Best posts made by stess

Quick question... is it safe to remove all native printers? Every machine seems to come with Fax and Microsoft XPS Document Writer... Do you bother to remove it?

I just had a user who keep complaining that their print job won't print. They thought the printer is broken, or jammed... so they open the door (the wrong way) and broke the door hinge. It is holding with duct tape now. Upon further investigation, we found that the user sent the print job to Microsoft XPS... and when the pop up windows opens, they just ignore it and close it. smh.

To prevent any more honest stupidity I am thinking of removing Microsoft XPS writer and Fax. Do anyone knows any reason why we should keep it?

Long story short, I was tasked with getting a monitor for our receptionist. The reception desk is white, so are the walls, and as you may have guessed it... I need to find a white/silver color monitor which is mountable.

The criterias are it needs to be White, versa mountable, DVI or above, and 27" only.

These criterias eliminates 90% of available options. So far I have found some, but they are either discontinued or out of stock.
I am opened to painting... or drilling to install versa mount plate... but management may not like the idea very much.
Here's an example that is out of stock
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824022218

First of all... Cellphone preference is like taste is music. Different people will have different opinions and that is fine. I'll look at anything suggested... even the infamous Nokia 3310

Upon reading a post by Breffni, I decided to look into Oneplus 3T. The reviews I've read so far are mostly positive.. with some negative, but they are often personal dislike than technical failure on the product itself.

However, Oneplus 3T is 3 weeks backed order... and no 128GB option as of yet (I like to take pictures of my pets).
So, I am back to drawing board....

I have iPhone 6 Plus 128GB... with multiple issues lately (mostly signal degraded). I do not want to go iPhone 7 or 7 Plus, because the direction of where Apple is heading... is.... questionable?
Any thoughts? Suggestion? I would greatly appreciate personal experience over "reviews". I like to know the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Thanks!!

In my previous thread asking about home server, and came to the conclusion of getting a basic gaming computer with plenty of memory and fast hard drives.

My questions what brand would you go with? I have seen Samsung and Kingston widely used. I will be getting 3 drives for Raid 5 & Raid 1 HDD for backups.

Since I will be reading from it more than write, I do not feel I need to go above consumer grade SSD. Especially when the drive now come with 5+ years warranty.... by the time it dies and out of warranty I am positive there will be a better option down the road.

What brand do you use on your home server?

@scottalanmiller said in HPE SANs Not Designed for Reliability in the Australian Tax Office:

@nadnerB said in HPE SANs Not Designed for Reliability in the Australian Tax Office:

Sounds like they were victims of Shiny New Device syndrome.

Likely victims of "I'll just let a salesman do my job and get paid to not know what I'm doing" syndrome.

At my work right now... we just implemented a SAN device which supposed to store our Files servers.... Even if there are multiple drives, and Raid 10, there is only one SAN. I was aggressively oppose this idea, but it was approved by my manger anyhow. Can't wait for it to fail. * grab popcorn *

What's your thought on replacing power supply fan? The computer in question is Dell Vostro... 6+ years old. It's not worth the money to buy a new power supply for this machine at this point. Have anyone replace a fan in a power supply before?

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4A04YJ2875

I am looking for a way to write a powershell script that will return result for all folder that contain users or groups that are not inherited. I tried to run the script for non-inherited folder, but some folder are inherited...while have users/groups that were added later on without disabling the inheritance of the folder.

This is the script I found:
DIR "\path\abc" -directory -recurse | GET-ACL | where {$_.Access.IsInherited -eq $false}|Select-Object PSPATH |Export-Csv "c:\export.csv" -NoTypeInformation

Problem with this script is it read the folder inheritance, and not the users/groups. What is the powershell cmdlet to target users/groups without inheritance?

Below is an example of the folder in question.
https://i.imgur.com/ng58DDi.png

@scottalanmiller
I treat Windows Defender like iOS mail on iPhone. It's there.. and it works... but I'll be using MS Outlook instead of native mail app. Nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't have a lot of features other competitor offers (as you have mentioned). Still, I have no intention to disable it.

@scottalanmiller said in New IT manager making changes... should I be concern?:

Your big challenge here, if you decide to pursue a counter to these recommendations, will be in properly assessing business need (if you feel that his designs are not in the best interest of the company then you should, in theory, be able to not just put that into words but be able to put it into numbers) and then communicating that effectively to the powers that be. This is where the average IT person fails hard - IT tends to attract people who struggle to be able to quantify, qualify and communicate IT in business terms. Maybe you are not one of these people, but if you work in IT the chances are extremely high that this is an area where you feel a particular challenge.

Thanks for the insight. I'll gather more information before making any decisions. These changes are estimated to take 6-8 months at least. I got time.
I will look at the link you posted and make a better judgmental decision. I am 110% against SAN and know there are alternatives that could deliver results with fraction of the cost. *cough starwind virtual SAN *cough

I'll see if I can have a quick talk with the management to give my input about all these changes. Obviously I am not going in empty hands.

