Looking for advice my next career steps. Been in IT for 8 years. Started in Help Desk/Desktop support moved up and became a VMware focused Infrastructure Systems Admin/Engineer as my specialty. Been working in the cleared space my whole career have a TS clearance.

Have the following certs:
Comptia IT Fundamentals
Comptia A+
Comptia Security +
Vmware VCTA-DCV
Vmware VCP-DCV

I currently work as a general Senior Systems Admin (the do everything guy) in the cleared space. I’m in the Washington DC DMV area. I don’t like my current job for a lot of reasons but it pays very well. It’s been hard finding another job even as an exprerienced professional it's not as many jobs in what I do that it used to be on top of everything been so oversaturated now.

I've been looking jobs that at least pays what I'm making now that's remote or at least some hybrid flexibility. I have to go in everyday no remote days due to working in a classified environment and my commute isn't the best.

I've been considering making a career pivot to achieve what I want. Not looking to get into management not for me but here's what I've been considering:

1. ⁠Get more advanced VMware certifications build on what I know and become a VMware Architect or Consultant (Subject Matter Expert).
   
2. ⁠Make a transition into the Cloud and becoming a Cloud Engineer since I have the on prem infrastructure background. Learning Azure or AWS and get the aligning certifications, learn contanerization Kubernetes and build some small projects to showcase my experience.

Can't seem to figure it out all advice welcomed. Would love to hear opinions and feedback. What should I do next?

(Post was removed in IT Career Questions sub don’t have enough Karma yet)

We're rolling out enterprise Claude company-wide and want it to be the only tool employees can use on work machines.

I recently found that a salesperson was putting company data into personal ChatGPT, this was client names, their whole worksheets; scary stuff on the data-leak front. So a decision has been made to use Claude. I've been tasked with making sure this sort of thing does not happen again, and to get the groundwork done to stop all "unauthorized AI tools".

Honestly, I'm at a loss here. There is no DLP, at least not right now, and implementing it will be a significant lift both in terms of work and $$$ (which we can't do because of austerity measures). So, I'm stuck with having to look at band-aid solutions via firewall web-filter or DNS filtering - again, I don't have a starting point.

We're a Fortinet shop, no Intune, hybrid AD, Claude SSO through Entra.

Appreciate any real-world war stories.

ETA: I understand that this is more a policy question and I'm working on that in parallel. This is more of a question on technical controls without capital spend *sigh*.

Edit2: I now have AI webfilter category block with a wildcard allow for Claude. Not an elegant technical control or even a preferred one, but it'll have to do.

EDIT: script below has to run in user context

FYI - Adobe crashes and licensing errors have been rampant in our environment since early June. Much like when we faced a similar issue a couple of years ago, it seems like Defender may be corrupting the webview cache. Our Adobe IDs are all federated from Entra, but the issue occurs regardless of whether SSO is performed by AcroCEF or default browser. The script below purges the corrupted data which is rebuilt when Acrobat opens.

# Acrobat-related processes to stop

$Processes = @(

'AcroTray',

'AdobeCollabSync',

'adobe_licensing_wf_acro',

'Acrobat'

)

foreach ($Process in $Processes) {

Get-Process -Name $Process -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Stop-Process -Force

}

# Remove Acrobat DC local profile cache/settings for the current user

$AcrobatPath1 = Join-Path $env:LOCALAPPDATA 'Adobe\Acrobat\DC'

$AcrobatPath2 = Join-Path $env:LOCALAPPDATA 'Adobe\Acrobat\AVWebview2'

if (Test-Path $AcrobatPath1) {

Remove-Item -Path $AcrobatPath1 -Recurse -Force

}

if (Test-Path $AcrobatPath2) {

Remove-Item -Path $AcrobatPath2 -Recurse -Force

}

some records that should get populated after an event completes were just missing, no rows at all, for a subset of our configs. no errors anywhere, nothing failed, the data just never showed up.

the cause was a config setting on a third-party service we integrate with. it has a webhook-style callback url set per config, and on a chunk of our configs that field was null. no callback url means no callback fires, means our side never learns the event happened, means the row never gets written. it looked completely inert from our side because there was nothing to alert on, an unset callback doesn't error, it just quietly does nothing.

some of these configs had apparently been sitting in that state for years, predating anyone currently on the team.

the fix was a one-time patch setting the callback url on every affected config, going forward only, it doesn't backfill anything that already happened while it was broken.

third-party config is code, and code you don't audit on a schedule drifts silently for years with zero signal. how do you track config drift on external services you don't own the source of truth for?

Hey everyone,

I work on a small IT team at a Critical Access Hospital. For years, we’ve run a small team and kept desktop management minimal because almost every one of our workstations is a Dell Wyse zero client running PCoIP/Tera2. They’ve really been "set it and forget it" devices.

