Is Windows (Microsoft) Defender Good Enough?
Is Windows (Microsoft) Defender Good Enough? KB ID 0001940 Problem A common question that still comes up surprisingly often is: “Is Windows Defender good enough, or do I still need a third‑party antivirus?” For years, the default advice for any fresh Windows installation was “install a proper antivirus immediately”. That advice used to be absolutely correct. However, Windows security has changed significantly over the last decade,...
Access Windows Share from a Mac
Windows Share from a Mac KB ID 0001939 Problem Macs can happily speak SMB, so connecting to a Windows share should not be a problem. It’s not something I do a lot of, but someone was struggling and asked the question on EE this morning. So I ran through it myself and had similar problems. When attempting to connect to a share on a Windows 2025 server (over a VPN). I got this. There was a problem connecting to the server “Server...
Windows Server RC-4 Depreciation
RC-4 Depreciation KB ID 0001937 Problem Microsoft has begun a major security hardening programme for Active Directory domain controllers to address CVE‑2026‑20833, a Kerberos vulnerability that enables Kerberoasting attacks by exploiting weak RC4 encryption. If you run Windows Server domain controllers, you must prepare for the phased deprecation of RC4 throughout 2026. Enforcement becomes mandatory in July 2026, and environments...
This Computer Can’t Connect to the Remote Computer
Can’t Connect to the Remote Computer KB ID 0001936 Problem Seen when attempting to RDP to a remote computer. “This computer can’t connect to the remote computer. Try connecting again. If the problem continues, contact the owner of the remote computer or your network administrator.” Error details: Error code: 0x3 Extended error code: 0x7 Timestamp: 01/05/26 03:21:03 PM Solution: Can’t Connect to the Remote...
Sysprep Validate (fails)
Sysprep Validate KB ID 0001934 Problem Seen whilst running sysprep on a Windows machine. System Preparation Tool 3.14 Sysprep was not able to validate your Windows installation. Review the log file at %windir%\system32\Sysprep\panther\setupact.log for details. After resolving the issue use Sysprep to validate your installation again. Solution: Sysprep Validate Fails Well it’s telling us to review that file, the easiest way to...
Directory Partition Has Not Been Backed Up
Directory Partition Has Not Been Backed Up KB ID 0001933 Problem Seen recently when running dcdiag. A warning event occurred. EventID: 0x80000829 Time Generated: xx/xx/xxxx xx:xx:xx Event String: This directory partition has not been backed up since at least the following number of days. You are seeing this error because dcdiag interrogated the event log and found an Event ID 2089 Log Name: Directory Service Source:...
Best Practice: Demoting a Domain Controller
Demoting a Domain Controller KB ID 0001932 Problem I was having a conversation with some colleagues this week, the conversation was about the placing of an RDS license server, and somebody had recommended putting it on the domain controller, I pointed out that this wasn’t a perfect idea, because in four or five year’s time somebody’s going to demote and take that to my controller off-line and forget all about the fact that...
Windows Server LBFO with Cisco IOS
LBFO with Cisco KB ID 0001931 Problem: LBFO with Cisco In Windows LBFO (Load Balancing Fail Over), commonly referred to as Teaming, is a method of combining multiple physical* NICs into one logical NIC (Team). *Note: It is possible to team virtual NICS in a VM, but redundancy and failover in a hypervisor environment are usually handled by virtual switches. Solution Common Sense Check and Tech Tips Remember, if you are not at the same...
Windows Server Cannot Rename NIC
Rename NIC KB ID 0001930 Problem: Rename NIC I had a strange problem. I needed to rename a NIC on one of my Windows 2025 Servers, but despite my selecting rename, nothing happened. Solution Where there’s a will, there’s usually some PowerShell, so launch an administrative PowerShell window and get a list of your network cards with the following command. Get-NetAdapter Then use the following command to rename the NIC of your choice. ...
Cross Hypervisor Migrations Using Veeam
Cross Hypervisor Migrations KB ID 0001925 Problem At a time where a large slice of the community is moving away from VMware, my employer finds itself with a situation where it needs to migrate TO VMware (from Openstack KVM. We need to retire this platform and the customers we have on it, we are hoping will move to our VMware/NSX based IaaS platform. In recent years we have faced challenges with potential customers who were on...