Russell Smith

This Week in IT, Windows 11 adoption just jumped past 62 percent after months of going nowhere. At the same time, Microsoft admits that barely 3 percent of Microsoft 365 users are paying for Copilot. And Redmond has reassigned senior leadership to focus on quality and security. Thanks to Cayosoft for sponsoring this episode! Links and resources…

Designing a sound Organizational Unit (OU) structure in Active Directory is crucial for an efficient and secure IT environment. A well-planned OU hierarchy makes it easier to find objects, assign administrative permissions, and apply Group Policy Objects (GPOs) consistently. But there’s no one-size-fits-all design. Following best practices from Microsoft and experienced Active Directory admins will…

In this episode of Petri Dish, Russell Smith sits down with Principal Technologist Craig Birch to break down several major Active Directory changes that every IT administrator needs to know right now. We cover three big topics shaking up the identity and Windows Server world: 1. Kerberos RC4 Deprecation Microsoft is enforcing the removal of…

Windows 11’s Administrator Protection, which is meant to lock down elevation, was hacked in testing and forced Microsoft to rethink the design. At the same time, Kerberos is finally saying goodbye to RC4, with enforcement deadlines that could break Active Directory legacy authentication if you don’t prepare. And Microsoft just gave admins a first‑party way…

The rise of AI agents is forcing a fundamental rethink of enterprise security. Agents are autonomous, task-oriented digital workers that are no longer confined to experimental labs or niche use cases. Agents are being embedded into Microsoft 365, Windows, and Azure, where they draft emails, summarize meetings, automate reports, and interact with data on behalf…

Nvidia is about to crash the Windows‑on‑Arm party. Its first PC chips could arrive with a special Windows 11 build just for new silicon. At the same time, Mandiant just made it trivial to crack a decades‑old Microsoft protocol that some companies still run in production. And a new class of AI bugs shows how…

There’s a growing disconnect between how organizations talk about Microsoft Copilot and how they measure it. Executives want productivity outcomes. IT wants operational clarity. Users want help with daily tasks. But somewhere along the way, too many businesses fall into the trap of using “usage” as a proxy for “value.” The truth is simple: Using…

Windows 11 just got heavier, literally! A new security update is doubling the size of critical OS files and Microsoft says it’s absolutely necessary. At the same time, the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit is quietly being killed off, pushing IT departments toward modern deployment, and this month’s Patch Tuesday unleashes 113 fixes, including a fresh zero-day…

“It’s the data, stupid.” That’s how Tim Freestone, Chief Strategy Officer at Kiteworks, sums up the pivotal shift underway in cybersecurity today. In a recent interview about Kiteworks’ 2025 Data Security and Compliance Risk Report, Freestone and colleague Patrick Spencer explained to me that companies are finally recognizing that data, more than networks, devices, or…

When Microsoft retires a long-standing component like WINS, many organizations treat it as a footnote. Something to remove when convenient. But WINS retirement is more than an outdated feature being switched off. It’s a signal that the last remnants of legacy NT-era assumptions are finally being swept out of modern architectures. For IT leaders, this…

Microsoft is bending its own rules with a special Windows update only for new AI-powered PCs. Plus, Teams is about to start auto-blocking malware and phish by default for everyone, and if you’re migrating from Slack to Teams, Microsoft’s rolling out a new tool to make it seamless. Thanks to Cayosoft for sponsoring this episode!…

Picture this: It’s 3 a.m., and your Security Operations Center (SOC) dashboard lights up like a Christmas tree. Not because of a zero-day exploit, but because an AI-driven botnet just launched 10,000 phishing attempts. Each tailored to your executives’ LinkedIn profiles. Welcome to 2026. Cybersecurity has always been asymmetric: defenders must get everything right, while…