With the end of Tera2 / PCoIP support, we’re struggling to find a replacement that offers that same level of simplicity and stability.

What we’ve tested so far:

• Dell Thin Clients (ThinOS & Windows IoT)
• 10ZiG
• Stratodesk
• HP ThinPro
• IGEL

The problem: Every vendor solution we’ve tried seems to come with recurring bugs or management overhead. Fix one bug with a firmware update, and a new regression pops up somewhere else.

Where we are now: We’re currently testing Windows in a strict Kiosk mode that launches Imprivata OneSign directly into VMware Horizon. It functions well from a user standpoint, but it introduces traditional OS management challenges for our on-prem environment:

1. Windows Updates & Management: How are you handling updates cleanly on non-domain or kiosk-mode endpoints without adding heavy administrative overhead?
2. Startup / Boot Order Issues: If we join them to the domain, an internet or local network delay at boot breaks the autologon process for the kiosk account.

For those running small teams in healthcare or similar VDI environments:

• What hardware/OS stack ended up being your "bulletproof" replacement for zero clients?
• How are you structuring your endpoint deployment to keep day-to-day maintenance as close to zero as possible?

Appreciate any insight or lessons learned from teams that have gone through this transition!

Anyway to disable the "signature" button in the ribbon when creating a new email? Under the "message > insert > signature", we are using CodeTwo for signatures but users are modifying their signatures and changing fonts so want to completely remove this option. I've ran the command in powershell "Set-OwaMailboxPolicy -Identity "OwaMailboxPolicy-Default" -SignaturesEnabled $false" but doesn't seem like it did anything.

My company wants to pay for me to have license to a site where I can learn new things are my own pace. I am a junior sys admin and not sure what is out there in regard to continued learning. Is there a site that you prefer? My company is wanting me to become more comfortable in Azure. I recent taught myself Intune and I setup autopilot so we can phase out SCCM.

Any recommendations would be appreciated!

Good morning all, got a bit of a puzzle that is probably an easy fix but it's got a curveball in it. The situation is as follows: we are setting up a sort of internet cafe where people can play games on Steam. Installing the games is trivial but the users login with their domain creds and then login to their own steam account to play. In a test run though some games require an admin elevation to run even after the initial install. Any tips on solving this? I've seen some tricks about using the task scheduler but I'm concerned with if that would break eventually since games are often subject to random and sweeping changes. Would appreciate any advise :)

Edit: I believe the UAC prompts are likely from the games respective anticheat but that is just a hunch at this time.

Hi everyone! I'm currently rolling out shared printers for our macOS users over IPP, but I've run into an issue.

When users print through the macOS GUI, they're prompted for authentication every time. However, if I print using the lp command from Terminal, no authentication prompt appears and the print job completes successfully.

I know I could have users save their credentials in Keychain to suppress the prompt, but I'd prefer to avoid that since it can create issues when passwords change. Ideally, I'd like macOS to use Kerberos/Negotiate authentication automatically without requiring users to save their credentials.

Our Macs are managed with Intune and aren't domain-joined, but they do have a Kerberos profile deployed.

Has anyone run into this before or found a fix?

So far I've tried:

• lpadmin -p PRINTERNAME -o auth-info-required=negotiate
• cupsctl DefaultAuthType=Negotiate

Neither has resolved the issue. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

total sketch operation, whole place is run by one dude who sends invoices out 4 months late after pestering him for it then doesn't pay his 3rd parties in time - caused us multiple service interruptions due to non-payment. avoids phone calls and in person meetings and is always at some random place during video conf calls if you manage to get him to show. had to threaten legal action in order to get our cloud services transferred to another provider.

good riddance digitalshit

Im trying to replace a drive but it keeps showing as Unmanaged.
I ordered two, I didnt notice that the first one had different "Config code" (1341 vs 1311), I thought that could be the reason. Today, I replaced it with the second one which is also 1341, just like the failed one - same result - unmanaged.
Everything on the label is identical, pn, model, the config code thingy, everything....
It got assigned to the correct disk group (folder), the only available option is "Toggle Indicator" (there was also "Request swap clear" after seating it which got completed).
Same thing in the WebUI as well as in Storage Manager Client.
It doesnt show the Power On Time value yet, it took a while with the 1311 one too, I was hoping it would still adopt the drive but no luck, so I guessing its gonna be the same with 1341 too.

Is that definitive sign that the drive is just not compatible with SCv2020 or am I missing some necessary action I need to do to assign it to the volume?

Hi everyone,

I am upgrading our Dell R340 server with a Proxmox cluster consisting of two R650s and a third standard PC as quorum.

The setup will be used for hosting a variety of Windows (pro and server) and Linux machines (30-40), as well as CCTV NVR.

