Right out of college I started working at a major insurance company helping them prep for Y2K and worked my way up as high as one could go without being in management. I loved digging into the details and figuring things out. I worked overtime and volunteered for any project. As the years went by and we were sold and then sold again to private investors, my interest waned and management progressively got worse. Now it’s the age of AI and I am staunchly anti-AI. We were mandated to use it for our job duties and mgmt tracked our usage. Scolded or written up if we didn’t use it enough.

Due to my seniority I was able to work remote for several years prior to COVID and then during COVID everyone got to work remote. You know where this is going - now it’s return to the office time as well as mandating the specific days for in-person days. Unrealistic deadlines for complex projects are set by out of touch upper mgmt with no concept of the scope.

I’ve saved money and have nice investments as well as passive income. It was time to go. Years ago I told myself I’d love to retire at the age of 50 and I’ve finally realized my dream. Zero notice given and zero regrets. I feel so good. Goodbye to IT.

Advice to young people just starting out: word hard, save your money and make good investments. Retire early and enjoy your life.

We bough several new servers last month. Today I racked over $60 grand (USD) worth of hardware. Probably closer to $70 Grand... It was only 3 servers.... 5 years ago, it was only around 20k. It's crazy....

Now to throw down with the boss on not putting VMWare on them. As much as I can anyway

User said they forgot their password.

I offered them to change it.

They accepted.

I told them to note their new password.

They said it's done.

I am now waiting for them to change it.

Few minutes later, another user messaged me saying that the password I gave (they wrote it plain to me, meaning they now know the password of another user) is not working.

They sent me the password they tried. The user noted the password without noting the uppercases and mixed the numbers.

I love my blue collar users.

My employer has recently decided to hire a new IT support person for our helpdesk; I found the position on indeed and was surprised to see the top of the pay range is about $10k more than I am currently making.

I have taken every challenge on headfirst and really grown our current IT department. However, I do not know how to bring up the subject of a raise/increase. Should I send an email to my boss or have an in-person conversation? They have me reviewing resumes for this position that could potentially pay more than mine, and its rubbing me the wrong way.

This is just a warning incase you guys haven't seen it yet:

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/exchange/released-october-2026-exchange-server-security-updates/4563014

Update October 15, 2026: We have received reports indicating that installation of October 2026 updates for Windows Server - KB5126646 (Windows Server 2025), KB5126655 (Windows Server 2022) or KB5126651 (Windows Server 2019) - can cause Exchange Server OWA to fail with an error MapiExceptionMdbOffline: Unable to make connection to the server. (hr=0x80004005, ec=1142) with event ID 1006 logged in the Application Log, as well as growing email queues. Installation of October 2026 Exchange updates is not required for issues to occur. We are investigating this with our Windows partners.

The scariest part of this is the note: "Installation of October 2026 Exchange updates is not required for issues to occur. We are investigating this with our Windows partners." Good luck, have fun.

Rebooting the mailbox server in our case restored mail flow and OWA but I am guessing that is a temporary fix.

This is kind of a terrible issue because Outlook was acting like everything was perfectly normal and you didn't get the normal "user screaming at your because outlook doesnt work".

And there was much rejoicing (yaaaaaaaay)

https://www.xda-developers.com/as-microsoft-kills-off-publisher-libreoffice-steps-in-with-free-support-for-your-pub-files/?link_source=ta_first_comment&taid=6acfd14a02c21c0001a241d6

With increasing discussions around digital sovereignty at my workplace, I'm wondering whether fellow EU sysadmins have ever attempted a PoC for an IT environment that avoids US technology altogether.

Has anyone successfully identified viable alternatives for components such as:

• Endpoint operating systems (e.g. Windows)
• Endpoint management (e.g. Intune, SCCM)
• Identity and access management (e.g. Active Directory, Entra ID)
• Endpoint security (e.g. Defender)
• Productivity and collaboration suites (e.g. Microsoft 365)

What did your architecture look like, and where did you run into challenges?

I'm particularly interested in real-world experiences, lessons learned, and whether you felt such an environment could realistically move beyond the PoC stage.

I have used tools to get recommendations for AD hardening, but not as clear cut for Entra. What have you used for that that have been helpful beyond Entras built in advisor?

My boss got the email from Verizon yesterday afternoon that makes it official, they're shutting down vtext totally on 3/31/27 and they say that "some senders may lose access to legacy email-to-text prior to that date."

We use their email to text for a lot of our notifications and alerts.

Does anyone have an actual replacement for vtext that you're actually using and works the same way? We definitely want email to text, not push notifications from an app. Thanks.

For context, boss says he needs two backups of all data prior to a certain date and post a certain date. We are on premium.

Tried to explain that I’m not sure this is possible.

We currently don’t even pay for a backup tool! (Requested multiple times)

Don’t even know how to begin approaching this.

We have encountered cases where users who have installed the October 2026 update fail to connect to our company Wi-Fi, which uses Aruba access points.

