List of different Group Policy Templates (Updated)

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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Key Management Service (KMS) Client Serial Numbers [Updated 2023]

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 10Windows 7Microsoft 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
Update 4: Now with Windows 11 and Office 2021

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Setting up Office 365 – Part 2

Setup Office 365 - Part 2

This article is part of my migration from my old Office 365 to my new Microsoft 365 Tenant. It is also about setting up Office 365, the other Microsoft 365 topics will follow later. I also have written this article intentionally so that it can also be used for setup outside of a migration scenario. Part 1 was about choosing the right edition, setting up the account and configuring the domains and DNS.

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Update, maintain and use Windows Image Files (WIM)

A screenshot of a cell phone

Since I’m very busy with deployment and rollouts, I thought I’d write a few basic articles that I could refer to. This sometimes saves you some time in workshops for the more interesting things or gives administrators incentives to automate things.

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End of the Windows 7 Life-Cycle – Migration approaches from the field

A close up of text on a white background

Soon it is time, for Windows 7 the extended support ends on 14.01.2020. As with every end of operating system support the end comes “completely surprising”, okay, not really. At the beginning everything looks so far in the future, it is still x years time. But in the end, the problems appear.

I already saw this at the “surprising” end of XP. But there are also cases where migration is not so easy. Special problem areas can be interfaces to special Hardware. For instance, measuring workstations or production control systems. If a measuring instrument with current Windows 10 support directly costs a few tens of thousands of Euros, then you consider the investment.

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Local Administrator Password Solution (LAPS)

041917 0532 LocalAdmini5 Local Administrator Password Solution (LAPS) 6

In the past, a company-specific standard was usually always used for local administrator passwords. But what do you do if an employee who knows the default password leaves the company?

Right, it should be changed. In the past, Group Policies (GPO) were often used for this, even if the password was in clear text in SysVol. This was fortunately stopped by Microsoft. What other solutions are available? In practice I have seen VBS or PowerShell scripts, the good ones have random passwords, the bad ones only a standard.

But isn’t there a well designed solution from Microsoft? Yes, there is, Local Administrator Password Solution (LAPS).

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