Active Directory functional levels control which features are available in your domain and forest, and running on outdated levels leaves security capabilities on the table. Here's what each level unlocks and why it matters for your environment.

Finding password-protected Office files on a large file server isn't as straightforward as it sounds. Two common PowerShell methods either open every file in Office or consume enough RAM to bring a server to its knees. Here's the method that actually works.

Active Directory health issues don't announce themselves - replication failures, DNS misconfigurations, and group policy inconsistencies build up quietly until something breaks. Here's a practical baseline health assessment you can run in any AD environment, including the exact tools and commands to use.

Managing an ever-growing task list as an IT engineer takes more than willpower. Here's the analog and digital hybrid system I've developed over the years. Covering daily planning, journaling, and logging to stay on top of everything without letting anything drop.

Duplicate SPN Active Directory issues cause Kerberos authentication to fall back to NTLM, a weaker protocol vulnerable to relay attacks, pass-the-hash, and brute force cracking. Finding and removing duplicate SPNs is a straightforward fix that most environments overlook entirely. What is a Service Principal Name? Service principal names (SPN) is used by Kerberos to link a service to a service account. This allows a user to access a service without knowing the service account