How do you feel when your new IT manager/managers start making changes to infrastructure you built over the year?

I will not say that my infrastructure is perfect or future proof as my main goal at the time was disaster recovery. I took over a role as system administrator for a company where everything is physical and has little to no redundancy (except only nightly backup that takes hours/day to restore). As of now, I am confident that the infrastructure is sturdy enough to withstand some minor human errors, or failure, and still be able to recover within couple hours at most.

The new changes involve briing his familiar infrastructure and implement them here. For example, stepping away from hyper-v and onto VMware. His goal seem to be one central command center to control all aspect before anything happens. I like his idea and his vision. He seems to be experienced, or veteran, in making these changes in his previous jobs before. However, my biggest concern is the cost to make all of these happens. All the changes I made cost around $30K - $50K. His changes may cost $100-200K in the span of 2-3 years.

Since I started over a year ago I tried to find a cheap but sturdy solution where IT can survive while it doesn't take a big chunk out of company' pocket. What he wanted, I used to think of getting as well. The different between me and him probably I am willing to work extra hours while save the company thousands of dollars in labor or license. He wants to spend more to make less work in the future. I am torn to see all the work I have done being overthrown in favor for a more simpler control but costly option.

I don't know if I should bring my thoughts to management or CEO or not. If so, should I let him know of all the things I have in my head? What is my approach?
For certain, I will get back to acquiring more certifications, and expect the worst.

EDIT: Since I am not the only making the calls, I do not feel I am responsible to the consequences that may follow. Am I wrong? Do I go with the flow? This is almost opposite to what I have done so far, and I am lost for thoughts.

Hello all,

I haven't visit Mangolassi for months... Good to be back

We are having issue with Outlook GPO where it will implement to some, but not all, and not all the time.... This drives me nuts as there is no errors...it just decide to not do it.

We have vaiours version of Outlook (Home&Business 2013, Office365 Business 2013/2016, Office365 Proplus 2013/2016), and we have implement Office GPO for these applications. The problem we are facing now is some Office does not pick up the GPO, while the others do. We are certain that the GPO is working since other policies are being applied (only Office is not).

For example: User 1 and User 2 both use the same Office (O365 Business 2013). Both of the get the "upgrade to 2016" banner. We pushed out GPO and one of them no longer see the banner, while the other still see the banner. At the same time...we push Junk Safe Sender list and User 2 get the update on Outlook, but not User 1.

I have personally look at about 10 Outlook with various version... I could not found any pattern at all. 1 H&B2013 get the Safe Sender updated, while the other H&B2013 does not. Same with O365 Business.

I am still on hold with Office support (Microsoft) as I am typing this post. I might get an answer soon...
Has anyone seen these kind of problem before? How to resolve it?

EDIT: FIX: Uninstall O365 Business (if installed) > Restart > Install O365 ProPlus > signin with Business subscription > Update (to trigger downgrade from Pro to Business) > Profit!

@travisdh1 said in Former Verizon-Now Frontier Communication....why is the review so bad?:

Honestly, you've got the choice of one company (Frontier) that was put together solely for Verison to dump their unwanted and un-cared for infrastructure on (they didn't start that way, it's just what it's become), and a lazy, complacent company that just doesn't care in Time Warner. Neither of them are something I'd be happy with, they're just what you're stuck with. Probably not worth the time and hassle to switch, unless they completely screw up.

True... Time to move to Austin for Google Fiber.

Obviously, each game has different recommended requirement. Since these graphic cards are just released, would anyone here recommended getting 1080 just for "future proof" for gaming?

What should I take into consideration (beside how broke I will be after buying 1080) before buying a graphic card?
The last time I buy something was 4-5 years ago...so I am pretty far behind on new components.

In the past, I could not afford new components due to my salary, but next week I will pay the last balance on my Credit card, which means money for new rig $$$. So far I only play CS:GO, SC2, and other not heavy graphic oriented games. With new games releasing, I am interested in Battlefield 1 and other games that may required better GPU to maintain 60FPS.

I will be getting CPU, DDR4, M.2 SSD later next year as will.

Well.... after reading your comments... I will give iPhone another chance (also because Oneplus 3T is 3 weeks away). I believe Apple has 14 days refund policy or sometime so it doesn't hurt my wallet that much.

I am looking for a home media server.... and wonder where would you buy them from? The company I am working for about to put old server for sale for internal employees... but that are VERY old (at least 6-7 years). I fear it will die on me after couple of months. So... Where do you usually probe for server on sale? Budget around $300-500 max.

EDIT: Purpose: spinning VMs for testing environment + streaming media to iPad/iPhone.

@IRJ said in Salary:

@stess said in Salary:

Some day I didn't even get to see my beloved desk at all.. and on my knees all day :'(.

I am scared to ask.....

LOL!!! Don't put it out of context like that.
ps. I laughed so loud my manager just looks at me like "Are you alright?"

