LLMs' knowledge cutoff date is a significant issue, often resulting in outdated responses. Some frontier models can browse the web, but they frequently skip this ability because they think they can handle things on their own. Bringing in an MCP server that can search the web helps the AI stay updated and assist it when struggling with a problem. Tavily is a research search engine designed to summarize online content for AI models. In this post, I will guide you through installing the Tavily MCP server on Windows. Installing on a Mac follows a similar process.

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Playwright is an open-source framework by Microsoft for automating web browsers to perform end-to-end testing, scraping, and UI interactions across Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit. The Playwright MCP server lets AI agents like GitHub Copilot control a web browser using Playwright’s automation capabilities. Microsoft introduced support for MCP in Visual Studio Code 1.99 (March 2025), enabling tools like the Copilot Agent to connect with external services. In this post, I explain how to install the Microsoft Playwright MCP server in VS Code for the GitHub Copilot Agent.

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Since Group Policy changes remain a cornerstone of centralized Windows system management, admins should know which settings have been introduced or changed before an OS upgrade. Windows 11 adds not only policies for its latest features but also extends configuration options for many existing components.

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In March 2025, the release of VS Code version 1.99 introduced support for Anthropic's Model Context Protocol (MCP) in GitHub Copilot's Agent Mode. This open standard is now backed by leading AI companies such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and OpenAI. MCP provides a standardized framework that allows AI models to interact with external tools and data sources. In this post, I will guide you on how to install, start, stop, activate, and deactivate MCP servers. You will also learn to configure settings in mcp.json and settings.json, as well as import MCP servers from Claude Desktop, Cline, and Roo Code.

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DNSSEC is a security standard that protects the Domain Name System by ensuring only authorized servers can respond to DNS queries. Microsoft's DNS server has supported DNSSEC zone signing for some time. However, to take full advantage of DNSSEC, client systems must also be configured, typically via Group Policy, to request authentic responses.

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This article presents a PowerShell script leveraging the Azure OpenAI API, enabling you to execute PowerShell commands using natural language. A key benefit compared to comparable AI tools like ShellGPT is the ability to customize the script.

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EventSentry v5.2 brings powerful new security and monitoring enhancements, including compromised password checking in ADMonitor, local inventory visibility for file shares and user groups, and centralized Sysmon management. Additional upgrades like process tracking improvements, spoof detection, and threat scoring help security teams detect threats more effectively.

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In Visual Studio Code release 1.99, Microsoft introduced GitHub Copilot’s Agent mode, a feature that closely resembles functionalities previously offered by Cursor, Cline, and Roo Code. Agent mode lets Copilot examine the codebase, find relevant files, make edits, and autonomously run and debug code. In this post, I’ll compare Agent mode with Ask and Edit mode and outline how Agent mode facilitates vibe coding—the automation of writing code.

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ScriptRunner is a PowerShell-based IT automation platform that streamlines, delegates, and monitors various management tasks through a no-code web interface and a comprehensive script library. It ensures secure operations with strict user and system access controls, comprehensive policies, and full-activity auditing. Version 7.2 introduces approval workflows for script execution, enabling administrators to configure authorization groups and track pending requests, adding a governance layer beneficial for organizations with strict compliance requirements.

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The AI tools for the Command Line Interface (CLI) we discussed on 4sysops connect the terminal to AI models. For example, the Warp terminal includes AI tools designed to help admins working on a CLI. The Windows CLI MCP Server does the opposite. If you missed it, the Model Context Protocol (MCP) is a new open standard for AI agent communication with software services created by Anthropic and backed by OpenAI, Amazon, and Microsoft. With MCP, your primary interface is the chatbot, and for the Windows CLI MCP Server, shell access is an additional tool the AI can utilize. The Windows CLI MCP Server supports PowerShell, CMD, Git Bash shells, and remote SSH.

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Have you ever received the notice stating, "Additional security updates can be applied with ESM Apps" after logging into an Ubuntu Linux machine? Despite working with Ubuntu for 15 years, this was the first time I encountered it. Since this was a relatively new installation of Ubuntu 24.04, I was perplexed as to why I couldn't install all security updates using apt upgrade. After some investigation, I discovered I was using Ubuntu Standard, while only Ubuntu Pro qualifies for all security updates. I felt annoyed and deceived because my system had no uncommon packages, and everything I installed came from the Ubuntu repository. This means that, in most cases, a fresh installation of the latest Ubuntu Linux LTS release does not receive all critical security updates.

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Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2019 is a standalone product that allows you to virtualize your environment at no cost. In this post, you will learn about the options available to upgrade to the paid Windows Server 2025 Hyper-V role.

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Zapier is a cloud-based automation platform that lets users connect and automate workflows between thousands of web services without coding. Recently, Zapier announced support for Anthropic's MCP standard. MCP is an open protocol that allows AI models to interact with external tools, data sources, and services, and it's now also supported by OpenAI, Microsoft, and Amazon. In this post, I share my experiences with Zapier's MCP server.

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Cyberattackers are evolving their tactics and developing more sophisticated ransomware. Advanced AI-driven security solutions are needed to provide the defense mechanisms to detect and remediate ransomware threats. Ransomware Protection Plus is a new solution from ManageEngine that provides a multi-layered defense against ransomware.

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With Microsoft’s decision to deprecate NTLM (NT LAN Manager), it’s time to disable NTLM authentication on Windows Server 2025 and move toward more secure alternatives. NTLMv1 has already been removed in Windows Server 2025 and Windows 11, version 24H2, signaling the beginning of NTLM’s end. Given the protocol’s vulnerabilities—like pass-the-hash attacks—organizations should begin transitioning to stronger authentication methods such as Kerberos, the preferred protocol in Active Directory environments.

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AI enables administrators to adapt complex open-source projects easily to their environment. If the project is not hosted on GitHub or other version control platforms, it becomes tedious to merge your changes into the open-source software whenever the maintainer updates their project. The Bash script I discuss in this post uses Git to automate merging your code changes into a new version provided by the maintainer of an open-source project lacking version control.

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Terminal Chat enables the integration of GitHub Copilot, Azure OpenAI, and OpenAI's AI services into Windows Terminal Canary. Through this experimental feature, you can request assistance from an AI for your PowerShell commands and directly execute the AI's recommendations in the terminal.

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In my previous post, I explained how to use the OpenAI library to augment your AI-powered terminal. Today, we will build on this enhancement and encourage two AIs to collaborate on IT tasks in the Warp terminal. Warp includes strong AI capabilities, though it currently only supports models lacking search features. As a result, you're using models with outdated IT knowledge. With a few tweaks, you can make Warp AI prompt GPT-4 Search to bypass the cutoff date of the Warp models.

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Domain controllers rely on DFS Replication (DFS-R) to synchronize the contents of SYSVOL and Netlogon across the network. This process ensures that group policy objects (GPOs) and logon scripts remain consistent across all DCs. While troubleshooting DFS-R issues can be complex, several built-in tools can help diagnose and resolve problems efficiently.

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