For Fluk3 Sake

NTLM still appears inside many Active Directory environments. Even when Kerberos handles normal authentication, NTLM often surfaces through legacy applications, services, or fallback behavior. Before blocking anything, visibility matters. The safest place to monitor NTLM usage is the domain controller. Every NTLM authentication ends there. Auditing on domain controllers provides full coverage…

NTLM stands for NT LAN Manager. Windows uses this protocol for authentication when Kerberos fails or legacy systems exist. Modern Active Directory relies on Kerberos for normal domain logon and access. NTLM remains mainly for backward compatibility. NTLM exists in multiple versions. Version 1 relies on weak cryptography and outdated hashing. Version 2 improves security but still lacks modern…

Have you ever opened File Explorer only to notice that all of your Word, Excel, or PowerPoint files just show a blank white page icon instead of the familiar Office icons? Don’t worry—you’re not alone. This is a common problem caused by broken file associations, corrupted icon cache, or missing registry entries in Windows. The good news: you can fix it. Here’s a step-by-step guide. Why Does…

This guide details how to: Create a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) using IIS 10 Submit the CSR to NameCheap and complete DNS validation Install the issued certificate Export a .pfx file for application use 🧰 Prerequisites Windows Server with IIS 10 Domain access to manage DNS (e.g., Afrihost) NameCheap account with an SSL Certificate Administrative rights on the server ✅ Step 1:…

Managing calendar permissions in Office 365 is crucial for maintaining security and ensuring that sensitive scheduling information is only accessible by authorized personnel. This guide will walk you through checking, adding, and removing calendar permissions for a single user and in bulk. Additionally, we will cover how to export results to a CSV file for auditing purposes. 1. Checking Calendar…

Displaying custom security messages on the logon screen is a valuable feature for system administrators. It allows organizations to provide users with important legal notices, security policies, or other critical information they must acknowledge before accessing the system. This guide will show you how to configure these messages using Group Policy. Supported Platforms Windows 10 Windows…

Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) plays a critical role in managing identities and access in modern IT environments. As an administrator, you may often need to export a list of security groups and their members for reporting or auditing purposes. This explains how to use a PowerShell script to accomplish this efficiently. What Does the Script Do? This PowerShell script performs the following…

Excel’s LET function is a powerful tool for improving formula readability and performance by allowing you to assign names to calculations or expressions. We will explore the LET function, step-by-step, and explain how it works with a practical example. What is the LET Function? The LET function simplifies complex formulas by enabling you to: Define and reuse variables within a…

Excel Pivot Tables are powerful tools for summarizing data. However, counting unique values directly in PivotTables can be tricky without a little help. This guide simplifies the process using a helper column so that even users with moderate Excel skills can confidently manage their data. Why Use a Helper Column in PivotTables? A helper column helps us count unique values accurately within a…

In the vast landscape of Windows operating systems, mastering the Command Line can be a game-changer for users seeking efficiency and precision in system management. One powerful aspect of the Command Line is its ability to access various Control Panel applets seamlessly. In this article, we’ll delve into a comprehensive guide on Control Panel commands, providing users with a handy reference for…

MS Word: Edit PDF

Microsoft has brought in the ability to Edit a PDF directly from Word. Select the File Menu then select Open Word tells you that it’s going to make a copy of the PDF and convert its contents into a format that Word can display. The original PDF won’t be changed at all. Select OK. Depending on the size and the speed of your workstation this process can take some time. Be Patient. After your…

MS Word: Create a Document

When opening MS Word it opens in the Back Stage View, This view has three primary menus at the top Right. Home – Uses a combination of the most useful commands from the other Menus New – Different options to create a New Document Open – Selection of available locations from where documents can be opened. Blank Document A Blank document is an empty sheet that you can start from Scratch. On…

MS Word: Toolbars and Ribbon

The ribbon is a set of toolbars at the top of the window in Office programs designed to bring the most popular commands to the front to help you quickly complete a task.The Ribbon consists of three Basic parts: Tabs, Groups, and Commands Tabs The tabs open a ribbon with specific activities that can be used. The Home tab activities are the most commonly used among the other Tabs on the Menu…

Operation Could Not Be Completed Error 0x00000bc4 No Printers Were Found

When trying to connect an end-user workstation to a Shared Printer on a Windows Server you get the error “Operation Could Not Be Completed Error 0x00000bc4 No Printers Were Found“. This issue can be because by many different reasons. To Resolve the issue you can attempt the following: Restart the Printer Spooler on the Workstation and the Server Open Command Prompt in Admin Mode on both the…

Find Character in String from Right in Excel

Working with some log files based on a Flat file, we use Excel to get the data in a structured way to be able to use against other datasets. Getting data from these Text-based logs does sometimes need some creativity. This is the case when trying to get an unknown amount of characters after the last instance of a specific character. To understand how to get to this, let’s work through three…

Learn Excel: What is Excel? Excel Layout

Whenever I meet a User that complains about knowledge and learning Excel better, I find that most of the time it is because they are shown the difficult side of Excel. With the difficult part, I mean they see functions within functions and get told these functions are easy. This is true if you used each function separately or even if you understand a few concepts of how Excel works. What is…

ADDS – New AD Error: You must supply a user account name.

While creating a Test Environment to check a few issues I am experiencing on a Previous RODC I set up. The following error kept coming up: “You must supply a user account Name”. Upon doing a bit of research I did not find much except for an article advising to create a new account and adding the user to the Domain Admin Groups. Which is fine and it worked but it did not make sense why I could…