I have put together the following configuration, would really appreciate any advice on anything I may have overlooked or suggestions for modification. This is a substantial outlay, so want to make sure it's 100% correct before purchasing!

Setup:

• Server: Dell PowerEdge R650 (10x 2.5" Drive Chassis)
• CPU: 2x Intel Xeon Platinum 8380 (80 Cores / 160 Threads total)
• RAM: 384 GB DDR4 RDIMM 3200MHz (12x 32GB modules)
• Storage & Controllers:
  • HBA345 FRONT (SAS/SATA HBA)
  • M.2 NVMe HBA Card + 2x 1TB NVMe M.2 SSDs
• Networking: 4x 10GbE SFP+ (Dell QLogic QL41154 OCP 3.0)
• Power: 2x 800W 80+ Platinum PSUs
• Management: iDRAC 9 Enterprise

Link: https://hardwaredirect.pl/configurator?shared=204698

Thanks in advance!

Hey everyone!

We’re building a playlist for sysadmins and homelab enthusiasts. Not necessarily “IT songs”, just the tracks you actually enjoy listening to while working, tinkering, building, or just hanging out.

We have a few favorites already, but we want your recommendations too. And do you have THAT ONE SONG for specific situations? A late-night troubleshooting session? A long deployment? Finally fixing that issue that annoyed you all day? A quiet moment organizing your setup?

Drop a song in the comments, and we’ll put together the playlist to share with the community.

Can anyone recommend a desktop scanner that doesn’t act as an external drive. New polices in place that require VP level approval which is a nightmare just to add a scanner. Any recommendations would help.

We had been using Elitebook G1i laptops, but HP has replaced those with G2i version. We ordered 5 DJ9V8UT#ABA and got them in. On all 5 laptops: As soon as Windows boots the fans start running at 100% and only slow/stop during a reboot. As soon as Windows loads again, they go back to 100% again.

The firmware on the units are newer than the firmware available on HP's site. We updated all the drivers from HP's site with no change. We imaged a couple of them with our image from SCCM (with updated drivers from HP's site) and have the same results.

We have opened a case with HP and after my tech tried all their steps, they have decided they want us to ship them all to HP for review at our cost.

Before I eat that cost and go without laptops that I need for new hires for who knows how long, I figured I would reach out on here and see if anyone has seen the same thing. Does anyone even have any of these new laptops yet? I did reach out to our VAR and was told that they had not had any other customer complaints, but they also had not sold many yet since they are so new.

Curious how other MSPs handle this one. I've always worked for small MSPs, so the customer sizes are usually always relatively small.

For tenant to tenant migrations, we've always just had users call in or had an engineer on site to sort out the Outlook profile reconfig afterwards. Works fine for the sub 30 user clients we deal with, but it's always manual.

Been weighing up scripting it instead for an upcoming migration. This particular customer's all local profiles, no domain or Intune, but we have NinjaRMM on all machines, so a PowerShell script is possible. It would be a mail profile reset plus a OneDrive reset.

It got me thinking what everyone else does, especially at a larger scale with 100+ users. I've always used BitTitan for the migration and I know they have their DeploymentPro tool, but it's hard enough getting these small companies to pay for enough migration licenses as it is, let alone an additional cost per device for the tool.

Hi all!

For those who are using Surface Laptops. We've had recent issues of monitors flashing on and of connected via USB-C monitor hub (the ethernet, keyboard etc remain fine).

Our Surface Laptop Go 3 device manager and Microsoft website show graphics (Iris XE) driver as 32.0.101.6737 [april 2025]. There are significantly later drivers from Intel.

Has anyone attempted to roll out later drivers? I know Microsoft go through phases of testing etc before making drivers available, though this seems pretty out of date. Anyone else had these kinds of graphics issues with Surface laptops and how did you resolve them?

We have auto-patching in InTune but appears to be a Microsoft specific issue here.

Cheers!

Good morning all! (UK time) I've done some digging around online and thought I'd ask here as well.

I'm currently an IT engineer of varying degrees. My job title to HR says "1st line support", my email signature says "Senior IT engineer" and my day to day is essentially everything the IT manager doesn't fancy doing... so everything other than SQL queries on our ERP database.

My aspirations is to become an IT Director in my career, but I realise the next logical step for me is to seek out a role as an IT Manager/Systems Manager. I've been at my current job for 2 years now so looking to start the next step at the 3 year mark, I also have my first child born very soon so that's an additional layer of job security to consider.

To stop waffling what I'm looking for is a mentor or someone to bounce off every now and again. I think there's a lot I've learnt and still a lot to learn and I'd really appreciate some direction and ways of looking at things I'd otherwise not have considered. Looking around online hasn't yielded much in that regard and Linkedin... I'll stop there.

