating system via the Microsoft Store. In Windows 11, Microsoft can deliver updates to Notepad faster than in previous versions of…

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How to Set Up Windows Sandbox

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024

If you want to spin up an isolated Windows 10 desktop quickly, without the knowledge required to work with virtual machines (VM) or the cloud, then Windows Sandbox is the answer. How does Windows Sandbox work? Windows Sandbox is a feature in Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, and Education SKUs, which provides users an easy way…

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