Microsoft 365 Community Conference: A Beacon for Builders, Innovators, and Icons of Intelligent Work
You’re passionate about what you do, and we’re passionate about empowering your potential. Microsoft 365 Community Conference - is your chance to keep up with AI, build game-changing skills, and take your career (and business) even further. With over 200 sessions, workshops, keynotes, and AMAs, you’ll learn directly from the experts and product-makers who are reimagining what’s possible in the workplace. Conference Details Join us in Las Vegas April 21-23. 2026 for the premier Microsoft 365 community event. We want to help you get the most out of the tools you use every day, so we’re bringing back the conference you know and love—with even more opportunities to learn, connect, and level up. Here’s what you can expect: Meet one-on-one with the people who create Microsoft products—ask questions, share feedback, and discover real-world solutions Explore Microsoft’s latest product updates and learn about what’s on the horizon Build and sharpen skills you can use immediately to be more productive, creative, and collaborative with the Microsoft tools you use every day Grow your network, dive deep, and have fun with the best community in tech How to Register Register today and get ready to transform the way you work. Save $150 with our exclusive customer code SAVE150. https://aka.ms/M365ConfWebsite Explore Sessions and Workshops There’s plenty of breadth—and depth—to the learning opportunities at the Microsoft 365 Community Conference. No matter your role or experience level, we've got something for everyone! https://aka.ms/M365ConfSessionsWebPage Meet the Speakers Our lineup of speakers includes some of the brightest minds behind the most powerful Microsoft innovations. You’ll hear from experts like: Jeff Teper | President, Collaborative Apps and Platforms Charles Lamanna | President, Business Apps and Agents Vasu Jakkal | Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Security Business Rohan Kumar | Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Security, Purview & Trust The Microsoft 365 Community Conference is more than an event. It’s the gateway to what’s next for your career, community, team, customers, and business—and for work itself. Claim your front-row seat to the future of work today!
NPS network policy with multiple Client ip4 addesses
I have a wireless policy on my NPS server with the primary wireless controller added using a Client IPv4 address entry in the policy. I want to add the backup controller as well but it seems it is adding it as a and condition. I need it to be added as an or condition when the primary controller is unreachable. How can I add multiple Client ip4 addessess in a Network policy with an or condition? An and condition would require both to be reachable. thanks.
Zero Trust DNS is Here: Elevating Enterprise Security on Windows 11
When attackers target an enterprise today, they rarely begin with a blunt smash-through-the-front-door intrusion. They begin quietly by resolving a domain. In most cases, modern malware, phishing kits, and human-operated ransomware operators rely on DNS as the entry point to discover infrastructure, beacon command-and-control, and exfiltrate data. Thus, it is becoming even more important to secure DNS to help protect against increasingly frequent, complex, and expensive cyberattacks. Enterprises have invested heavily in Protective DNS services with cutting-edge threat intelligence to identify and block malicious domains in real time but if an endpoint device can simply bypass them, the entire Zero Trust posture is weakened. Today, Microsoft is closing that gap. Introducing Zero Trust DNS (ZTDNS) We are excited to announce that Zero Trust DNS (ZTDNS) is now generally available on Windows 11 Enterprise and Windows 11 Education editions. ZTDNS is a new enterprise security feature in Windows that helps ensure DNS policy configured on the enterprise DNS server is enforced on the device. This is an important advancement for organizations working to enable that outbound connectivity on managed Windows devices aligns with enterprise authorization and policy. ZTDNS provides device-level enforcement of an enterprise’s DNS policy, in-box on Windows 11 helping ensure devices only communicate with destinations the organization intends. It doesn’t require installing and managing additional agents or maintaining a “best effort” block list on each endpoint device. With ZTDNS, the enterprise DNS resolver becomes the policy source of truth and Windows becomes the enforcement point. For more information, check out our documentation. This can be particularly useful for organizations in highly regulated industries, or where compliance with NIST standards is of paramount importance. Without ZTDNS, the system DNS client could be pointed to a network-provided malicious DNS server, which can resolve unapproved domains and return incorrect resolutions to redirect the system to attacker’s endpoint. If the malicious DNS server uses encrypted DNS, IT administrators won’t be able to analyze the DNS traffic to prevent or mitigate potential attacks. Applications can use their own DNS client to completely bypass system policies. Also, system remains vulnerable to in-network attackers. ZTDNS protects against these attack vectors by mandating the use of Windows DNS client and only sending encrypted DNS queries to the trusted DNS servers. Since ZTDNS blocks all outbound connections and local name resolution by default, the system is protected against in-network threats. Why is ZTDNS needed? In enterprise scenarios, DNS is no longer just a lookup mechanism but a policy decision point. However, without device-level enforcement, attackers can hijack device DNS to: Redirect DNS queries from the device to a