Windows 10 – Settings can’t be opened using the Built-in Administrator account

The Windows 10 rollouts from Microsoft has finally picked up traction. My opinion of Windows 10 has greatly improved due to the cross-platform availability of XBOX One games. However, due to the adoption of an app-like structure, this has posed it’s own problems. You may find that you’re not able to open built-in programs that … Read more

Disabling Windows Defender

I had an issue recently where Windows updates installed Windows Defender automatically, on top of Microsoft Security Essentials on my TS3 server. This caused MSE to disable itself, and Windows Defender didn’t enable itself, causing my TS3 server to be exposed for longer than I would have liked. Obviously this was a huge problem, and … Read more

Domain controller migration

This weekend I was running through a migration from Server 2008 Hyper-V host to ESXi and Server 2012 as the primary DC in a test environment. All the VMs were backed up and converted to VMDKs beforehand, and the install went off without a hitch. What I had done with the server, was to install … Read more

Media center software – XBMC

A couple of months ago I purchased some new parts from Scan to build myself a Media PC. I went through a lot of different options, weighing up the pros and cons of each and eventually settled on a stripped down version of the Budget PC found in Custom PC Magazine. I have media across multiple drives, and a large factor for me was to have all of a set type of media – TV shows and films – kept together regardless of which drive they were on. I tried a couple of solutions before I settled on my final decision, and for anyone else finding themselves in the same dilemma I faced, here’s a quick rundown of the programs I tried…

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