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Articles by John Savill
21st August 2026 Weekly Azure Update
Another update, yay for Friday! The next Ask Me Anything will be 31st August at 10:00 AM PST - https://youtube.com/live/hXRPm7r4Q14?feature=share. See you there I hope! App Service Managed Instance (00:51) - Like the SQL Managed Instance, the App Service Managed Instance provides very strong compatibility for existing web applications to move to App Service without having to change the code or even major configurations. You still get autoscale, resiliency and other capabilities.
Azure Weekly Update - 12th June 2026
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Health services research as a frontline service - InSight+
Health services research must become a frontline service in Australian health care, to provide prompt solutions to pressing system-wide problems. Chief among these is inadequate access to care, where Australia ranks ninth out of ten countries in a recent report. Whatever the location in which health care is delivered, frontline clinicians are uniquely placed to characterise and solve facets of this complex problem.
Bring Azure to your System Center environment: Announcing GA of SCVMM enabled by Azure Arc
At Microsoft, we're committed to providing our customers with the tools they need to succeed wherever they are. By extending Azure services to the customer's preferred environments like System Center, we empower customers with access to Azure’s potential along with a consistent experience across their hybrid estate.
Training tracks for future clinician researchers - InSight+
AS we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, it has never been more obvious that clinical research is an essential service to the public. But worldwide, there are concerns that clinician researchers are a dying breed. This “endangered species”, capable of leading clinical care alongside a principal role in research, would be sorely missed in Australia.
Securing Microsoft Azure Data Solutions
The courses in this section address securing access to Azure Data solution endpoints and databases. Securing Microsoft Azure Data Access Endpoints by John Savill Feb 11, 2020 / 1h 29m 1h 29m Start Course Description Hosting data in the cloud opens up new considerations when thinking about the security of access to that data. In this course, Securing Microsoft Azure Data Access Endpoints, you will learn foundational knowledge of securing the endpoints of services offered by Azure.
Managing Microsoft Azure Active Directory
At the core of identity in the cloud utilizing Microsoft technologies is a thorough knowledge of Azure AD. In this course, Managing Microsoft Azure Active Directory, you’ll learn how to manage your organization's Azure AD deployment. First, you’ll learn the fundamentals of users and groups. Next, you’ll explore key capabilities to secure and enable end-user productivity, such as conditional access and privileged identity management.
Add group members to another tenant via Azure AD B2B and PowerShell
I needed to add members of a number of groups from one Azure AD tenant to a group in another Azure AD tenant that would then be given access to a resource. The goal was to not require the users added to have to redeem the invite which is common when adding a B2B user. To do this the first step was a user invited via B2B the normal way, that user redeemed the invite and in this case was then made a global admin (although another option would have been to enable guests to invite guests).
Using the Azure PS Drive
If you leverage the Azure Cloud Shell in the Azure portal its a very convenient way to manage Azure resources using PowerShell and the CLI but you may have also noticed an actual Azure drive, i.e. Set-Location azure: and you can navigate around your Azure resources (this is actually the default location when the cloud shell opens). At the top level are subscriptions and you can then navigate to resource groups, VMs, WebApps and more.
Savill's FAQs: Hyper-V Migrations and Azure Virtual Machine Placement
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Today you can learn more about Hyper-V migrations, how a Windows Server 2016 failover cluster works, and Azure Virtual Machine placement. Q. How can I move my virtual machines to another node or rack? A. Yes and no: Azure has a redeploy option which will redeploy a virtual machine to a new node, but its not guaranteed to be a new rack.
Savill's FAQs: Exploring Azure File Sync Features
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Today you can learn more about the Azure Files Sync feature. Q. What is Azure Files Sync tiering? A. Azure Files Sync moves files between your on-premises file server and Azure Files. When a file is tiered, the Azure File Sync file system filter replaces the file locally with a pointer.
Savill's FAQs: Azure Files Sync and Change Control for Group Policy
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Today, you can learn more about change control for group policy, and about the Azure Files Sync functionality. Q. Can I use Azure Files Sync with any file system? A.
