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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.

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
As part of the Automatic VM Guest Patching for Azure VMs preview announced at Ignite in March, Microsoft introduced Windows Server hotpatching. Hotpatching lets organizations apply security patches to Windows Server without rebooting. A feature that’s been part of other server platforms for years, hotpatching finally comes to Windows Server. But there are some caveats….

Microsoft recently announced the first preview of Windows Server 2022, and some of its new features, at Ignite at the beginning of March. In this article, we will look at new container options in the upcoming version of Windows Server. Microsoft is adding new features to Windows Server 2022 to help organizations accelerate application modernization….

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
Microsoft announced at its recent Ignite conference that WAC in the Azure Portal in now available in public preview. Prior to this update, it was only possible to manage VMs at the infrastructure level in the Azure Portal. But WAC in the Azure Portal lets administrators manage Windows Server VM guests at a more granular…

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
During the first part of Ignite in September 22-24, 2020, Microsoft announced that it was bringing Windows Admin Center (WAC) to the Azure Portal. Windows Admin Center (WAC) is a complete reimagination of the built-in management consoles (MMC) that are used to configure Windows Server. WAC is a web-based administration portal for managing local or…

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
Rolling out in public preview early February 2021, Microsoft is adding a new feature to its Endpoint Manager (MEM) solution called settings catalog.

Microsoft released patches to fix 82 security bugs in Windows and other software this month. There are critical bugs in IE, Exchange Server, and Windows Server DNS. Windows and Windows Server Windows gets two patches for critical remote code execution (RCE) flaws. CVE-2021-26876 is a vulnerability in OpenType font parsing and CVE-2021-26867 is a flaw…

Last Update: Aug 05, 2025
BitLocker is a full-disk encryption tool that is built-in to Windows 10. Full disk encryption prevents someone who gets physical access to a disk from reading the data stored on it.
Last Update: Nov 19, 2024
Microsoft announced at its Ignite conference, which ran March 2nd – 4th 2021, that passwordless authentication is now generally available. Microsoft has been pushing passwordless over the past couple of years as a more secure way to provide access than passwords and multifactor authentication. Now that passwordless authentication is generally available, organizations can roll out…

Today Microsoft officially announced the availability of Windows Server 2022 in preview at its Ignite conference, which is running March 2nd to 4th. Windows Server Insider Preview build 20292 is a Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) release and which first appeared at the beginning of February. On the download page, the build was labeled ‘Windows Server…

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
Microsoft officially announced today the general availability of Universal Print at its Ignite conference.

At Microsoft’s Ignite conference this week, there was a series of announcements for new Azure Active Directory features either entering general availability or released in public preview. AWS Single Sign-On (SSO) The Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) app gallery now includes AWS Single Sign-On (SSO). AWS SSO is a cloud service that is designed to…

In February, Microsoft announced its plans to release Windows 10 version 21H1 and that Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC support will be cut from 10 years to 5. And Windows 10 ‘in cloud configuration’ is a new recommended device configuration that can be applied to remote devices for frontline workers and others. Plus, much more. So,…