Category: Security

Is it worth upgrading to Windows 11?

Paul

Windows 11

Windows 11 is now Available

Microsoft releases Windows 11 last week and people all around have had their opinions from it’s good to not so much like I have said.   It just isn’t worth it right now to upgrade.   You have to worry about encryption of the HDD to having a TPM installed on your system.   All these requirements doesn’t mean it is any safer than before.   I know that Microsoft is preaching how this will help increase security in their OS.   I personally think it is just a lot of hot air, any security that they might think will help, will eventually have some hacker or virus get around.   It is a good idea for the short term but maybe no in the long term.    We’ve seen blogs talk about how it isn’t worth it and others where Microsoft talked about all these things that will come along but have yet not even seen anything on Windows 11.

Upgrade Woes

Even if you wanted to upgrade, you still have to go through a lot of system preparation for you to even upgrade to Windows 11.   You’ll need to enable TPM if you have it and also you will then need to make sure you have UEFI enabled.   This also makes you to turn your hard drive partition from MBR into a GPT to be able to use Windows 11.   This a lot of system just to use Windows 11.   I am hopeful that Microsoft will release a good tool to help you with this issue because I am sure most systems don’t even have GPT being used in Windows 10.   Microsoft has said in the past that you can avoid some of this if you install Windows 11 on a new system because you don’t have to encrypt your hard drive or use TPM.   So downloading Windows 11 might work for some of you but I am little hesitant due to Microsoft saying that may not support them in the future but I don’t see this being the issue because of the security risks involve.

Should you upgrade

This has been the question for most people around the world.   I’ve seen people wonder if they should upgrade.   I say probably not right now, due it being so new.   There are still problems and nothing is that compelling to install Windows 11 unless Microsoft brings on something so compelling that you will want Windows 11.   If they supported DDR5 and helped make the system faster, I am sure it would be something that might compel people to upgrade to Windows 11.   I am sticking with Windows 10 ]until I have to consider upgrading or installing a Linux Distro.   I am going to say just wait and see what happens in the near future.   Only you can really know for sure if you should upgrade.   Are you going to upgrade or are you going to wait?  Why Not leave a comment and tell me what your thoughts are about Windows 11.

Windows Update in September causes printing issues in IT Support

Paul

Support Key

Print Nightmare Patch

Microsoft released an update for Windows (KB5005565 , KB5005566, and  KB5005652) that is causing quite some problems with Printers and networking.   There have been reports that I’ve seen of this affecting business and all around.   I’ve seen this in my Job also, Drivers not installing and Windows updates not installing because the drivers isn’t being able to be installed.   Paper sizes and even POS printers not printing due to the Printer spooler being patched by Microsoft.   Bleeping Computers even says that it broke the point to a network printer and is causing issues with people being able to print on the network.

Significant problems

Even I’ve seen the problems that came along with the new update.   The real problem is how to protect the business who need to use their network for business purposes.   What are some ways to do it and keep the business safe?  These are all the questions that need to be answered but as of yet no one knows what the really way to patch the problem associated with the Print Spooler and Print Network.

IT admins have said as much as uninstalling the update resolves most if not all the printer issues they’ve seen the last week or two but that isn’t really suggested by Microsoft due to the Print Nightmare issues and ransomware issues that might arise from it.   All I know is IT admins are left on the side of the road as to how to fix the issue without the patch or if there will be a hotfix now the road to fix the September update.  Either way there isn’t much we can do but wait and see.

Possible ways to Mitigate this issue:

Change your Group Policy Object (GPO) in Active Directory on the target computers on the network to “RestrictDriverInstallationToAdministrators = 0” but than again we are just opening up that hole that Microsoft is trying to close.

Registry add:

reg add “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Printers\PointAndPrint” /v RestrictDriverInstallationToAdministrators /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Again this will only bypass what Microsoft is trying to close with the vulnerability in Windows point and print issue on the network.   You should be able to start printing after you reboot.   This however isn’t suggested by me or anyone who is looking to keep the printer from being used in a ransomware attack.

