Target shooting is a great stress reliever. Somes plinking with the .22 will do it, and some days you need the 12 gauge and some clay pigeons.

Have you asked if they have the full version of Microsoft Outlook so they can open the .pst file?

@nerdydad said in Stress Relievers:

This stress really isn't work related, but just life related. Somehow, technology has turned into my escape.

People like doing things they are good at. If a guy sucks at golf you won't find him out on the course every Saturday. If he's good at work, he will often bury himself in his work when other parts of his life are difficult.

HP EliteDesk 800 G3 would hit your requirements at $1157. 85 list price. That is with a SSD and a 3.5" 2TB 7200 RPM drive, so if you already have the drives and don't pay list price, it would be better. I haven't used the tower form factor since the micros came out so I haven't had my hands on one. The EliteDesk 800 Micro has been my go to desktop for about a year now, but it won't hold a 3.5" drive.

This should go in the I can't even file, but the local copier guys have asked for the domain admin password when attempting to set up stuff like scan to desktop.... That's another reason to have a dedicated scanner service account with a password that doesn't change.

@fateknollogee said in Scanning PDF's:

@mike-davis

1. Is the \server\scans folder a common folder for all users or does it contain sub-folders for each user?

2. Who deletes (aka cleans) the folder or how do you make sure it stays clean & not just full of junk?

1. yes, the scans folder is a common folder for all domain users. I suppose you could create an individual folder for each user. I did create a different folder for the accounting and HR group, but didn't get down to individual users. I always create a user on the network called "scanner" and give the scanner user access to the folder where the scans land. Then if the copier guy needs the password, he gets the scanner service account username and password, which doesn't have access to any other shares on the network.

2. Usually IT purges it once in a while, but I think I'm going to have to steal @DustinB3403 's idea and just schedule a job for that task.

@fateknollogee said in Scanning PDF's:

Which flavor of OmniPage are you running?

Currently Nuance PowerPDF advanced.

Edit: Nuance OmniPage 18 is the program that has the Agent. I'm not sure which they are currently selling. I've had this in place a long time.

@nadnerb said in SW rant time:

I feel like this meme should be inserted after every 10 posts on Mango.

I set up a VM running OmniPage with a watched folders job. The users pick the scan template on the copier that says "ocr-pdf" or "ocr-word". From there the copier scans the job to a "ocr-pdf-inbox" folder that Omnipage is watching. It runs through an automated OCR and drops the folder in the \server\scans folder that users have mapped as a drive. They get back to their desk and the scan is waiting for them in what ever format they picked at the copier.

@dashrender said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:

Sadly, I could find no way in about 10 mins of googling, etc to add AzureAD credentials to a share/file permisssions to make this work.

Thanks for giving it a rip.

I manged to get Slackware installed from a CD in the back of a 3" thick book. I remember the joy of getting Xwindows working and getting my modem to work. I'm pretty sure that was 1996.

@dashrender said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:

I read it to be - I have a Win10 machine joined to Azure AD - can I create a share on that Win10 machine and other Azure AD users can use their creds to access the share on my Windows 10 machine?

yes, exactly this. That way with Azure I can set a password change policy, and when they do change their password, they can still access the share on the Windows 10 machine.

At this point I don't know if they have any Windows 7 clients, so it may be a moot point.

I do know that they have QuickBooks - I know - I know. So I have to share QuickBooks from one computer.

Has any one tested Azure AD to share a folder from one computer to another? Does it integrate all the accounts in AD, or only the one you set up on that particular Win 10 box?

@scottalanmiller said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:

Yeah, but what YOU need is free. So what does the $6/u/m have to do with your pricing decision?

Well I don't work for free. So if I have to visit every desktop, I have to bill for that. With only 8 machines I have to weight that cost vs spinning up a windows Server and joining all the computers. I'll have to visit every desktop at least once to get them to leave the domain of the company they are spitting from.

I found this chart of features:
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/active-directory/

It looks like:
MDM auto-enrollment, Self-Service Bitlocker recovery, Additional local administrators to Windows 10 devices via Azure AD Join, Enterprise State Roaming

Is available in the Premium P1 and up. $6/user /month

At that price the $26/month domain controller running on Vultr looks like a pretty good deal. Combine it with ZeroTier and I should be all set.

@dashrender said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:

No, Windows 10 will join an Azure AD just like it joins a local onsite AD. Then any users in your O365 system can log into the computers.

I'll have to find a spare Windows 10 box so I can run through the "Join this device to Azure Active Directory" wizard. I have a spare Windows 7 box on my bench, but Windows 7 is not supported.

@dashrender said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:

That said, Passwords being the main thing that @Mike-Davis asked about, that's handled through O365 itself, no GPOs needed.

This is true. o365 admin center lets you create password change policies. If the Azure AD will let me create shares based on o365 usernames, I'll be all set.

@penguinwrangler said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:

When you create a Samba 4

If you have the CentOS box in the cloud, are you running a site to site VPN directly to the CentOS box from the router onsite and setting the clients to use the CentOS box for DNS?

@dashrender said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:

You get baseline AzureAD by using O365 (anything other than hosted Exchange only). This is what I use at one of my clients, works great!

I tried looking this up. Do I understand that you install the Azure AD Connect client on all the computers and it lets them sign in with their o365 credentials?

@reid-cooper said in domain controller in the cloud for small office?:

Does that allow for GPO? I think you still have to do GPO locally when using that. Which is fine, just use PS and you are done.

What do you mean by "just use PS"? Is there a way to export a local group policy and push it to the rest of the machines so I don't have to log on to every desktop and do it manually?