So far, our workaround has been to forget the company Wi-Fi network and reconnect by entering the user credentials again.

According to our vendor, there is an issue with authentication to the RADIUS server after the latest Microsoft security update is installed.

Is anyone else experiencing this issue?

The specific update is October 13, 2026—KB5127648 (OS Builds 26300.9711, 26200.9711, and 26100.9711)

Forgive me if this is a stupid question and feel free to flame me. I have been aware of MS trying to get rid of NTLM for some time. But I got thrown into Radius recently and I'm still learning it. I'm trying to figure if this update will kill my use case.

We use Absolute Secure Access with Radius. The machine authentication is done via certificate. No issues there. For user authenication we use the EAP type of Microsoft Protected EAP (PEAP) which indicates in the properties Secured Password (EAP-MSCHAP v2). I'm not clear on the Redit chatter that I have read if that is affected at the moment.

Before someone suggests EAP-TLS for user authentication, we would love to use EAP-TLS, but that will not work. The user needs the user cert to authenticate with EAP-TLS. Since the VPN will not pass traffic until it sees the user cert, the machine cannot get group policy to pull the user cert. The only suggestion the vendor had was let everyone pull the user cert then engage EAP-TLS. The users may use various shared computers logging in with their AD credentials. Then you have the issues of new users. Not going to work. SAML is an option but the user friction will be an issue. That requires a user to log in with their AD credentials. Then a SAML box pops up to type in the credentials again. This may be the way we have to go eventually or move to another product.

Any input is appreciated

Hey guys, I’ve recently taken over the role of sys admin in the company I’ve been working for as an operations admin for the past year. I’m implementing a series of changes, processes, policies and trying to structure our Microsoft environment, our domains, back up solutions, company and vendor accounts, etcc

It’s been a bit of a journey and honestly I’m also learning things on the go especially when it comes to documenting changes and getting our employees to understand what’s to be implemented before pushing it ahead (this has saved me from a lot of trouble but at the same time has delayed things a lot because apparently people hate changes and having to make minimal effort)

But at the same time I’m still having to run the daily operations in the company which includes embedded generation applications, approvals, quoting some small service work calls, looking after the service jobs with our subcontractors, monitoring portals, liaising with the engineers and site managers before attending site, solving solar troubleshooting enquires etccc

So like im taking a new title as sys admin (still going to get this updated on my contract) but I still take to take care of the daily operations and often I don’t have time to do the sys admin stuff properly which means im doing that at home where I also don’t have a lot of time. And when trying to implement my changes in person our electricians and my manager etc are very impatient and if something doesn’t work straight away they just don’t want to spend the time on it. We have a new company CRM one of our employees is vibecoding and my manager and the CEOs wants to replace all of our paid software with that (for like scheduling, hse forms, worker register, claims, inductions, daily prestarts etc) and today my manager told me that the priority is to test the new vibe coded system (and by this he means tweaking it so it replicates what the other software do) as he would rather get this done first and is less worried about passwords, insinuating that all the IT stuff I am doing in this take over is just password resets 😭😭 This was shocking to me because after all the changes I’m implementing there’s no way this is the only thing that comes up on his mind, like if this was all IT did then the company wouldn’t have spent hundreds of dollars weekly on an external IT support vendor before I took over

Anyways, if anyone here is or has been in the same situation and has some advice for me/words of encouragement I’d really appreciate it

For context I’ve just turned 23 and like my job but I’m worried that im having to disregard our internal IT needs because if I cease to do the daily operation stuff this will affect the flow of the business. As a result, this makes me anxious because I know our necessities but don’t have the time to commit the way I desire . (We are still doing better than when the company was on the hands of the external IT vendor though so I guess that’s something to consider hehe

Curious to hear other people's experiences

I'm at a point in my career where the compensation is decent, and I have enough experience that I wouldn't want to move somewhere just for the sake of moving. However, I'm starting to question whether staying in my current position is the best long-term decision.

The role has gradually evolved, and I've gained experience with many different things. At the same time, I'm not entirely sure the direction I'm heading in is where I want to be a few years from now.

I've casually explored the job market, but most opportunities I've found seem to involve a trade-off: lower pay, less interesting work, less responsibility, or a move that doesn't necessarily feel like career progression.

It's hard to tell whether I'm too comfortable where I am or whether leaving would be a bad move in the current market.

For those who have been in a similar position:

How do you know when you've outgrown a role versus when you're just going through a frustrating period?

Would you stay somewhere that pays well but has questionable long-term prospects?

At what point would you prioritize career growth over compensation?

If external opportunities aren't particularly appealing, would you stay put and keep looking, or take a calculated risk on a different role?

Interested in hearing from people who've dealt with this, particularly experienced sysadmins and infrastructure professionals. How did things turn out for you?

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2026/10/topgolf-saved-over-11-3-million-after-leaving-vmware/

A successful migration from VmWare. I hope it gives some hopes for those still stuck with them.

What's the motivation with the sysadmin who argues against best practices?

