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How to Hide Library and Special Folders from File Explorer on Windows
By default, Windows File Explorer displays a number of pre-set folders: these include library folders (such as Video, Downloads, Music, Documents, Pictures, Desktop, and 3D Objects), the Quick Access panel, Network environment and OneDrive icons, and recent files or folders that have been accessed. If your users do not frequently utilise these library folders and…
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How to Install Windows 11 Without a Network and Internet Connection
During the final setup phase, Windows 11 requires a network connection to the Internet. The Internet connection is used to connect to your online Microsoft account and to receive the latest security updates. If your computer doesn’t have network adapters, if the Driver Store is missing drivers for the installed network adapter, or if your…
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How to Establish SSH Key-Based Authentication on VMware ESXi
You can set up SSH key-based authentication for logging into VMware ESXi hosts, bypassing the need for a username and password. This proves beneficial for managed remote access to an ESXi host via external script usage (such as triggering a shutdown command for ESXi during a UPS power outage event), or when you need to…
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How to Use unattend.xml to Bypass OOBE During Windows 11 Installation
The Windows setup goes through several phases, with the last one being the Out-of-Box Experience (OOBE). It presents users with multiple dialogs for system configuration. Some settings are security-related, while others may be unclear to many users. Using an answer file, they can be automatically customized. Windows 10 introduced numerous settings that are queried during…
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Mastering Encryption and Decryption with Ansible Vault
Ansible Vault allows you to encrypt sensitive data such as passwords, keys, and other secrets rather than storing them as plaintext in your playbooks or roles. In this tutorial, I will explain how to use Ansible Vault to encrypt and decrypt data during playbook runtime. Prerequisites To proceed with this tutorial, you will need the…
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Step-by-step Guide to Enabling and Configuring Wake-on-LAN (WoL) in Windows
Wake on LAN (WoL) is an essential feature in computer networking that allows a device in sleep mode or low power mode to be remotely activated. This is made possible through the device’s network interface card (NIC), which prompts the computer to wake up anytime it receives a unique broadcast packet, often referred to as…
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Warp: An AI-Enhanced Terminal for Linux and macOS, with a Windows Edition Coming Soon
Warp is a modern AI-powered terminal emulator that essentially allows you to execute commands in plain English. The Linux edition recently joined the macOS version, and a Windows release is slated for later this year. In this post, we will look at Warp’s new Linux edition. However, aside from slightly different keyboard shortcuts, the different…
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How to Monitor Website SSL/TLS Certificate Expiration using Zabbix
SSL (TLS) certificates play a pivotal role in today’s infrastructure. Hence, it’s incumbent upon administrators to make sure they don’t expire and are timely renewed. This blog post will guide you on how to employ Zabbix for monitoring your websites against expiring SSL certificates. No longer required in the latest versions of Zabbix are console…
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Solving the Problem: Remote Desktop Session Freezes and Disconnects on Windows
In Windows 10/11 and Windows Server 2022/2019/2016, when connecting to a Remote Desktop (RDS) server, UDP port 3389 is used along with the default RDP port TCP/3389. Your RDP client, when connecting to the server, initiates multiple sessions. The keyboard and mouse commands are transmitted using the TCP (HTTP) control session, whereas the Remote Desktop…
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A Comprehensive Guide on Creating, Deleting and Managing System Restore Points on Windows 10/11
System Restore Points offer a convenient solution for reverting your Windows OS to a previous state should you encounter unintended system file or registry issues following the installation of faulty drivers, updates, or applications. A restore point allows you to restore the state of the registry, system files, drivers, and installed software to the point…