Windows

When you need to run a command as an administrator on a remote Windows machine, you have two primary technologies to choose from: the traditional WinRM (Windows Remote Management) and the modern, cross-platform OpenSSH. Both can get the job done, but they handle elevation and authentication in fundamentally different ways. This guide will provide a deep dive into both methods, comparing their strengths, weaknesses, and best use cases to help you choose the right tool for your remote administration needs. ...

For years, Linux and macOS users have enjoyed the convenience of the sudo command to run commands with administrative privileges. Now, the sudo experience has finally come to Windows in two popular forms: Microsoft’s official sudo, built into Windows 11, and the feature-rich, open-source gsudo. But which one should you use? This guide will put them in a head-to-head showdown, comparing their features, security, and best use cases to help you choose the right tool for your workflow. ...

When it comes to transferring large files (10–100 GB) between Windows systems, the tool you choose can have a massive impact on speed, reliability, and security. In this ultimate showdown, we compare three titans of file transfer: the secure and universal SCP (OpenSSH), the multi-threaded powerhouse Robocopy (SMB), and the PowerShell-native Copy-Item (WinRM). We’ll test them across different network conditions, from a high-speed 10 GbE LAN to a real-world 5G wireless connection, to help you decide which tool reigns supreme for your specific needs. ...

In the world of remote administration with PowerShell, two protocols stand out: the traditional, Windows-native WinRM (Windows Remote Management) and the modern, cross-platform SSH (Secure Shell). Both allow you to execute commands on remote machines, but they are built on fundamentally different technologies and philosophies. Choosing the right protocol is crucial for building a secure, efficient, and scalable automation strategy. This guide will provide a deep dive into both SSH and WinRM, comparing their setup, security, performance, and best use cases to help you make an informed decision. ...

If you’ve ever tried to activate Microsoft Office in a corporate or restricted network environment, you may have encountered frustrating activation failures. Even with a valid license, Office activation can fail if it cannot communicate with Microsoft’s activation servers. This is almost always due to a firewall blocking the necessary outbound traffic. This guide provides a comprehensive overview of the required domains and ports for Office activation and offers ready-to-use scripts to configure various firewalls, including Windows Firewall, Cisco ASA, Palo Alto, pfSense, and Linux iptables. ...

In a secure or air-gapped environment, installing Windows features that normally require an internet connection can be a challenge. A common example is the OpenSSH Server, which is essential for secure remote management. When you run Add-WindowsCapability, Windows typically downloads the package from Microsoft Update. This guide provides two reliable methods for installing the OpenSSH Server on an offline Windows machine (Server 2019/2022 or Windows 10/11), ensuring you can maintain security and manageability even without internet access. ...

Creating a full, bootable backup of a USB drive as an .iso or .img file is a critical task for IT professionals and tech enthusiasts. Whether you’re archiving a custom Windows installer, preserving a Linux live environment, or creating deployment images, a sector-by-sector clone ensures that the bootloader, partition table, and all data are perfectly preserved. This guide provides three reliable methods to clone a bootable USB drive, catering to different user preferences: the command-line power of PowerShell with WSL, the simplicity of a GUI tool on Windows, and the classic dd command on Linux. ...

The dsregcmd command-line tool is an indispensable utility for any administrator managing Windows devices in a modern, hybrid environment. It provides a wealth of information about a device’s identity and its join state with both on-premises Active Directory (AD) and cloud-based Azure AD (Entra ID). However, the output can sometimes be confusing. A common scenario is running dsregcmd /status and seeing that AzureAdJoined, EnterpriseJoined, and DomainJoined are all set to NO. While this might look like an error, it simply means the computer is in a standalone workgroup state. ...

Have you ever removed a computer from an Active Directory (AD) domain, only to find that you can still ping it and connect to it via RDP? This confusing behavior is a common source of frustration for system administrators and is often a symptom of a larger issue: stale computer identities. In a modern, hybrid environment, a single computer can have multiple identities across different systems. Understanding these identities is the key to resolving these conflicts and properly managing your devices. ...

For system administrators, creating a standardized desktop environment often involves customizing the Windows taskbar. While pinning items is easy for a user, automating the process of listing or unpinning applications can be surprisingly difficult. Windows intentionally does not provide a simple, built-in command to manage pinned items to prevent applications from pinning themselves without user consent. However, with a bit of PowerShell scripting, you can gain control over the taskbar. This guide will walk you through the most effective methods to list, unpin, and manage taskbar items programmatically. ...