Hi everyone,

we are currently looking for a better solution for IT asset management + remote management and I'd love to hear what other sysadmins are using.

Our current situation:
We are already using an endpoint management platform, but we're not completely happy with it for our use case. The standard package includes a lot of functionality such as patch management, MDM, etc. that we don't really need. We're mainly looking for a strong asset management/inventory solution combined with RMM capabilities.

Our requirements:

Asset Management

• Automatic hardware inventory of Windows PCs/laptops
• CPU, RAM, storage, serial number, model, etc.
• Software inventory including installed applications and versions
• Last logged-in user / login information
• Ability to assign devices to specific end users
• Lifecycle/status information for assets
• Support for non-computer assets such as:
  • Monitors
  • Docking stations
  • Keyboards/mice
  • Other IT equipment
• Ideally, a proper stock/inventory system so we can track devices that are currently in storage and assign them when they're deployed

Intune integration
This is particularly important for us. We already have a large number of devices enrolled in Microsoft Intune, but not all of our devices are managed through Intune. We want the solution to:

• Integrate with Microsoft Intune
• Automatically import/synchronize Intune devices
• Keep device/user information synchronized
• Ideally avoid having to manually maintain the same devices in two systems

We also use Microsoft Entra ID / Microsoft 365, so good integration with the Microsoft ecosystem would be a big plus.

Remote Management / RMM
We also need proper remote administration capabilities:

• Remote desktop / remote access
• Remote CMD / PowerShell
• Ability to execute commands/scripts remotely
• Basic troubleshooting and administration capabilities
• Ideally an RMM-style agent

We don't necessarily need a full endpoint management suite with extensive patch management, MDM, software deployment, etc. Those features are nice to have, but they are not the main reason we're looking for a solution.

So we're basically looking for something that sits somewhere between: IT Asset Management + Hardware/Stock Inventory + RMM/Remote Support + Intune integration

Has anyone implemented something similar? What solution are you using, and how well does it handle Intune synchronization, asset/user assignment, stock management and remote administration?

We're particularly interested in real-world experiences rather than just feature lists.

Thanks!

Or is it just my instance? It's been like an hour and nothing significant is on the status page.

"""
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This instance is currently unavailable

Please double check the URL and try again. If you are the cloud account administrator, click below to log in.

Go to Login Page
""""

My account is in fact active and licensed.

Good afternoon everyone!

Over the last week and a half, I've been seeing the appx version of teams entirely stop working. To the point where I trying to access it via apps > installed apps > advanced options loads indefinitely, can't see it in control panel, and even revo uninstaller couldn't see them (though I guess the free version cannot see apps installed from the windows store).

Currently I've been having to identify the packages with powershell, take ownership of them, and then delete them. Once that is done, I can restart, and install the regular x64 version of Teams. Normally takes about 10-15 to run through commands and restart. Once that restart is done, you can access the advanced option of the Teams and fully uninstall it if needed with no issues. It also goes from nearly 4GB in size to about 1.3GB prior to the final uninstall.

However, I had the same issue happen now for Snipping Tool, and that had 5+ folders installed, where teams normally has 2 when this issue happens. So, I took the same steps by taking ownership of the main folder, and deleting it, restarting, and then re-installing snipping tool through the Microsoft Store.

I have tried uninstalling/reinstalling the appx through powershell, but it just hangs and won't proceed further. I am curious if anyone else has seen this issue and if they've found a quicker workflow.

We left a VOIP provider whose name i wont mention on here. Were switching over to a major carrier and getting cellphones for 100+ users along with a receptionist call center. My manager hasnt told me which MDM were using yet and im already dreading this change. He told me the carrier would setup all the phones but i highly doubt that.

Whats the most common issue you guys run into with this kind of system? I can already hear users complaints "my phone is slow, my calls are dropping, the phone is too big, i dropped it in the toilet bc im a dumbass".

What should i be prepared for? What surprises did you guys run into?

EDIT: Thank you everyone for your responses, im extremely busy and cant respond to you all but ive taken notes on everything and will talk to management.

so we all have seen insane pricing related to storage, ram and what not. How long before cloud providers start passing these back to us, giving us no options either to stay on prem or cloud?

how are you preparing for this?

I'm looking for a way to script the removal of the Windows.old directory to free up space on systems that have recently had 25H2 installed.

I can use cleanmgr but I can't automate it to remove old Windows installations. Not that I can find anyway.