Savill's FAQs: Microsoft Intune Licensing and Device Management
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Today, he shares more more about purchasing per-device licenses for Microsoft Intune, registering devices with Intune that are not tied to specific users, and using a single Azure Backup vault to protect data from multiple subscriptions. Q. How do I buy a per-device Intune license? A. There is no device license for Microsoft Intune.
Savill's FAQs: System Center Endpoint Protection Manual Install
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Today, he shares more about removing a dead Domain Controller from Windows Server 2016, manually installing System Center Endpoint Protection on a device, and assigning limited scope administrator role in Azure Active Directory via the portal. Q. I need to remove a dead DC from Windows Server 2016. Do I need to use NTDSUTIL? A.
Savill's FAQs: Setting the $ Character in a PowerShell String
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Today, he shares about mixing the use of managed and unmanaged disks in Virtual Machines, using Add-AzureRmAccount and Login-AzureRmAccount, and how to set $ in a PowerShell string. Q. Can I mix managed and unmanaged disks on a single VM? A.
Savill's FAQs: How much disk space is needed for a Windows 10 upgrade?
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Today you can learn more about how much disk space you need to do an in-place upgrade to Windows 10, what the default accounts are on Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016, and he covers why you should not move a Domain Controller out of the default Domain Controllers Organization Unit. Q.
Savill's FAQs: Using chkdsk and networking protocols in Azure
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Today he covers using chkdsk and various networking protocols in Azure, plus why PowerShell's OpenBaseKey does not work on a Windows 7 device. Q. Should I use chkdsk in an Azure IaaS VM? A. Chkdsk is used when there is a corruption on the file system. In theory, this tool could still be required in an Azure-based VM.
Savill's FAQs: Managing and Using VMs in Azure
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Today: Learn about some aspects of managing and using virtual machines (VMs) in Azure. Q. How many times a day can I back up virtual machines (VMs) in Azure with Azure Backup? A. When creating an Azure backup policy, the smallest interval you can set is daily, i.e. one backup a day will be taken.
Savill FAQs: Check out these handy Microsoft Edge Keyboard Shortcuts
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Today: Learn about performing LDAP writes to objects in Azure AD Domain Services; find Microsoft Edge keyboard shortcuts; and check on upcoming Azure maintenance from within a VM. Q. Can I perform LDAP writes to objects in Azure AD Domain Services? A. Not really. The LDAP connection is read-only.
Savill's FAQs: Using Azure AD Domain Services Identity Solution
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Today: Learn how to use Microsoft's Azure AD Domain Services for you organizations identity solution, whether you can add more domain controllers to Azure AD Domain Services, and how to use constrained delegation. Q. If I use Azure AD Domain Services will GPOs replicate from my on-premises AD? A.
Savill's FAQs: View your Azure resources using PowerShell
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Today: Learn how to reset Microsoft Edge so one of its services does not continue to use a significant amount of CPU resources; view all Azure resources that you can use with PowerShell; and obtain public IPs from Azure. Q. On a clean Windows 10 installation, State Repository Service is using a large amount of CPU.
Savill's FAQs: Execute a PowerShell script in Windows PE
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Today: See how to create your own VMs on Azure from your uploaded images, wiping disks in the Windows PE environment, and the method to execute a PowerShell script in Windows PE. Q. I uploaded my own image to Azure, how can I easily create a new VM from it using PowerShell? A.
Savill's FAQs: Using and managing VHD files in Microsoft Azure
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Today: Uploading VHD files to Azure, creating new images in Azure using uploaded VHDs, and removing custom images in Azure using PowerShell Q. I'm uploading VHD files to Azure however I'm unable to use them in Azure, it says its not a valid VHD file. A. The best way to upload your own VHD file to Azure is to use PowerShell.
Savill's FAQs: PowerShell commands for replacing strings in a file
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Today: See how to use PowerShell for searching and replacing strings in files, understanding the difference between items that match or contain search results, and using single character wildcards in your PowerShell commands. Q. What is the difference between match and contains in PowerShell? A.