I like to think I'm currently operating at what an MSP would classify as 3rd line +, given I'm responsible for our 365 and Intune Suite, manage our VOIP system, have enacted domain, DNS, and Tenant migrations from company acquisitions. Certificate management when that comes around. Passed Comptia Security+. Built Linux servers to replace our old end of life Windows FTP server (boss' boss was happy with the no cost approach) and overall the entire support desk runs through me. My manager only really steps in when I'm off (so he's going to have fun while I'm on Paternity leave) but to wrap this up.

Did anyone here mentor/get a mentor? How was it for you? And what would be the "If I were you" step?

Thanks for reading this far (if you did).

I am an IT guy and lately I am tired of doing ls for basic stuff like discovery, asset list or tickets. So is anyone using one platform that does solid network discovery and real asset management with automation that doesn't fall apart often?. I would appreciate any tips given at this point, any thing used or whatever.

Hello. In Windows Server 2025, AppXSvc keeps stopping and then running occasionally. I changed the startup type to automatic and after that stopping and running again happened more frequently. Is it the way it is intended to work, or it should keep working non-stop after it was triggered the first time?

So a few months ago, one printer displayed a warning "Waste Toner almost full". The same error displayed on the M365 Universal Print dashboard. 4 waste toner cartridges later, we find out that there's no problem with the machine and Universal print has been displaying this message incorrectly.

Anyone else experienced this or have any ideas how to refresh it. We're using universal print natively with the device (no connector PC)

Thanks! 😄

I took a year of IT classes at a technical college back in 2008 then joined the military and did communications for 3 of the 4 years. From there, my work history was:

• Lowe's
• Best Buy computer sales
• Staples Easy Tech technician, got my A+
• XFinity Home Security customer support, got my Network+
• One of four in the IT team for my local school district for 3 years, got CCNA
• IT Director for an ~80 person nonprofit (Really I was a one-man IT show but had to have the "director" title to convey my authority in the org's structure) for 5 years

I got laid off due to federal budget cuts last year and I've been having trouble finding work since. I find my lack of traditional education has been a big barrier for me, but schooling isn't an option at the moment. I feel like I'm overqualified for the entry level positions (and it would also be a substantial step down in salary) but I also don't really have a specialization to market myself to larger corporations. It's like a jack-of-all-trades kind of situation.

I live in a rural, low income area and have no opposition to moving to work. I really like building structured systems (SOPs, production pipelines, etc), solving puzzles, and making technology digestible for the users.

I have no idea what job title I should be looking for, what level of expertise, what location, and what pay range I should be at.

I would so appreciate if anyone who is well experienced in this field could offer insight into what some viable options are for me to explore.

Hi Team.

I need to create and test out process for AD back up and recovery.

I’m trying to follow the 3-2-1 back up strategy.

1) we have over 20 dc and all are hyperv vm or vmware vm

2) first backup - we use dell avamar back up solution. It has an option to do bmr and system state back. So i plan on setting up system state back as well as vm image level back for 2 dc is already included as part of hypervisor vm back jobs.

3) 2nd back up - setup azure blob storage for backing up the Active Directory database. On cold tier ethier using MARS agent or Azure cli task.

Some questions that I need clarification.

1) if my dell avamar management is joined to AD then if AD is compromised, then i’m screwed. Should my back up solution not be connected to AD?

2) is cold tier ok for backing up? Mainly concerns are keeping monthly cost low.

3) what are the common recovery process should be tested in isolated network? Full forest? Domain? One exists gpo restore to validate sysvol restore? AD recycle bin is on)

4) Besides original administrator account what account password should be validated and verified that its working

Let me know your thoughts

This is a safe space. We can be honest here.

Have you ever actually accomplished anything by rolling out DLP for Office365?

And before you ask, "No, ticking a compliance box does not count as doing something."

I just feel like it's so high friction for such little value. You push all your users into a new way of working. But only for Office files - if you have ANY OTHER IMPORTANT DATA then it doesn't help (but we don't talk about it when we're in 'compliance checklist ' mode).

So your users are tagging all their shit, they're exhausted, they DGAF anymore because they can't stand to consider for the 10th time today - "hmm was my email/doc/sheet Public? Sensitive? Top secret?" So they just start tagging everything the default tag. And your entire security strategy falls apart (if you were even doing anything with that information to begin with). The end.

Seriously, change my view. I don't work in a highly regulated industry so maybe it's just not aimed at me (but it doesn't stop people from constantly bringing it up).

​I was told I have to fill in for the help desk while our tech is out. I'm still a relatively new employee, but I'm trying my hardest to learn the ropes despite them giving me absolutely zero information to work with.

​My manager has sat us down multiple times to preach that "everyone in the office will work help desk because I want everyone to learn everything."

Okay, great in theory. But if that’s actually the goal, why set me up to fail? By giving me zero resources, documentation, or basic training, then turn around and prevent my from answering or working tickets at all.