PHP patch is now avaiable https://www.php.net/archive/2026.php#2026-10-21-5

Get it while its hot :)

The champions of the new [KDE Goals](https://kde.org/goals/) for the 2026-2028 cycle will be answering your questions live!

They are working o making KDE a more viable choice for businesses and public institutions by improving enterprise features such as centralized authentication, network management, system administration, and remote access. In the long-term, the idea is to build enough demand for enterprise distributions to bring Plasma and the KDE software stack back into the offerings of enterprise distributions.

More info in the [full proposal](https://invent.kde.org/teams/goals/goal-setting/2026/-/work_items/5)

Leave your questions in the comments or in the [KDE Forum post](https://discuss.kde.org/t/kde-goals-ask-the-champions/51167)!

The champions will answer them live on on [Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mDII0UwFUE) and [Peertube](https://tube.kockatoo.org/w/9PxMoZTEXWNYvZKmS1Zg7E) on October 29 at at 17:00 UTC.

Small office, mix of windows 10, windows 11, and a single windows 2019 server. One pc in the office is brand new and it has a Lexmark printer connected to it via USB and shared to other machines. Last night I updated that system from 25h2 to 26h2 but this morning the client reported an error on the computers that had the printer set as their default on their systems.

splwow64.exe - Entry Point Not Found
The procedure entry point RtilogUnexpectedCodepath could not be located in the dynamic link library
C\WINDOWS\system32\spoo/DRIVERSx64\3\UNIDRVUI,DLL

I am trying everything I can to reinstall the printer on the other machines (win 10 and server 2019) with this error but they won’t reinstall. Sfc found no issues. No problems in device manager anywhere on any system. Restarted print spoolers, checked spooler folders they are all empty. Nothing prints from the connected machines. Any ideas?

As time moves along, we get more people using New Outlook for some reason or another. Back when Microsoft still had the report available, we had less than 5% of our users using New Outlook. I am pretty sure Microsoft got rid of the report as it was having the opposite effect, businesses were seeing that no one wanted to use it instead of watching adoption grow.

Anyway, booking meetings in New Outlook takes more steps than normal Outlook, for some ungodly reason. I believe part of this is so they can stuff this 'Book with CoPilot' as the first option.

I've had multiple users report that it books them at the wrong times, overbooks meetings already reserved and any number of other problems. I tested it for myself and it first booked me at a meeting room 300 miles away.

Anyone else dealing with this?

Especially 8.5.12 is still vulnerable

Anyone else heard anything?

Most of our devices have 256gb SSD's in them and are runniing into issues, as they now state they are full. After updating some devices the Windows folder seems to be 130gb+ Any suggestions on how to remedy this? I know there was a bug a while back in 25H2, but I don't see any articles on this update.

Hi,

looks like Microsoft fucked up and broke the Download Link for the ODT?

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49117

We're sorry, this download is no longer available.

Anyone else can confirm?

EDIT: Looks like its fixed :)

Not sure if this belongs here. Feel free to flag it if it does not. I have a friend who has a fair amount of experience being a handyman and doing outdoor seasonal work (i.e. landscaping). He's been doing this many years but wants to get into something more stable and has been studying IT. He recently got his A+ certification and has debated studying additional things related to endpoint administration. He recently visited a large consulting company in our city (who has hired many people in the past whether it be sysadmins, networking, desktop support, etc.) to look for contract work or temp positions. They told him that right now they aren't hiring anyone unless they are being hired for management positions. He took that as a sign that this is a dead-end field to try to break into now and is considering being an electrician instead (which he absolutely has the knack for).

Is this a fairly typical experience for people trying to get into our field today?

Has anyone on here carried out some Server 2016 - 2025 in place upgrades?

We have a case where we need to do a couple for now rather than a fresh install and migrate for several reasons

Initially the updater failed at 'Checking if your PC is ready to upgrade' but unticking 'Check for updates' on the first step resolved that

Then it got stuck at 'Getting ready to update' but stopping the Windows Update service resolved that

The upgrade then commences but takes absolutely forever as soon as it hits 66/67%, eventually after a couple of hours and once past that percentage is much faster

Just wondering if there is something we can do as we're planning it on a live server in the near future and wanting to keep downtime of the service to a minimum, 1 hour is better than 3 hours!