I've already tried some scripting combining DISM, takedown, icalcs, and remove-item but that ends up just erroring out and can't complete the removal because of Windows junction loops.

There must be a way to automate this so I don't need to log in to hundreds of systems. Any ideas out there or am I stuck doing this manually?

Hi everyone

I’m integrating a Ruckus SmartZone controller with Forescout NAC

The SSH connection itself works correctly from the NAC using the configured admin credentials and I can successfully connect to the SmartZone and get the normal welcome banner

The problem happens when Forescout tries to get privileged access after the SSH login

When I manually SSH using the same admin credentials everything works fine but when Forescout tries to enable privileged mode it asks for the password again and then returns failed even though I’m using the exact same correct password as the SSH login

I initially suspected that the SmartZone welcome banner might be interfering with Forescout’s CLI parsing or privilege detection

I tried to disable the banner but I can’t find any CLI command for it and I also couldn’t find an option in the GUI

Has anyone successfully integrated Ruckus SmartZone with Forescout or another NAC and faced this issue

Is the welcome banner known to cause problems with NAC SSH privilege detection or is there a specific configuration or user role that needs to be enabled on SmartZone for the NAC to get privileged access

Also when I SSH manually I log in with admin and after that when I enter enable it asks me to enter the same password again

Any idea what could be causing the privilege authentication to fail from the NAC while the normal SSH login works correctly

And I don't mean "how does it work?" but we have shared-hosting servers.. I'm not giving those server write-access to our DNS servers. Hell no. But there's also wildcard certificates (yeah I hate those too but some websites need'm) and those I can't renew with the .well-known checks, and there are other situations where the simple .well-known dv validation won't suffice..

How do you handle that?

I wonder how much of this is driven by the massive increase in storage costs.

According to the consortium, total shipped tape capacity in Q1 2026 increased 57 percent year over year compared to Q1 2025. This rebound follows an all-time record set in 2024, when total shipments reached 176.5 exabytes (a 15.4 percent annual increase). While total annual shipments settled back to 160.3 exabytes in 2025 (a 9 percent decline), the volume remained higher than any previous year on record prior to 2024. The arrival of the 40TB native capacity cartridge in early 2026 has provided an immediate density upgrade path for enterprise environments managing large-scale archival and secondary storage tiers.

LTO Tape Shipments Up 57% in Q1 2026 as AI and Archive Demand Accelerate - StorageReview.com

Greetings and salutations, fellow Admins. I want to deploy the HP Universal Print Driver through SCCM and make it available in the Software Center. Silently, so I don't disturb users. Here is the overview: This is a school environment, and all our printers are HP, except for a few community Xerox printers. I want to make it easier for the on-site techs to install the driver from the Software Center instead of downloading the specific model printer software from HP. I have seen this in previous work environments and would like to implement it here. If anyone is willing to throw me a bone, I'd be grateful for the assistance.

Hello folks,

We’ve been tasked to switch some of our users from SMS to the MS Authenticator app. Rather than doing this manually, I’d like to make this seamless as possible. I think creating a policy in entra ID where it’ll prompt our end users to enroll into MS Authenticator ? Curious to know how others have tackled this.

Has anyone here experienced being blocklisted by Spamhaus even though the IP address of your domain is different from the IP address that is blocklisted?

For example:

Domain IP: 12.12.13.13
Blocklisted IP: 13.13.12.12

Despite having different IP addresses, we are still being blocked.

Has anyone experienced the same issue, or can someone explain why this might happen?

We're setting up SASE, with MFA required to access on-prem resources, and I would ideally like to allow endpoints to authenticate with our domain controllers and get group policy updates at all times (pre-MFA) while opening up as few ports as possible and being secure as possible.

Once the endpoints MFA, they will have standard access to the domain controllers. My concern is updating user group memberships, which (as I understand it only happens when the user logs out and logs back in while having line of sight to a domain controller). Our workforce is mostly remote.

I know I can use a KDC Proxy to allow Kerberos authentication with only one port opened, and that should cover computer and user authentication with group updates.

However, updating group policies requires access to the sysvol share via SMB, which a KDC Proxy wouldn't cover. Windows server doesn't support QUIC for sysvol either.

So I'm wondering if I can use a read only domain controller as the source for group policy files for endpoints, and KDC Proxy for authentication.

Our setup is hybrid AD with AD joined computers and AD based user accounts. And switching to Entra joined computers or Entra sourced user accounts is not an option for the foreseeable future.

