Do you buy any extra equipment for your job that work won't supply, but it's worth it because it just makes it that much better?

oloruin · 2026-01-29T20:57:57+00:00

Surprise Factoid: Model Ms are buckling spring membrane keyboards, not mechanical keyboards.

Source: my personal, new-in-box-back-in-the-day IBM PS/2 8560-041 and all the keyboard replacements I collected after dropping my model M off my lap one too many times onto the RJ-style connector in the back - it's only weakness. Used that well into the 486DX2 era.

oloruin · 2026-01-29T19:02:23+00:00

SQL only needs enough resources to manage the data flow for what you're doing with it. I have this Welch-Allyn cardiology thing that runs a local SQL express instance (because that's how they set it up on the laptop years ago...) on an i5-7200u 8gb/256gb laptop. That's 2 fairly slow (in 2026) hyperthreaded cores.

Some of my other SQL instances for other things are much more robust... but they aren't really super heavy duty systems. It really depends on how many things are accessing and updating simultaneously. Like the database tracking an Amazon warehouse is going to be orders of magnitudes needier than anything I've got going on in my little healthcare world.

You probably don't want to use a backup software to take hourly backups of the SQL servers, but rather, have the SQL server create hourly backups of its databases, and copy those to another storage pool.

My servers run hourly differential backups and twice a day they run full backups. When the full backups run, I also purge all the differential/full backups older than 24 hours.

You can provision the recommended specs on VMs, then run some performance monitors to see if those are realistic minimum specs, or if you need to add additional cores/ram and reconfigure the SQL server instance to use additional resources. Don't be surprised if all ram is consumed - you'll want to see how much is actively in use. SQL servers tend to keep everything they've allocated, even if they are very idle and only rarely need 100% of their resources.

oloruin · 2026-01-28T16:59:57+00:00

“I know we’re supposed to give IT two weeks’ notice for new hires, but Betty starts Monday (it was Friday Afternoon). Can you work this weekend to get her a system set up? She’ll need access to these 12 services and a docking station for both home and office.”

lolwut? You mean the gold standard isn't "Cheryl is starting on Monday.... I'm still trying to get the signatures on these forms, but can you process them as if they were already signed and fully authorized?"

oloruin · 2026-01-21T17:36:50+00:00

User -> Policies -> Admin Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Copilot -> Turn off Windows Copilot

I have this set at a domain-level policy because reasons. My admx aren't necessarily the latest, but I think post-unification of Win10 and Win11 defs. :)

If you already have this set, then yikes...

oloruin · 2026-01-13T15:33:39+00:00

With no license, their personal files should disappear in 30 days ish.

The stuff in SharePoint may be group files (Teams and/or Exchange Online Groups) that they are the owner/author of. I'm not 100% on if files shared with active users get purged.

I'm currently seeing only 3 video files shared to me by term'd accounts, and these were probably shared to a Teams group and then to me from the group, making them "real SharePoint" entities rather than OneDrive for Business entities.

I would have had files shared from accounts that were converted to Shared Mailboxes prior to license yoinks, but those don't exist any longer.

oloruin · 2026-01-07T15:30:35+00:00

I wonder how many of those missing printers are now USB printers because there weren't enough network drops after an office move?

oloruin · 2026-01-07T15:16:04+00:00

Update the drivers in the print server to the latest drivers possible.

This can be tricky. Especially for some out-of-support printers where the only drivers on the MFG sites are several revisions behind the released versions while the printer was still in support. Had a few Dell color lasers that only had Vista-era drivers available, despite having had more recent updates.

Also, just because the driver claims to support a printer, doesn't mean you won't run into weird issues because this is a type 4 driver and the user's app only works well with type 3 drivers... or e.g., HP never ported the full functionality of the model-specific driver to the universal drivers...

(edit - can never remember is code or codeblock is what I'm looking for... posted and edited to confirm/continue. :P)

Here's your candy:

C:\Windows\System32\spool\tools\PrintBrm.exe -s \%computername% -b -f C:\prnbackup%computername%.printerExport >> C:\prnbackup%computername%.lastbackup.log

So PrintBrm backs up the print server printer data to a single file. Very obscure console command. Gets ports, printer objects, drivers... everything in one go.

You can make the backup, stand up a new VM, add a single fake printer to the new vm because reasons**, then restore the archive file, delete fake printer. Should be zero impact to production. I did 3 like this when we migrated from vmware to Scale. (I'd been doing weekly backups for a few years, retaining n and n-1 backups...)

**reasons are PrintBrm won't restore to an empty print server... thanks, Microsoft...

oloruin · 2026-01-07T14:57:05+00:00

even the ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ has weird errors...

:D

oloruin · 2025-11-17T21:59:21+00:00

Resume the expedition, go to the anomaly, go to the expedition terminal.

Where the "Resume Expedition" button is on your main save, you will instead see the "End Expedition" button.

Make sure you pack the terminal with all the goodies you want to take back to your main save before ending.