malicious or compromised DNS server Use their own encrypted DNS client and bypass system DNS client Bypass DNS completely with direct IP connections In such cases, organizations lose the ability to control which network destinations the endpoint is allowed to reach even if a Protective DNS service is used. ZTDNS addresses this by only allowing outbound connections to IP addresses that were resolved by the trusted DNS server for a query issued by the Windows DNS client. More importantly, it achieves this without terminating end-to-end encryption. How does ZTDNS work? ZTDNS integrates the Windows DNS client with the Windows Filtering Platform to help enforce domain-name-based network lockdown using encrypted DNS. ZTDNS is off by default and can be configured on a Windows 11 device with an enterprise-approved DNS over HTTPS (DoH) or DNS over TLS (DoT) server. When enabled, ZTDNS blocks all outbound IP-based connections by default and only allows outbound connections to IP addresses resolved by the trusted DNS server or those added to the manual exception list by the IT administrator. It mandates the use of encrypted DNS (DoH or DoT) and only trusts the DNS resolutions initiated by the Windows DNS client and answered by the trusted DNS server to create outbound allow exceptions. This helps provide a strong, enforceable control that aligns with Zero Trust principles: all destinations are untrusted by default unless specifically permitted. In a nutshell, when configured and enabled, ZTDNS will have the following effects on your Windows 11 device: Encrypted DNS enforcement (DoH or DoT) Default deny for outbound IPv4 and IPv6 traffic Dynamic allow listing of IP addresses returned by trusted DNS servers Static allow listing of IP addresses approved by the IT administrator via manual exceptions Centralized logging of permitted and blocked connections Deploying ZTDNS ZTDNS is available in the latest builds of Windows 11 Enterprise and Windows 11 Education. To deploy ZTDNS, enterprises can configure and enable it via: netsh commands JSON configuration We are also actively developing a Microsoft Intune experience for ZTDNS and we will share more information when the details are available. For detailed deployment guidance, check out our official documentation. Join Me at Microsoft Ignite 2025 For customers attending Microsoft Ignite 2025, please join us at session BRK258: Inside Windows Security, from client to cloud to learn more about ZTDNS. Alternatively, you can also visit the Windows Resiliency Initiative & Windows Security booth to discuss ZTDNS in depth. Securing the Present, Innovating for the Future Security is a shared responsibility. Through collaboration across hardware and software ecosystems, we can build more resilient systems secure by design and by default, from Windows to the cloud, enabling trust at every layer of the digital experience. The updated Windows Security book is available to help you understand how to stay secure with Windows. Learn more about Windows 11 and Copilot+ PCs. To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.Applying DevOps Principles on Lean Infrastructure. Lessons From Scaling to 102K Users.
Hi Azure Community, I'm a Microsoft Certified DevOps Engineer, and I want to share an unusual journey. I have been applying DevOps principles on traditional VPS infrastructure to scale to 102,000 users with 99.2% uptime. Why am I posting this in an Azure community? Because I'm planning migration to Azure in 2026, and I want to understand: What mistakes am I already making that will bite me during migration? THE CURRENT SETUP Platform: Social commerce (West Africa) Users: 102,000 active Monthly events: 2 million Uptime: 99.2% Infrastructure: Single VPS Stack: PHP/Laravel, MySQL, Redis Yes - one VPS. No cloud. No Kubernetes. No microservices. WHY I HAVEN'T USED AZURE YET Honest answer: Budget constraints in emerging market startup ecosystem. At our current scale, fully managed Azure services would significantly increase monthly burn before product-market expansion. The funding we raised needs to last through growth milestones. The trade: I manually optimize what Azure would auto-scale. I debug what Application Insights would catch. I do by hand what Azure Functions would automate. DEVOPS PRACTICES THAT KEPT US RUNNING Even on single-server infrastructure, core DevOps principles still apply: CI/CD Pipeline (GitHub Actions) • 3-5 deployments weekly • Zero-downtime deploys • Automated rollback on health check failures • Feature flags for gradual rollouts Monitoring & Observability • Custom monitoring (would love Application Insights) • Real-time alerting • Performance tracking and slow query detection • Resource usage monitoring Automation • Automated backups • Automated database optimization • Automated image compression • Automated security updates Infrastructure as Code • Configs in Git • Deployment scripts • Environment variables • Documented procedures Testing & Quality • Automated test suite • Pre-deployment health checks • Staging environment • Post-deployment verification KEY OPTIMIZATIONS Async Job Processing • Upload endpoint: 8 seconds → 340ms • 4x capacity increase Database Optimization • Feed loading: 6.4 seconds → 280ms • Strategic caching • Batch processing Image Compression • 3-8MB → 180KB (94% reduction) • Critical for mobile users Caching Strategy • Redis for hot data • Query result caching • Smart invalidation Progressive Enhancement • Server-rendered pages • 2-3 second loads on 4G WHAT I'M WORRIED ABOUT FOR AZURE MIGRATION This is where I need your help: Architecture Decisions • App Service vs Functions + managed services? • MySQL vs Azure SQL? • When does cost/benefit flip for managed services? Cost Management • How do startups manage Azure costs during growth? • Reserved instances vs pay-as-you-go? • Which