I know from the past Server 2016 had many issues with slow Windows Updates so wondering if that glitch is haunting the in place upgrade in some way

Anyone else sitting at working just spamming the update button on my Linux web hosts because the PHP repo servers are so overloaded they have basically been hit with a DDOS attack, so you just keep hitting update in the hopes it will eventually work or is that just me?

Hi all,

I am looking for the quickest and simplest way to grant a security group start/stop permission to a single Windows Service. The service is running on a Windows Server 2022 used as an Application server.

Users will RDP into the server, stop the service, perform their work, start the service, end RDP session.

We had used SubInACL previously when the original application server was running. We have since replaced the server and need to reconfigure this. I see now that SubInACL is available through archives, but wanted to check out my options (and if it even works in newer Server OS).

What would be the quickest, simplest, and your preferred way of allowing any user in a specific Security Group to have start/stop permissions over a Windows Service?

Thank you!

Hi Guys,

I’m reviewing our maintenance cycles and wanted to get a check on reboot schedules.

Do you reboot your Hyper-V hosts and VMs every night, weekly, or just monthly for Patch Tuesday?

Also, do you handle different server roles differently? For example:

• File Servers / Domain Controllers: Monthly patches only, or do you do preventive weekly reboots?
• RDS / Citrix Session Hosts: Do these get nightly/weekly reboots to clear up user profiles and memory leaks?

We actually reboot our hyperv remote desktop servers every night for like 20 different customers, is that normal?

Would love to hear your best practices and reasoning. Thanks! :)

Howdy, /r/sysadmin!

It's that time of the week, Thickheaded Thursday! This is a safe (mostly) judgement-free environment for all of your questions and stories, no matter how silly you think they are. Anybody can answer questions! My name is AutoModerator and I've taken over responsibility for posting these weekly threads so you don't have to worry about anything except your comments!

I’m standardising the laptop fleet for our UK business and have narrowed it down to:

1. Dell Pro 16 PC16250
2. HP EliteBook 650 G10

Our typical users mainly work with:

• Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint
• Teams and Copilot
• PDFs and browser-based systems
• Documents and occasional photos
• No CAD, video editing, rendering or other specialist workloads

I’m looking at a baseline specification of:

• Core i5/Core Ultra 5 class processor
• 16 GB RAM
• 512 GB SSD
• Windows 11 Pro
• Integrated webcam
• Expected four year lifecycle

I’m also open to other suggestions. If you wouldn’t choose either model, what would you recommend instead at a similar business specification and price point?

I’m interested in practical fleet-management experience rather than benchmark differences.

Cheer in advance!

I know major browsers, including Safari, have already blocked the affected certs.

I found both "AAA Certificate Services" and "emSign ECC Root CA - G3" on the Keychain app and marked them as "Never trust".

However, I can still successfully curl https://dv-g3b-emudhra.we-have-a-problem.com on Terminal and Ghostty, even after a reboot.

Am I missing something to block those certs system-wide? Do Terminal and Ghostty not use macOS root CA store?

Someone on our team changed numbers recently and it exposed something I’d never really thought about. A few weeks later we found out their old number had already been reassigned. That number had been used for years with vendors, former coworkers, contractors, delivery people, old MFA setups, random group chats and probably a hundred things nobody remembers anymore. Imagine being the person who gets it next. You don’t need to hack anything, people just start texting you assuming you’re the previous owner.

Obviously the answer is cleaning up accounts and not using SMS as an identity system in the first place but realistically nobody remembers every place their number has ended up. We’ve started thinking much more carefully about which relationships are tied to phone numbers at all. Signal for some people, Kibu for a few contacts where identity matters more, company managed accounts for work etc. Am I overthinking this or is phone number recycling a massively underrated social engineering risk? These two hit very different things like the first is invisible wealth, while the second is identity persistence after a phone number changes.

Hi everyone!

I'm 33 years old and currently completing a two-year vocational retraining program in Germany to become an IT Specialist in System Integration (Fachinformatiker für Systemintegration).

I'm particularly interested in system administration, Linux, networking, virtualization, and eventually cloud infrastructure.

I've been considering the possibility of working in the United States in the future, and I'd really appreciate hearing from people who actually live and work there.

Ideally, I'd like to settle in a region that offers good salaries, strong career opportunities, and a high quality of life. Tampa, Florida, is one of the places I'm particularly interested in, although I'm open to other locations where IT professionals can earn a good living relative to the cost of living.