Installing V4 drivers instead of V3 Drivers will solve this issue also but some  vendors don’t even have V4 drivers available to install as of yet.  Until they make those drivers available, there isn’t really much we can do about it or even suggest to the business that are having difficulty with the printing issue at hand.

Resources:

Getting the interview and how I will be ready for those questions

Paul

Young Man on a Job Interview

Getting that interview

I talked about the job market and how that will be more difficult to find a job. That seems to be changing for me.  If you didn’t read my post about Tuesday’s call, I will go back and say it was quite a surprise to get a call 30 mins after I applied a a technical support specialist job.   Fast forward two days, they call me and setup an interview time for Next Day.  This would be the Thursday after the call on Tuesday and my Interview is Friday.  So that’s been my week this week.   I am not sure what to think, but I thought it would be a good idea to at least talk about how to know what questions they might ask me or what even if I should have questions to ask them.

Questions and Answers

Some of the questions I saw and looked over came from Indeed and other hiring sites but I compressed them into a small subset of questions and you can go back and see what they might want to ask you in your interview if you ever have one for a technical support specialist.  Although this won’t be exactly what they might ask you but you should at least be somewhat prepared for the questions they ask you and have a few good answers waiting to give back to them.   I am sure what you do is going to be a little bit different from company to company but you should at least have a few good answers ready.

  • What made you get into technical support?
  • What is your troubleshooting process? (see some of how I troubleshoot motherboards post issues)
  • Where do you see yourself in five years?
  • Why are you interested in Technical Support?
  • Why should we hire you?
  • What do you feel your strong Points are?
  • What do you feel your week points are?
  • What’s your strength
  • Why do you want to work here?
  • Why did you apply to our company?

These are just a few of the questions that they might ask you for a technical support job.  I’ve went through as many sites as I could just to see what they might ask you but every site including Glassdoor has many different questions that might be relevant or not.   No matter how well we prepare, there will be that questions that might be a surprise to you and you should approach it with the best intentions.   Always remember that you are there for a reason.

Tell me about yourself?

That’s either where it begins or it ends depending on the interviewers point or if they need to know a lot about you.  The one thing I can tell you and know it works is being yourself and always smiling.  If they are going to hire you, that because they see potential in you.   That’s pretty much how I see it.   They are looking for the ideal employee but in life we rarely find that perfect person to fit the job description.   This is why you should always apply for jobs that might not seem like your a good fit.   You’ll know when they call you, take the ques from how they communicate with you.  Are they trying to be helpful?  are they trying to learn more about you?  are they open to your questions?  Sure you’ll have questions and that is a good sign that you want to know more about the company.  Also do some research on the company and be prepared to know more about it and that way you could be ready for those types of questions.

As you can see it is a whole new world for people to hire employees but most of the time it’s just takes a little bit of effort to do the job right and nothing we say or do will ever make the greatest impact that knowing we are making a difference each and every day in someone’s life.   What’s your experience been with interviews?  How’d that go for you?  why not leave a comment and talk about it with others who might want to know what to expect.

How virtual desktop infrastructure will help us in the IT field

Paul

BGinfo Group Policy

 

What’s is VDI and why do we need it in IT?

Virtual Desktop Infrastructures (VDI) are just that Virtual desktops that anyone can use on any given system around the world.   According to Citrix each VDI “includes an operating system image, typically Microsoft Windows“.  So what does that really mean?  The real question we should be asking ourselves is what does it do or how can we use that in virtualization.   The answer is quite simple, the truth of the matter is that VDI will help servers move a desktop from one server or even allow the user to do what they would normally do in the office and be able to do it anywhere the world.    The company could also give them really cheap or maybe even Chromebooks to do their work from home.   Ever since the start of virtual machines this has been something that was readily deployed because it kept the information in a centralized server and the user wouldn’t need to worry about any sensitive information leaks by someone stealing a laptop or a desktop.