Azure services are worth the premium? Migration Strategy • Lift-and-shift first, or re-architect immediately? • Zero-downtime migration with 102K active users? • Validation approach before full cutover? Monitoring & DevOps • Application Insights - worth it from day one? • Azure DevOps vs GitHub Actions for Azure deployments? • Operational burden reduction with managed services? Development Workflow • Local development against Azure services? • Cost-effective staging environments? • Testing Azure features without constant bills? MY PLANNED MIGRATION PATH Phase 1: Hybrid (Q1 2026) • Azure CDN for static assets • Azure Blob Storage for images • Application Insights trial • Keep compute on VPS Phase 2: Compute Migration (Q2 2026) • App Service for API • Azure Database for MySQL • Azure Cache for Redis • VPS for background jobs Phase 3: Full Azure (Q3 2026) • Azure Functions for processing • Full managed services • Retire VPS QUESTIONS FOR THIS COMMUNITY Question 1: Am I making migration harder by waiting? Should I have started with Azure at higher cost to avoid technical debt? Question 2: What will break when I migrate? What works on VPS but fails in cloud? What assumptions won't hold? Question 3: How do I validate before cutting over? Parallel infrastructure? Gradual traffic shift? Safe patterns? Question 4: Cost optimization from day one? What to optimize immediately vs later? Common cost mistakes? Question 5: DevOps practices that transfer? What stays the same? What needs rethinking for cloud-native? THE BIGGER QUESTION Have you migrated from self-hosted to Azure? What surprised you? I know my setup isn't best practice by Azure standards. But it's working, and I've learned optimization, monitoring, and DevOps fundamentals in practice. Will those lessons transfer? Or am I building habits that cloud will expose as problematic? Looking forward to insights from folks who've made similar migrations. --- About the Author: Microsoft Certified DevOps Engineer and Azure Developer. CTO at social commerce platform scaling in West Africa. Preparing for phased Azure migration in 2026. P.S. I got the Azure certifications to prepare for this migration. Now I need real-world wisdom from people who've actually done it!
Allow VMs attached to internal switch on hyper-V win2k19 access Internet
Hi, I have 4 VMs attached to an internal switch with IPs 10.10.0.*, assigned 10.10.0.1 to the switch. One of the NICs on the host has the 192.168.1.70 which I shared its connection with the internal switch but I am not able to browse internet from the VMs. What can be missing? ThanksAllow Hyper-V VM attached to Internal Switch access internet and host folders
I have Created an internal switch and attached it to 4 VMs (for a lab setup) on a win2k19 hyper-V host. The hyper-V is in the my local home subnet 192.168.0.1. The 4 VMs are configured with following IPs and gateway. VM1 10.10.0.10 -DefaultGateway 10.10.0.1 VM2 10.10.0.11 -DefaultGateway 10.10.0.1 VM3 10.10.0.12 -DefaultGateway 10.10.0.1 VM4 10.10.0.13 -DefaultGateway 10.10.0.1 In the lab document, it is not indicated how/where to assign the 10.10.0..1 IP? When I check the vEthernet (Private Network), It has "DHCP" for IP and got my local DNS IP. Checking its status, I see DHCP Enabled: Yes Autoconfiguration IPv4 Address: 169.254.32.39 IPv4 Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0 IPv4 Default Gateway: Not sure where this 169.254.... IP comes from? I tried assigning the IP 10.10.0.1 to this but it fails. In fact I need to allow VMs to access some host folders as well as internet to download some Microsoft tools. Thanks for your help
Get-ClusterExcludedAdapter cmdlet
Following link https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/failoverclusters/get-clusterexcludedadapter?view=windowsserver2025-ps when execute Get-ClusterExcludedAdapter cmdlet with error below Get-ClusterExcludedAdapter : The term 'Get-ClusterExcludedAdapter' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again. At line:1 char:1 + Get-ClusterExcludedAdapter + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (Get-ClusterExcludedAdapter:String) [], CommandNotFoundException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException same for cmdlet Add-ClusterExcludedAdapter (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/failoverclusters/add-clusterexcludedadapter?view=windowsserver2025-ps) Does anyone know why these commands are not available?
Can I connect a DELL Wyse 3040 Thin Client to an Azure Virtual Desktop WITHOUT WMS?
The organisation I work for has moved away from WYSE 3040s with an on-premise RDS farm. We now use laptops, docks and Microsoft 365/SharePoint the whole thing. Intune management too. This is working fine but I have had "an idea". I now have a box of some 30 old thin clients. WYSE 3040 Thin OS 9.1.4234 Can I use a WYSE 3040 to connect straight to an Azure Virtual Desktop? Reason: We have some volunteer staff who come in to the office for just 2-3 hours one day a week. They do basic processing of physical paper forms, updating spreadsheets, entering invoice details etc etc, boring but essential tasks. They dont need anything fancy. BUT ... We (a charity) cant afford to buy them a laptop for 2-3 hours a week. So I have set up an AVD successfully, hoorah for me. I can access the AVD no problem using the Windows App on a Windows laptop or on a Mac device. Can I point a WYSE device straight at the AVD WITHOUT using Wyse Management Suite? The old WMS is on the local server which will be decommissioned. I dont want to use that. When I do a factory reset on a WYSE and go to configure Windows Virtual Desktop it does not seem to do anything. It does prompt me for MFA and does show our tenant welcome page background image so it is doing "something" Has anyone done this successfully?
