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

August 23, 2021 by Fabian Niesen

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

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

August 23, 2021 by Fabian Niesen

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.

List of different Group Policy Templates (Updated)

July 1, 2021 by Fabian Niesen

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.

A new home for the downloads

June 24, 2021March 12, 2021 by Fabian Niesen

Microsoft Support LifeCycle for Windows Client Operating Systems

After my download solution annoyed me a few times, I outsourced the download. The new home for the downloads is GitHub. This also makes it easier for me to maintain and update.

“Domain Controller Enforcement mode” will be activated as of 9 February 2021

January 18, 2021 by Fabian Niesen

With the security update of 11 August 2020, Microsoft has addressed a security vulnerability (CVE-2020-1472). This has not yet been closed automatically, as compatibility problems may occur. How to close the vulnerability beforehand is explained in KB article 455722.

Changes in the LifeCycle of Microsoft products due to Corona

June 24, 2021April 16, 2020 by Fabian Niesen

Changes in the life cycle of Microsoft products due to Corona / COVID-19.

Microsoft is extending the current lifecycle for some products to relieve the burden on IT departments. I took this opportunity to update the LifeCycle Diagrams from the articles “Microsoft Lifecycle Diagrams” and “Other Lifecycle Diagrams” from last year.
This time I translated them directly into English.

Setting up Office 365 – Part 2

June 24, 2021March 9, 2020 by Fabian Niesen

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.

Preparing the mail flow for the Office 365 migration

June 24, 2021February 11, 2020 by Fabian Niesen

Mailflow during the migration from one Office365 tenant to another Office 365 tenant

This article is part of my migration journey from my old Office 365 to my new Microsoft 365 Tenant. This article is about mail traffic during the migration and how to avoid data loss.

In May 2015 I have already written the article “Migration from one Office365 Tenant to another Office365 Tenant“. I will adopt and adapt the relevant parts from the old article here.

Website monitoring with PRTG

June 24, 2021January 23, 2020 by Fabian Niesen

This time an article slightly outside the Microsoft world. This time there is an excursion into monitoring and the monitoring of web servers under Linux. Some know this, nothing is worse than when the website you want to visit is not reachable. Since this happened to me 2 times in 2 days, the web server has hung up and I could not find the error, something had to be done.

Update, maintain and use Windows Image Files (WIM)

June 24, 2021January 20, 2020 by Fabian Niesen

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.