Right out of the box the initial configuration of Microsoft 365 (aka Office 365) isn’t bad, but there’s a lot more you can do to harden it and to make it fully yours. By default all Microsoft 365 tenants are in a state that is called dehydrated. Microsoft places all the tenants in this state…
When you are managing devices with Microsoft Intune aka Microsoft Endpoint Manager it’s great to control BitLocker but silently enabling BitLocker for all devices is even better. Here is everything you need to know to silently enable BitLocker with Intune. Disk Encryption Policy Profile First up we need to create a disk encryption policy profile…
VMware Horizon’s web portal has a decent appearance out of the box. However, I wanted to customize it to make it look like my own. If you have a customized login background on your Microsoft 365, it could be beneficial to create a consistent end-user experience by making them look similar. I couldn’t find any…
Having a backup is great, but it only helps if you know how to restore it. Previously I showed you how to take an ESXi Config Backup. Now let me show you the process to restore that ESXi config backup. The Process If you aren’t sure how, here’s a post I made about how to…
Recently I’ve been playing with some Nvidia/Mellanox switches specifically the SN2410. An issue that I ran into was that I didn’t have the BIOS password. All of the documentation says that the default BIOS password is admin. That password did not work on my switch. You can absolutely use the switch even without the BIOS…
On Lenovo servers the default configuration has a physical presence policy enabled. When a physical presence policy is enabled it prevents you from doing a few tasks on the system either in BIOS or IPMI. Lenovo calls their IPMI XClarity Controller (XCC). With an enabled physical presence policy your only options to do some of…
Knowing your ESXi Build Number can be very useful. It’s really easy to do with vCenter. Without vCenter it’s not as straight forward. Here are a few ways to get your build number when you don’t have vCenter. Console If you have access to the console of the ESXi host via IPMI or iLO or iDRAC…
I ran into an issue where some older Cisco Aironet APs (Access Points) stopped connecting to a Cisco WLC (Wireless LAN Controller). No config changes had been made and some of the Cisco Aironet APs would connect and some wouldn’t. All of them were the same model, the Cisco Aironet APs were able to ping…
Recently I needed to upgrade a Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) system and while Cisco does have documentation about it. The process can be scary and could use more screenshots. Here is my step by step guide on how to upgrade a Cisco UCS via the Firmware Auto Install with the Cisco UCS Manager. Fully…
Recently I’ve ran into an issue with Microsoft Teams where the user sees a blocking message that says “Teams needs an update”. The user needs to action it before they can use Microsoft Teams again. Typically the user can just click on Update Teams which will take them to a download page for Microsoft Teams,…