Persistent and non-Persistent

Each VDI can allow a user to make changes to the desktop or not make changes depending on the settings the administrator decides to use.   Although this has not been a major point to people to try to get around the need to make the desktop a more personable environment.   It does help to prevent unwanted programs and people making changes to the OS which could make it even harder to prevent malware and viruses from getting onto the VDI.  Administrator’s have the option to allow users to change the desktop or keep the desktop as it is and you have to use it like it is.   If you have several users that are using the same exact desktop than this would be my option to keep all the users happy.

Considerations of VDI

Even I know the power of Virtualization but some users will not know what they are missing or getting when they are using a VDI.  According to IT Pro Today, We should consider a multitude of things when we deploy a VDI.   Security is always going to be a big issue when it comes to how the user will interact with the virtual desktop, which could bring even more problems but most of time it will help keep the problems away.  They even go as far as to make a point of how important it is to control the BYOD or even know the level of the user who is using the Virtual Desktop.   Each one of these is important to keep the user safe and secure.   It just depends on how well we control what they do and how they do it on it.   We should be able to monitor the VM and know that it is safe in our hands as we can control the group policies of it and keep the user from going to sites or installing software that isn’t approved to be used on the system.   Yet, I am sure we will see more users try to get around those restrictions because of one reason or another.  Time will always be against the administrator because someone is bound to test the limits.

Do you agree or disagree, or do you think it will help us or hinder us to have to be watchful of the users and how they use the VDI?

 

Why I uninstalled Microsoft Windows 11 Preview build?

Paul
Windows 11 — Isn’t the great!

I reinstalled Windows 10 and Deleted Windows 11!

I don’t know about everyone else but after my week long expedition into Windows 11, I just couldn’t handle the speed issues of the Windows 11 and the encryption.   I know it isn’t worth my time after all that to down grade to Windows 10 but I I felt it wasn’t going to get any smoother than that.  I also would of had to have deleted the partition anyways since it was locked to secure boot and UEFI.  I really didn’t want to try to convert it back to MBR.   I got my trust Windows 10 DVD and started it up and found the partitions I wanted to delete and then I reinstall Windows 10.   I will say that after wiping the hard drive and reinstalling Windows 10, and turning off all the Encryption crap and just booting into Windows has seen my load times go back to normal.

Windows 11 Problems

First off the main problem I had with Windows was the need to encrypt the Hard drive and I was using a NVME which should of been way faster than a standard SSD or Hard drive to boot up.   That wasn’t the case, I’d see the swirling load screen on my system for several seconds and then it would finally boot.  Due to the encryption that Microsoft says is required to run Windows 11, it just doesn’t cut it for me.   Even playing games like Minecraft was screwy and that isn’t even taking up that much memory at the most 2 GB or if you know how to do it 4 GB.   I’d play with Minecraft and the system would take forever to load up the next part of the map or even play Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and It wouldn’t be sluggish there also.

The Start Menu

This was something that was just annoying, I think Microsoft wanted to look like an Apple device and bring the apple guys over because of the look.  I can’t understand why you would prevent people from reverting back to the old Windows 10 setup.  I can only wonder what people will do to find out what they are running and if it will actually be a good idea to keep the start menu in the middle of the screen.  Some people have these really long screens and it might help them.  I personally would like to move the taskbar anywhere on the outside of the screen, top or maybe right or left of the screen.  You wouldn’t be able to do that either.   Which will make people really mad.

I can’t see this being all about security

It just can’t be about viruses and malware or even the recent months of ransomware attacks that have been happening in the past year, due to the Covid19 situation around the world.  I have talked about how Windows will ultimately fail and we will see virus writers come up with some good viruses and malwares to compromise the Secure boot and even the TPM that is trying to be forced to be used by Windows.   I am sure it isn’t over, and if Microsoft isn’t going to change, we’ll see people leaving left and right to go to operating system that are much less restrictive and more open such as Linux.  In the end, I went back to Windows 10 because of the speed and performance, and I am not even thinking about Windows 11 until I find out what they will require when the system is finally released.   This will be a big deal to some but me, I am not interested in the so called security features of Windows 11.