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Russell Smith
Editorial DirectorRussell 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
Add or Remove Active Directory attributes from Read-Only Domain Controllers (RODCs)
Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
- Jun 03, 2015
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Russell Smith
Russell Smith shows us how to add or remove Active Directory attributes from read-only domain controllers (RODCs) in this edition of Ask the Admin.
OneDrive versus OneDrive for Business
Last Update: Jun 25, 2025
- Jun 02, 2015
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Russell Smith
Understand the differences between OneDrive and OneDrive for Business so that you can understand which solution is best for you.
Understanding Azure Availability Sets
Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
- May 20, 2015
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Russell Smith
Find out about the differences between Azure Availability Sets and Affinity Groups, and when you should use which.
Troubleshooting Microsoft Azure Automation Runbooks
Last Update: Nov 19, 2024
- May 19, 2015
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Russell Smith
Learn how to access Azure Automation job history to troubleshoot problems with runbooks.
Understanding Federated Resources, Forward Syncing, and Loose Coupling in Office 365
Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
- May 14, 2015
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Russell Smith
Learn about how Office 365 manages user and group identities under the hood using Azure Active Directory.
Windows 10 Security: Microsoft Passport and Virtual Secure Mode
Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
- May 08, 2015
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Russell Smith
Russell Smith discusses how two-factor authentication will be made easier with Microsoft Passport in Windows 10.
How to Install Windows Server 2016 Nano in a VM
Last Update: Nov 19, 2024
- May 06, 2015
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Russell Smith
Russell Smith shows us how to Install Windows Server 2016 Nano in a VM in this brief how-to article.
How to Install and Configure Microsoft LAPS
Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
- May 05, 2015
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Russell Smith
Configure Microsoft’s new Local Administrator Password Solution (LAPS) tool to protected local administrator accounts.
Using OffCAT to Solve Problems with Microsoft Office
Last Update: Nov 19, 2024
- May 01, 2015
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Russell Smith
Learn about the troubleshooting capabilities of Microsoft’s free Office Configuration Analyzer Tool (OffCAT).
Disable Remote Desktop Network Level Authentication using PowerShell
Last Update: Jun 05, 2025
- Apr 30, 2015
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Russell Smith
Learn how to programmatically disable Remote Desktop Network Level Authentication (NLA) using PowerShell
Automate Domain Member Server Deployment in Microsoft Azure
Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
- Apr 27, 2015
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Russell Smith
Russell Smith walks us through improvements to a PowerShell script to automate domain member server deployment in Microsoft Azure.
What is Windows 10 Device Guard?
- Apr 23, 2015
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Russell Smith
Curious about what the newly-named Windows 10 Device Guard is all about? Russell explains how Windows 10 Device Guard differs from AppLocker.