How to configure a PowerShell Session to access help subsystem
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Today: Accessing the Help subsystem from within a PowerShell session; keeping an eye on your Azure B series CPU credits; and using loops to break out of a PowerShell search once you have your results. Q. I've created a PowerShell session configuration with a limited set of commands however help fails within, why? A.
Using PowerShell File Comparison option to detect differences in files
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Today: Learn about the PowerShell file comparison process (more tips and tricks to get the most out of PowerShell), filtering search results containing certain strings, and using the pipeline in PowerShell commands. Q. How can I compare two files using PowerShell? A. PowerShell has the Compare-Object cmdlet.
Savill's FAQs: Advanced Threat Analytics and Domain Controllers
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Today: John shares about using Advanced Threat Analytics to monitor your domain controllers for threats in different environments plus he talks about controlling the reboots of your domain controllers after updates. Q.
Savill's FAQs: How to bulk change passwords in Active Directory
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Related: FAQs: Looking at Containers in Windows Server 2016 and Windows 10Today: We look at bulk changing passwords in an Organizational Unit, how to store arrays of objects long term, and then expanding that storage to Azure. Q. How can I bulk update passwords for users in a certain OU? A.
Savill's FAQs: Parameters for Cmdlets & removing array entries
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Related: FAQs: Looking at Containers in Windows Server 2016 and Windows 10Today: Learn about how to find latencies between data centers in Azure Regions & Availability Zones, short parameters for cmdlets & removing array entries in PowerShell commands. Q.
Savill's FAQs: How to Patch a Container Image
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Related: FAQs: Looking at Containers in Windows Server 2016 and Windows 10Today: Learn about patching Container Images, the size of Nano Server 1709, and Project Honolulu Communications Q. How do I patch a container image? A. You don't, in fact for Nano Server 1709 and above its not even possible as the servicing stack was removed.
John Savill FAQ: PowerShell Remote File Access and Command Output
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Today: Three PowerShell items about accessing remote files, suppressing command output, and sending multiple lines for a script block. Q. I'm trying to access a file share from a remote PowerShell session but it's not working? A.
John Savill's FAQ: How Hyper-V and Azure Stack Differ
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Today: He shows you how to find out about the new features in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, why some features are available in Hyper-V but not on Azure Stack, and explains what Application Security Groups are in Azure. Q. How can I check what new features were added in the 1709 releases of Windows? A.
John Savill FAQ: Find Azure Fabric information in a Virtual Machine
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Today: How to find Azure Fabric information in VMs; what the benefit of the Semi-Annual Channel release of Windows Server is; and Project Honolulu on Windows Server 2008. Q. How can I find out Azure fabric info about my VM from within the VM? A.
Learn how to assign roles available with Azure
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Today: Learn how to assign roles available with Azure, new options for securing Azure services with IaaS services and installing additional Linux distributions with WSL. Q. I'm trying to grant an Azure AD user a certain role but I can't find that role in the Azure AD portal. Where do I look? A.
John Savill answers your questions about Azure
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Today: Encryption with ExpressRoute, understanding which capabilities are supported with ASR, and handling files downloaded from the Internet. Q. Is ExpressRoute traffic encrypted? A. ExpressRoute provides a private connection between your locations and the Microsoft edge network via a provider.
FAQs: A Closer Look at the Requirements and Functions of Just-in-Time
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. A dive into requirements and inner-workings of Just-in-time VM access in Azure. Q. Do I have to manually manage any rules when using Just In Time (JIT) access with Azure IaaS Virtual Machines? A. Just-in-time (JIT) access enables the RDP/SSH rules only when requested, and for a limited duration.
FAQs: Virtual Reality in Windows 10; Limiting View of Users in Azure A
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. In this group of FAQs we explore virtual reality in Windows 10 Fall Creators Update and also how to limit the view of users in Azure AD. Q. What is the difference between virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality? A. There are many definitions.