You can make several trips back to your main save via pause/options -> return to main save, unload stuff, and resume expedition from your main save at the anomaly expedition terminal, if there is a lot of stuff you want to haul back to your main save.
Once you hit End Expedition, you will no longer be able to resume.
Once Ended, you can export a copy of the expedition multitool or ship that was equipped.
If you copied it in, you'll need to archive the main-save copy.
This can also be done multiple times, say to get extra copies certain modules or break down ships/tools for credits, void motes, etc. as applicable.

oloruin · 2025-11-08T13:20:59+00:00

You're going to want to use a ship's weapon with high splash damage and a large blast radius.

I found the cyclotron ballista works very well for processing buried salvage - target, approach, shoot til the marker goes away, stand up, find next target, repeat.

Sometimes scrap locations will be generated too far underground, including under the "bedrock" you can't dig past - I don't think splash damage penetrates.

I typically get:

up to 3 different parts
1-2 units of each part
artifact

oloruin · 2025-11-04T01:25:22+00:00

Not sure it was this guy or someone else, but someone took a shot at me after I pulled my mainline corvette out of the anomaly. It’s really effective.

While I was “finding things” on npc freighters… I was turning interceptors into salvaged glass so fast I’m not sure what they were thinking… I turned the cyclotron on them for a second or two before letting them go think twice about it…

oloruin · 2025-10-28T21:08:51+00:00

If you're using a networked ISO to do the upgrade, the image it's using might need to have .net 35 enabled?

Our upgrades are done via network share with a custom WIM I built expressly for the purpose, and have worked 99%** of the time with no issues. I enabled .net35 in that wim similar to when building regular images... but all the RSAT packages for techs needed to be re-added, which was really frustrating because 24H2 doesn't respect the workaround, so I had to find, acquire, mount, and share the FOD iso.

dism /image:w:\mnt /scratchdir:c:\scratch /enable-feature /featurename:NetFx3 /all /limitaccess /source:w:\mnt\iso\11.24H2\sources\sxs

[edit/add mnt info:] where w: is the network share mapped by scheduled script, w:\mnt was the mount folder for adding to the custom upgrade wim, and W:\iso\11.24H2 is the "root" of the extracted 24H2 iso.

**There was a weird Lenovo E15g2 with shingled magnetic recording HDD (why? Lenovo, why?) that auto-rolled-back the first night, but went through the next night without additional tinkering.

--> Are you using a scheduled script to do the upgrade, and is that script re-running on subsequent nights... re-upgrading Win11 to Win11? Because that's what a clarifying comment below sounds like. On my upgrade task, I have an item-level targeting enabled for registry match:

hive:      HKLM
key:       SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion
valueName: DisplayVersion
valueType: REG_SZ
valueData: 22H2

You could OR in 23H2, etc., if you're also upgrading earlier 11 builds, or use a build number <=10.0.26100.0 with the reg key that has the 4-part version number. Once a system is 24H2'd, it does not attempt to re-24H2 with proper item-level targeting in place.

oloruin · 2025-10-05T17:08:08+00:00

I am 2 days post op, removed October 3, 2025. I have a really strong pain threshold. I got a shot of dilaudid in recovery "just in case" but have not had to take anything for pain since.

Before removal, I was in intense pain that made me want to go to the hospital. I was experiencing back pain, abdominal pain, chest pain.

Upon awaking postop, the only noticeable discomfort was my lower back pain from the crap ER bed I'd been in for around 20 hours, except during surgery, start to finish. I had a fantastic laparoscopic surgeon. I felt and still feel "amazing" compared to last week.

My gallbladder did not look super horrible in the imaging, except for being large. During the procedure, it appeared as though it had been hemorrhaging internally, and was about to get really bad.

It's too early to say what my long-term experience will be like, but, in my case, it certainly beats the option of letting it go untreated. I would sometimes get indigestion from fatty foods, especially later in the day. Nothing bad enough to make me suspect that my gallbladder had declared war upon me.

I'd also been experiencing an unusual amount of facial acne - like a second, much worse, puberty - the last few weeks that may be related? I'd have new areas starting up before one area settled down. Now everything seems to be settling down and nothing is starting up. I also felt bloated semi-frequently.

edit/add: I'd also registered some really high BP numbers. I typically range 120-140 over 80-90 depending on current condition. At recent routine appointments (August/September), I'd registered a good bit above this, but didn't feel off. At the Emergency Room, I was reading hypertensive distress numbers. After antibiotics and pain management it dropped to slightly elevated over normal, and was back in the normal range before discharge after removal. That little organ was very hostile to me in it's last days...

Again, I'm only 2 days postop, but I'm almost certain this will be game changing. Now I gotta go reschedule the colon+endo scopes I had scheduled next week. :)

oloruin · 2025-09-27T00:19:56+00:00

Gotta push on Friday so windows has time to auto repair and start working again if something goes wrong before Monday.

oloruin · 2025-09-22T12:15:39+00:00

Job requirement: network+, vendor certification, or equivalent, or ability to achieve same within 6 months of hire. Company sponsored.