@scottalanmiller
I got to say that sometime your post is just too long to read. Thanks to translate.google with voice over text.... I'm able to follow through..

@scottalanmiller said in Was It the Last IT Guys Fault:

@stess said in Was It the Last IT Guys Fault:

@scottalanmiller
I got to say that sometime your post is just too long to read. Thanks to translate.google with voice over text.... I'm able to follow through..

You are listening to it translated and read? In what language? How well does that work?

English. There's a speaker button that read what you typed (in this case copy/paste) into the box. It's not perfect, but for someone whos English is not their primary language, it helps a lot.

Christmas came early this year

Right now I am making decent amount of money, but I do not like my current boss... so I want to change my field. I looked around some job board and come across ISD system administrator job with slightly less pay (but it sounds interesting), plus half the travel distance.

Some requirement is BS and Red Hat Linux certification + MSCA and CCNA.
I am comfortable with MCSA and CCNA, but Red Hat... Any recommendation?

@Joel said in Prompt before sending external emails:

IE. I believe this can be done using MailTips or at least MailTips will show a bar at the top whilst we compose indicating who the message will go to?

This is probably a more of a best practice/training than IT trying to find a solution.

Personally, I would create a spreadsheet with a list of all candidates/recipients, then paste them when I am sure I have the correct information. That is how our marketing person do her job.

OWA should have the ability to use semicolon or comma to separate each emails, so using =concate in excel should easily create a string of emails for you. Outlook is smart enough to separate them by spaces.

Just in case if no one posted about this yet... Office 365 Current Channel Version 1703 breaks auto correct emoticons.

If you are currently using Office 365 and on CURRENT channel you may be on Version 1703 (Build 7967.XXXX) you may experience broken emoticons in Word/Outlook. This is caused by unnecessary (thoughtful, but maybe no...) added auto corrects to some regularly used smiley faces.

Version 1703 for Current Channel was released in April, and Version 1704 was released on May 18th of this month.

Thought I share....

@nadnerB said in Home Anti-virus:

So I'm having some ridiculous issues with Avast Free AV and I'm considering switching to something else.
Details here: https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=203267.0

What have you got for AV?

I'm rocking Malwarebytes + Windows Defender on Windows 10. Malwarebytes 3.0+ has be buggy with its trying to do so many task... but so far I am safe from ads on pornhub. ;)\

EDIT: I have paid version of Malwarebytes. On my other machine I only have Windows Defender, but I rarely visit websites other than Netflix, Hulu, and Youtube on my other machine.

As for powerline... I do not have great experience with them. Especially in townhome condos. So I would prefer no powerline.

We used to have Scan to Folder (Xeros' Workflow), but because of all the lingering PDFs, we changed it to scan to email via SMTP.

Thanks @bnrstnr @Reid-Cooper for the input.

@Reid-Cooper I'll spin VMs in the future (if I did go for server that is)

Hi guys

I posted this on spiceworks but apparently everyone is on vacation this week

I have a user who took her laptop on a vacation. She normally work in office so we didn't setup VPN for her + she does not need access to our file server for her tasks while she is remote. This is not the first time she took her laptop with her, but this is the first time she was not able to login with her credential.

Have anyone ever seen this error before? We did not introduced any new GPO the past weeks and no major changes are made...especially on the OU her user account is in.

Right now she's basically stranded. We gave her credential to local account we created for safe keeping (not admin) so she has something to do What might be the cause for this?

Couple of things that might help are she's working off her phone hotspot, She has been on a vacation/remote for 2-3 weeks. She was able to log in with her domain account just last week.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

PS. Happy holidays to those taking PTO

Hi guys,

I have a bit of a hiccup with a script I am trying to decode. The code is written by another company to use with their system. I am trying to make an automation where the powershell will read a script from CSV file then execute it on the same PSsession. The challenge I am facing is trying to put a fixed credential when it promp for credential.

This is the code in question. I am trying to put a fixed credential.

			$cred = [PsUtils.CredMan]::PromptForCredential("Please enter credentials", "Please enter your credentials.", [Environment]::UserName, $target, "Generic", "None", [ref] $save);

I stumbled across [Creating a PS Credential from a Clear Text Password in Powershell] which seem to be the answer, but somehow it's not.

Under the same script there is a call function to test the credential. I believed this is what flagging the credential as invalid.

function Test-Credential([string]$plat, [Management.Automation.PSCredential]$cred)

NOTE: I tried to reached out to the dev that wrote this code, but the official answer is they will not assist me in modifying the code. The code is "as-is".

@dustinb3403 said in [help?] powershell - fixed credential for prompforcredential:

@stess you can pass credentials as a parameter within powershell.

After reading the article, and tinkering with the script, I found that I am passing the credential in the wrong function. I try to pass it in the testing, but I should have pass it in the connection phase.

Also, I'm surprised this article is so easy to understand.