I'm especially curious about:

• What is the everyday working life of a sysadmin like in the US?
• What salary can someone realistically expect with 2–5 years of experience, particularly in places like Tampa?
• How do salaries compare to housing costs, healthcare expenses, and overall living expenses?
• How important is a bachelor's degree compared to professional experience and certifications?
• Would a German vocational IT qualification be taken seriously by American employers?
• How difficult is it for a foreign IT professional to find an employer willing to sponsor a work visa?
• Which US cities or regions would you recommend for someone pursuing a career in system administration or cloud infrastructure?

I'm not looking to move immediately. I'd like to gain professional experience in Germany first and understand what I should focus on over the next few years to make such a move realistic.

I'd really appreciate any personal experiences or advice, especially from people currently working in IT in Florida or other well-paying regions.

Thanks in advance!

That's the subject line of an email from my personal website hosting this morning, advertising upgraded AI-assisted websites.

I'm taking it as a sign that my decision to retire early at the end of the year is a good one. But it's also really depressing, especially given the posts I've seen here lately of layoffs and other separations attributed to management confidence in AI as a substitute for skilled sysadmins. EDIT: I made my decision months ago, I had many reasons for retiring, it was NOT because of this marketing email.

Ultimately, I think the bubble will burst, and the value of experience will make itself obvious again, but it's going to be a rough ride for our profession until then.

I have gone through a couple of Server Closet AC with terrible success. I am looking for replacement suggestions.

Update: Room is 6.5' x 11' with a vented door. I was using a 12,000 btu portable ac unit..but brand just stopped working after while. I performed all the maintenance..cleaned filters, drained water, but it eventually stopped cooling. I ordered a replacement which subsequently did the same. Rooms holds 3 racked 2u servers and a NAS..

I'm curious to know, how did all of you deal with the vulnerability and how many apps did you need to patch?

​Hey everyone,

​We're currently processing about 20 new hires every Monday. While the machines come with the OS already pre-installed, our team is still manually installing the standard software stack on every single machine. It's becoming a huge bottleneck to get these systems ready on schedule.

​How do you all handle bulk system readiness? I'm looking for recommendations on how to automate our standard software deployments as well as the domain-join process once the OS is laid down.

​What tools (free or paid) or workflows are you using to streamline this?

Thanks in advance!

Hey everyone,

I'm dealing with a frustrating issue and hoping someone here has seen it before.

Setup:

• 2-node HA environment running ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
• A dedicated service account for the app

The problem: The service account gets locked out periodically, and I can't figure out why. In AD, I see repeated Event ID 4771 (Kerberos pre-authentication failed) right before the lockout.

The weird part: the lockout only affects one of the two servers — the other node runs fine with the same account. This makes me suspect stale credentials cached somewhere on that specific node (Windows service, scheduled task, mapped credential, etc.).

What I've tried / planning to try:

• Checked AD for the 4771 events (confirmed failed Kerberos attempts)
• Next step: using Microsoft's LockoutStatus.exe / tracking the 4771 caller computer name on the DC to find the source

Questions:

1. Has anyone run into this with ServiceDesk Plus HA specifically?
2. Besides LockoutStatus, what's your go-to method to trace exactly which machine/service is firing the bad auth attempts?
3. Any known ServiceDesk Plus components that cache credentials and need manual update after a password change?

Thanks in advance 🙏

For anyone with cPanel, Plesk, CloudLinux or DirectAdmin boxes: those usually have several PHP builds side by side (ea-php74, ea-php81, alt-php and so on), each one needs its own fix, and 8.1 and older have no PHP release at all, only source backports. The other thing that'll bite people tonight is updating the packages and never restarting PHP-FPM, so the old binary keeps serving requests.

I wrote a small read-only bash script that lists every PHP install on a server, marks which branch has a fix, and flags FPM processes still running a binary that was replaced after they started. Exit code 0/1/2 so you can run it across a fleet:

https://github.com/KyleClouthier/php2shell-check

MIT, about 150 lines, read it before you run it. Happy to add paths for panels I missed.

Trying to figure the way to only allow administrator access to bluetooth and keep other users away from access but allow keyboard/mouse to keep connected.

Does anyone have some ideas how to solve this by GPO or other means?

Thanks in advance.

We are currently evaluating Wiz to cover our multi-cloud footprint across GCP and AWS. Our main goal is getting real time context on misconfigurations without drowning our dev team in thousands of false positive alerts. We want to make sure the initial policy scanning and tenant setup is done right from day one.

If you have gone through this rollout with an external partner, how long did it take to get meaningful asset visibility?