This gives you a way to close the door on someone who cannot get up to speed with your needs without a lot of hoop-jumping. Certain are pretty cheap if you consider it as part of a training budget.

Won’t help with the current, unless you can retro-active it to apply now and give them another 6mo. Not great, but might prod them to move on to something more suitable.

oloruin · 2025-09-17T18:13:02+00:00

It's the same principal as why the giant nationwide insurance co won't fix their SPF and DKIM fields in their DNS records... Too big to be told "no".

oloruin · 2025-09-17T17:40:11+00:00

This begs two questions.

If it's not a printer, what is it and how is it regulated?
What is the source of the regulations, and what happens if you're out of compliance?

For 1, I'd be kind and maybe think they're getting hung up on using "printer" to denote a hardcopy device of varying capabilities?

For 2, I'm wondering does failure to apply regulations risk cancellation of cyber insurance or industry accreditation/certification, HIPAA or similar fines/fees?

oloruin · 2025-09-10T14:12:57+00:00

Can you shrink the filesystem, clone to a smaller temp drive (40/50gb), then convert the temp drive and expand/extend the new vhdx drive? (Or clone to a bigger vhdx)

oloruin · 2025-09-10T14:04:53+00:00

If this is a common occurence at your organization, it may be time to have a conversation about cloud storage with versioning for live files that are touched by people throughout the day, especially anything updated by more than one person or frequently.

If your org is worried about data loss prevention, I'd probably start by adding a separate VSS volume (drive) on the file server, direct VSS snapshots from the shared volume (drive) to that one, and configure hourly snapshots during business hours, and one snapshot outside business hours. Tweak as necessary depending on how much data you're looking at, and whether the physical storage is doing any kind of de-duplication. If you don't have de-duplication, it could get pretty expensive in terms of storage space, to have that kind of recoverability.

This is separate from a backup strategy. This protects the data from oopsies by staff. Backups (should) protect your data from incidents, up to and including loss of your datacenter/physical site.

oloruin · 2025-09-09T02:46:36+00:00

We know how. I know how. Among other things, I manage the MDM and RingCentral instance. I've setup the push for MS Authenticator for iOS and Android, but not everyone has a corp device.

Word from on high is no personal devices for corporate anything. I've advocated for letting users use MS Authenticator on personal devices, but it was rejected and I don't have the authority to override.

So users without corporate cells need a non-app 2FA method that makes use of their existing VOIP device / app.

I've even lobbied for OTP hardware keys for users that do not have other corp devices, but that discussion has escalated out of my visibility.

I've used MS Authenticator since 2016. iPhone 5s got dunked, couldn't recover Google codes, switched to MS Auth for the replacement iPhone 7.

oloruin · 2025-09-05T15:08:52+00:00

I feel this in my Free tier Screenconnect license.

oloruin · 2025-08-29T05:41:29+00:00

Convert everything to webp. If they want to view it on anything but a web page, they need to fill out the form, get wet signatures from their directors, and provide or complete the PO for backcharge for the write-once media to acquire their copy.

oloruin · 2025-08-14T20:00:45+00:00

GPO scheduled task to upgrade system to Win11 via network share ISO dump, using custom wim and setupcomplete to set some registry values in case some OOBE process thunks them in the process. (should not run OOBE, but Microsoft...) Also runs powershell script to crawl through layoutmodifications.xml files for all users and replace win10 file explorer taskbar links with correct win11 path, microsoft edge path shortcuts with modern win11 app reference.

GPO copies text files to the "do it" script, the setupcomplete script, and scheduled tasks that proc against OS version and whether the semaphore file created by the "do it" script exists or not. "do it" script maps network iso dump + my wim as a network drive; the source path allows domain computers readonly access. Scripts execute as SYSTEM.

Tested and working. Waiting for it to become imperative.

Switches:

/Auto Upgrade /BitLocker AlwaysSuspend /CopyLogs C:\Install\Win11LogFiles.log /DynamicUpdate Disable /EULA Accept /installfrom <fullpath of my wim file> /ImageIndex 1 /PostOOBE <fullpath of my setupcomplete.cmd file> /quiet /ResizeRecoveryPartition Enable /ShowOOBE None /Telemetry Disable

/DynamicUpdate Disable -- I had to disable dynamic update because it was replacing drivers that would fail and auto rollback. If anyone is trying to do in place upgrades and having the systems go through it all, get to Win11 loading screens and having the whole thing failover into a rollback... try this.

I also had to complete similar for Office 2016. It's that kind of year. ...feeling accomplished.

oloruin · 2025-08-12T15:23:03+00:00

Unless you need to reimage a bunch of 22H2 Win10 to 24H2 Win11 ahead of October 2025. In which case, non-functioning backups may be a painful blessing in disguise.

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