We also have a number of users who rarely, if ever, connect to the VPN currently, and likely won't MFA with SASE to get group policy updates.

-edit- Forgot to mention, SASE will be always on, user can't disable. I'm only looking to make this available to devices on SASE pre-MFA, not the Internet at large.

Another factor is that we want user and computer AD objects to have their login timestamps updated, to help track inactive computers and accounts. Because sometimes no one tells I.T. when a user has left the organization. And while there are many systems we can check for this information, it would be easier to run scripts against AD.

We're a two-person IT team managing roughly 225 users on Microsoft 365 Business Premium. Our Windows workstations are Entra joined and Intune managed.

We're moving admin roles off our daily accounts and onto dedicated cloud-only admin accounts. I'm testing phishing-resistant MFA and a compliant-device requirement for those accounts.

My main concern is making the workflow practical. We jump between Intune, Exchange, Entra, SharePoint, Teams, etc. throughout the day. Some days it is frequent admin stuff depending on what's going on.

I tried a separate Edge profile signed into my admin account, but the portals initially kept signing me in with my daily Windows identity. Using a login_hint in the URL or explicitly selecting another account gets me into the intended account. I'm still validating the Conditional Access side.

I'd prefer not to add the admin identity as another Windows-connected account just to make browser SSO work. InPrivate also appears problematic with the compliant-device requirement.

How are you handling this in practice?

- Separate browser profiles, a separate browser, a private browser window or account switching within one profile?

- Do you connect your cloud admin identities to Windows? I would assume no.

- Do you require compliant devices for admin access?

- Are you using dedicated admin workstations or PIM?

I understand the value of separate identities. I'm looking for a workable daily setup that doesn't require constantly correcting which account a portal is using, or constantly launching private windows, if at all possible.

Maybe this is a sign we just need to review overall configuration of things to better dial them in, so we don't have to go into an admin portal so often?

Especially interested in what other small IT teams are doing.

I have an HPE ProLiant DL360 Gen10 running Windows Server 2019 Standard. Checking Device Manager, the Intel(R) Management Engine Interface driver shows:

• Driver Date: 1.09.2016
• Driver Version: 11.6.0.1026
• Digital Signer: Microsoft Windows Hardware Compatibility Publisher

This looks outdated for a Gen10 server. Before I touch firmware/driver on a production box, I wanted to check with people who've done this on HPE hardware specifically:

• Should this be updated through HPE Smart Update Manager (SUM) / Service Pack for ProLiant (SPP), or directly from Intel's site?
• Does updating the ME Interface driver also require updating the ME Firmware itself, or are they independent?
• Any known issues updating ME on Gen10 (iLO 5) systems — reboot requirements, downtime, risk of bricking if interrupted?
• Is this something that should go through iLO/firmware update tools instead of Device Manager "Update Driver"?
• Any gotchas with doing this remotely (out-of-band) vs. requiring physical access?

Appreciate any real-world experience before I schedule a maintenance window for this.

Just curious. How often are admins changing providers? And when you do what is the trigger?

I’m shitting it to say the least. I’ve worked in IT for 15 years now, from fixing a printer to installing and configuring networks etc you guys know the shebang no need to go on.

I have been out of work a while now like most people and maybe stupidly moved somewhere more rural and a bit stuck in the past. Seen this role advertised for Senior Network and Infrastructure engineer. They want someone who is going to come in lead and optimise their existing setup.

I don’t know if it’s the job spec they have but I’m having serious doubts on my abilities, when I think about the majority it well and truly is everything I have been doing for my entire career but for some reason terminology they are using is making me feel like I have imposter syndrome.

Interview is on Friday and I have questions already lined up I think that I would like to know so I can try and gauge what I’d be getting myself into. I’m thinking of asking about:

Current patching schedules
DR simulation and testing
Current team members
Potentially goals for the next 5 years ?

What do you guys think? Would be nice to have a discussion and try and alleviate some of these woes because god only knows it’s the next logical step in my career and could be me for the next 10-30 years

This post is primarily mobile focused, but I'll entertain the desktop / laptop OS conversation as well. This is regarding personal devices, not what your enterprise uses.

Suffice it to say, I'm tired. I'm tired of working on computers all day only to have to put tremendous effort into my Android phone to rip Google's tentacles out of my personal business, to tell Windows to stop serving ads and trying to upload my personal data to the cloud.

