Fabian Niesen

Fabian Niesen has been working as an IT consultant for years. Here he writes privately and independently of his employer. Among others he is certified as MCSA Windows Server 2008 / 2012, MCSA Office 365, MCSA Windows 10, MCSE Messaging, MCT and Novell Certified Linux Administrator. Since 2016 he is also MCT Regional Lead for Germany. His hobbies are social media, blogging, medieval markets, historical songs and house building.

Microsoft Autopilot Pre-Provisioning troubleshooting – how to get the logs

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get-AutopilotLogs.ps1

I work a lot with Microsoft Intune, Autopilot and also Pre-Provisioning. Especially with the latter, I often have to troubleshoot for my customers when things don’t work out. Michael Niehaus has written several articles on troubleshooting, including: Troubleshooting Windows Autopilot, a reference – Out of Office Hours (oofhours.com) Windows Autopilot diagnostics: Digging deeper – Out … Read more

Set Windows target release

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Especially in test environments, you often need an older release of Windows 10, but how can you set Windows to a target release? Many companies are currently still using Windows 10 1909, and the Enterprise Edition is still supported until 11.05.2022. Unfortunately, I can only defer the feature upgrade in Windows 10 for 365 days. This means that a newly installed Windows 10 1909 updates to 20H2.

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SSTP VPN with Let’s Encrypt certificates

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SSTP requires an SSL certificate accepted by the client. If you have an internal certificate authority, you can use this. The only thing that must be ensured is that the client can also reach the blacklist on the Internet. Many fail with this requirement. So why not use another certificate, for example a free one from Let’s encrypt.

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VPN Server with Windows Server 2022 (RAS)

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In this article we will show you how to install and set up a VPN server with Windows Server 2022. We will go through the setup step by step.

This article is based on the article VPN Server with Windows Server 2019 (RAS) and has been updated for Windows Server 2022.

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List of different Group Policy Templates (Updated)

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Gruppenrichtlinenkonsole mit Importierten Administrativen Vorlagen

Active Directory group policies, also called Group Policy Object (GPO), are one of my core topics. I have a lot to do with this in various projects and as a Microsoft trainer. As a result, I have accumulated a number of templates and links. This link collection should make your search a little easier. Only templates of the respective manufacturers or projects are listed here. I have deliberately avoided third-party guidelines.

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Windows 11 Installation – First Look

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Windows 11 start page

In this article I show the manual Windows 11 installation and the first insights. The version used is from the Beta Channel, the Windows 11 Enterprise 21H2 (OS Build 22000.194) version. Since Windows 11 is already installed on my test hardware via in-place upgrade, I use a Hyper-V VM for this. It is absolutely necessary to use a VM of the 2nd generation. SecureBoot and the TPM must also be activated in the VM, otherwise the installation will fail.

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Key Management Service (KMS) Client Serial Numbers [Updated 2021]

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The KMS Client serial numbers help you only if you have a KMS Server or use Active Directory based activation. Read more about KMS in our article KMS Overview. This may not yet be translated.

Looking for regular serial numbers for Windows 10, Windows 7, Microsoft Office 2013 or Office 2016? The affiliate links will lead you to Amazon 😉

Update: Now with Windows 10, Windows Server 2016, Office 2016
Update 2: Now with Windows 10 LTSB 2019, Windows Server 2019, Windows Server SAC, Office 2019
Update 3: Now with Windows Server 2022

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Automatic Virtual Machine Activation (AVMA) with Windows Server Datacenter (Update)

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AVMA2016 Automatic Virtual Machine Activation (AVMA) with Windows Server Datacenter (Update) 7

Behind the feature “Automatic Virtual Machine Activation” is a function in Microsoft Windows Server 2012R2 Datacenter, Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Datacenter and Microsoft Windows Server 2019 Datacenter for Hyper-V, but it works only with the Datacenter Edition activated. With this feature, all supported Windows Server operating systems since Microsoft Windows Server 2012R2 can be automatically activated by the Hyper-V host. But only up to the own version, which means that a Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter Hyper-V cannot activate Windows Server 2016. The limitation of this feature to the Datacenter Edition is due to the unlimited Virtual Windows Server Guests covered by the Datacenter License. The advantage is that it is now easier to assign the license to the corresponding datacenter license during a software audit on the AVMA license key.

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