The guy who argues with other people against buying enterprise class hardware and he claims its cheaper to get computers at Best Buy.

The guy who is so proud of himself for buying IT supplies at Walmart.

The guy who argues a 3 year replacement cycle is totally unnecessary and argues it should be 5 years.

The guys who builds servers himself and keeps them under his desk and argues this is actually better and cheaper.

The guy who puts 96 gigs of RAM in the receptionist's computer since he argues then it won't have to be replaced for 20 years and is cheaper this way.

They're here and on every other forum and randomly rear their ugly heads. These guys are a small business owner's wet dream. They're so damn proud of their ideas and believe in them so strongly.

Is anyone else having issues with Printix today? The sign in portal seems to be down and no one can print.

Hello All

I'm installing a program for my controls department. The program is "KMC Connect", with it comes a sub-program utility that comes bundled with the software.

The sub-program utility in this case is , "Configure BACstat". The program only shows up when logged into as a local admin but when I'm logged into a standard user account (the technician who will be using this account). The program is not available.

I don't want to give the user local admin rights to run the program.

Is the only solution to make the user a local admin?

We have a number of third party companies that need to semi-regularly upload files for us.
We don't REALLY want to manage third party identities in entra, so not sure if onedrive is an option for us.

We do have an FTP, but we're working on retiring it, so while this may work for awhile, ultimately not great.

Dropbox is $21/user/month, which seems a bit much.

Does anyone have any decent, inexpensive suggestions for this?

Lately it's felt like every technical problem is so hard and I never have a straight answer for anyone. Maybe I just need to get better at communicating how IT works, but it feels like half the time I don't know why something happened or how to fix it. I've been in IT for 5 years and my current job has fewer easy wins (onboarding, tasks I've done before, etc). I'm migrating a client to 365 and it's been effortless because I've done it before, but when it comes to making our SharePoint site look better (how the hell did they make modern SharePoint *worse* than the 2010 version?), fixing intermittent printer issues, solving issues with other apps, Intune, etc. I just feel lost.

I know part of the solution is studying and I am getting a cert and doing a self study course for one of the softwares we use. But it just feels like there is no time and everything takes me forever. I end up asking my coworkers for help, making reddit and spice works posts, calling vendors for help, etc. I feel like I'm not doing enough work to justify my role and I feel behind on certs (this is my first one, I tried studying for the ccna but eventually gave up).

I'm honestly considering transitioning to something non technical or less technical, but my people skills aren't good enough for a lot of other roles (and trying to improve on that front hasn't worked).

Anyway, advice or commiseration is appreciated!

I've been banging my head against this all day. Granted, it's been a few months since I've last created a VM as we've been relatively stable, but today a request came in for 1. Upon adding the template and setting the unattend configs, the job starts. The template uploads successfully, but as soon as it tries to upload the iso file with the unattend file contained, it errors out, and ultimately, the BITS service throws a 500 error every time the host's agent tries to connect to download the file.

After updating SCVMM 2025 to latest, ensuring TLS 1.2 was enabled, rebooting the host and VMM server, I'm at a loss. Event logs show:

Id          : 61


Message     : BITS stopped transferring the 51c104ca66f02c7cc1d873ffa057a14a383ffefe transfer job that is associated


              with the https://(redacted)/51c104ca66f02c7cc1d873ffa057a14a383ffefe/C:A5cPr


              ogramDataA5cMicrosoftA5cVirtual Machine ManagerA5c346465d9-6559-4aed-b8fa-1bb242450905A5cAA01-MD-MCP.iso/


              C:A5cClusterStorageA5cvm_dataA5cAA01-MD-MCP-4A5cAA01-MD-MCP.iso URL. The status code is 0x801901F4.

8 hours later, AI has given me no better advice than to "open a Microsoft Case" but before I go down that rabbit hole, has anyone seen any issues like this recently?

EDIT: I uninstalled the October 2026 windows updates and the issue resolved. Of course windows updates broke it.

That is all...

We should have a list of shame linked in the sidebar or something.

Update: They're not even gonna let us reduce license counts at all.

Hey guys,

Like many of us here, we’re currently looking at our options with the whole Broadcom/VMware situation, and OpenStack is high on our list. Right now, we’re running a fairly heavy VMware setup including NSX for networking/microsegmentation.
Before we start ripping things out and planning the architecture, I’d love to hear from anyone who has actually made this exact leap—or even tried and backed out during a PoC.

How was the transition on the networking side moving from NSX to OVN/Neutron? Did you end up missing features like NSX’s distributed firewalling or advanced routing, or does OVN cover most of the day-to-day needs without too much friction?

Also, how did you handle the actual VM migration? Did you rely on automated tools for warm migrations, or was it easier to just rebuild workloads natively in OpenStack?

Operationally, how brutal was the learning curve for your team, and what were the biggest unexpected gotchas or regrets along the way?

Would really appreciate any insights, tool recommendations, or war stories you guys can share.

Thanks!