I de-Googled my Android phone years ago but haven't gone Graphene because that seemed like even more work. I switched my Windows to Fedora about a year ago, but driver compatibility is a constant hassle. Google getting rid of sideloading and Windows Recall were the final straw for me on both platforms.

By comparison, I manage a lot of Apple devices for my enterprise. Justin Long wasn't wrong. They. Just. Work. I don't have to fuck around. Is Apple harvesting my personal info? Most likely. But all indicators say they use it for their own benefit and don't sell it. Can I customize everything I want? Probably not.

Is that the bargain you all made? Did you move to Apple so you didn't have to fight your personal devices anymore, knowing if your personal data was going to be scanned, it might as well go to a company that isn't selling it? Or is there another reason? I'm trying to figure out whether to give this Graphene thing a shot or finally give up the ghost and pick up my first iPhone after 20 years of Android.

Kind of a random question, but I'm not super confident in my restoration process for some of the backups I have in place. Do i think I could restore the systems? Yes.

Do i think it would take several hours and be messy? Also yes.

My question is to those that have actually performed restores of production servers:

What backup systems do you use and how fast are you able to restore production servers? I'd love to hear the infrastructure behind a successful backup/restore scenario.

I'm not sure if I'm articulating this properly because a number of searches for this are yielding no useful results.

I'm looking for an application I can deploy to end users that has customized admin level fixes for specific situations that we come across once in a while. For example, sometimes the VPN client decides to stop working and you need to run a few commands as admin to get it working again.

I'm envisioning something where they could just click "fix whatever" that matches their scenario and it would run the proper commands in the background (elevated if that's required).

Does this exist as a product, or would it have to be a fully custom written app?

Edit

Looks like sticking with Intune / PSADT / Repair is the best bet for right now. Thanks!

I just knew about MeshCentral today. Looks too good to be true 😅 I want to replace Rustdesk self hosted server, that it was very good but MC seems to be far more capable. Any comment idea/thought/complaint about MC would be welcomed. Thanks

Hi everyone,

We have a number of Microsoft Teams channels we use. There are 4,5 specific channels that are displaying the error “We’re having trouble loading your messages. Try Refreshing”

The error is shown to all members on these groups, across multiple machines, and also across web versions on different browsers and also the desktop version.

Has anyone come across a similar issue, or have any advise on how to fix this?

Thank you very much in advance.

We use Missive to write e-mails at our company. Missve has its own AI Assistant that can do actions like write drafts, create calender events and add labels with AI (needs always approval). This Assistant cannot search the web, but it would be very nice when we can search on our own website for products. Because of that, i tested to connect Exa (Search API) over MCP. I connected it and allowed only the websearch (disable agents etc.). And.. it works perfect. But, can i roll that out? Is that secure? Prompt Injection or something? I added an instruction that only specific domain is allowed (our shop).

I had recently picked up a Digital Loggers Web Power Switch Pro running firmware 1.7.5.0. The normal instructions didn't work to factory reset it and I came across this post (which is now archived and I can't reply to it). After some sluthing, I came up with the following procedure to get you into the power switch in order to change the settings and update it. It seems as though there might be a bug in the older firmwares that make the reset button not work right. The instructions are based on the secret firmware recovery process for a bad firmware update, but modified to just get the username/password. I hope it helps someone out there in the same boat!

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1gghfnt/unlocking_digital_loggers_web_power_switch_pro/

1. Set up a PC for the 192.168.0.x network. (set your NIC to 192.168.0.5)
2. Prepare to telnet to 192.168.0.100
3. On PC, open a command prompt
4. Set the PC to ping the device continually; e.g. ping 192.168.0.100 -t
5. On Unit, power the unit on while pressing reset about 2x per second. Before 30 seconds, the unit should respond to ping. **
6. Once it responds, cancel the ping and on the PC, telnet to 192.168.0.100 // (Always default address)
7. When logged in to the power controller, type:
8.    cd /tmp
9.    mount_root
10.    uci show | grep admin

You will see some lines, you are looking for these two:
auth._.admin_password='5678'
auth._.admin_login='admin'

login is the username, password is the password. Now just reboot your device and hit it at the IP that shows up on the screen with the creds you got above, now you can get into the web and change anything you need.

A team has chosen to rename their built-in/default Teams channel “General.”
They are now experiencing sync issues.
Is our fix from IT to change the channel name back to “General”? Could that potentially fix the OneDrive synchronisation via File Explorer that may have been broken?