FAQs: Using Windows Server Semi-Annual Channel in a Cluster; Choosing
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. In these FAQs we look at using the new semi-annual channel of Windows Server in a cluster, how we choose SAC vs LTSC and requirements around disk witness. Q. Can I have a mix of 2016 LTSC and 1709 in the same cluster? A. As with 2012 R2 and 2016, a cluster can have a mix of the 2016 LTSC (1607) and the first SAC (1709).
FAQs: Using a KMS Server; Securing Virtual Networks and Physical Machi
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. In this group of FAQs we tackle setting a KMS server and then some good security tips to give you safe and locking down virtual networks in Azure. Q. How can I quickly configure a machine to use a specific KMS server? A.
FAQs: Data Copy and Backup in Azure; Future Service Packs
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. A mixed bag of FAQs about data copy and backup in Azure plus will we ever see another Service Pack? Q. If I perform a server-side asynchronous copy of data between Azure regions is it done via the Internet or does it stay on the Azure backbone?Dept - Azure A.
FAQs: Understanding Semi-Annual Channel; Getting Ready for Wind
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Understand the support for semi-annual channel, how ready are you for Windows 10 and limiting the power people need to perform actions. Q. How long is a Semi-Annual Channel supported for? I've seen different time frames. A.
FAQs: Security of Shared Access Signatures and Understanding the B -Se
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. In this group of FAQs we examine the security of Shared Access Signatures and understand the B-series. ---------- Q. If I use a Shared Access Signature with Azure is the token sent in clear text since its part of the URL? Dept - Azure A.
New ITPro Website Launches
This week marks an important milestone for us here at ITPro. After months of planning and hard work, we’re proud to roll out a new website built on the foundations of a group of sites: Windows ITPro, SharePoint Pro, SQL Server Pro, Dev Pro and SuperSite for Windows. The new ITPro has a broader mission than the sites it springs forth from: to provide multiplatform editorial coverage across the full range of technologies used by IT professionals.
FAQs: Exploring UPNs in AD and Moving FSMO Roles
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. In this group of FAQs we continue exploration of the UPNs in AD and moving all FSMO roles. ---------- Q. How can I add a new UPN suffix using PowerShell? Dept - Active Directory A.
FAQs: Handling UPN Suffixes in AD and Removing People Bar in Windows 1
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. In these group of FAQs we look at handling UPN suffixes in AD and removing the people bar in Windows 10. ---------- Q. How do I remove the people bar in Windows 10 1709? Dept - Windows 10 A. The Fall Creators Update (1709) of Windows 10 adds a new People Bar to the Taskbar to enable easier access to people.
FAQs: Windows Server 1709; Fixing Windows Store on WIndows 10; DHCP Sc
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. A mixed bag of FAQs around 1709 of Windows Server, fixing the Microsoft Store on Windows 10 and checking utilization of DHCP scopes. ---------- Q. I downloaded 1709 of Windows Server 2016 but there is only a Server Core install option. Where is the GUI version and Nano? Dept - Windows Server 2016 A.
FAQs: Upgrade Options for Windows 10 and Windows Server; Updating Cert
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. Understanding upgrade ability around Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016 plus a neat trick to update certificates with ADFS farms! ---------- Q. Is there a simple way to update to a new certificate on an ADFS farm including Web Application Proxy? Dept - Windows Server A.
FAQs: Handling Application Publishing and Why There is Only One ISO for Windows 10
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. A couple of FAQs around handling application publishing and why there is only one ISO for Windows 10 Q. If I publish applications with Remote Desktop Session Host can I enable file type associations? Dept - Terminal Services A. Yes.
FAQs: Handling Application Publishing and Why There is Only One ISO for Winows 10
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. A couple of FAQs around handling application publishing and why there is only one ISO for Windows 10 Q. If I publish applications with Remote Desktop Session Host can I enable file type associations? Dept - Terminal Services A. Yes.
FAQs: PowerShell Errors; Billing Data in Azure; Password Changes on Azure AD Accts
Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions. Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email. A selection of FAQs related to error handling in PowerShell, viewing billing data in Azure and understanding password change restrictions for replicated Azure AD accounts. Q. I want to run a PowerShell command and suppress any errors. What is the best way to do this? Dept - PowerShell A.
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