May232018May 23, 2018May 23, 20180Commentby Thomas Maurer
Windows Server 2019 Add Remote Access Role

How to install VPN on Windows Server 2019

Posted in DirectAccess, IT, Microsoft, Web, Windows, Windows Server, Windows Server 2019, Work

This blog post is a step by step guide how to install and configure VPN on Windows Server 2019. The blog post shows you how you can easily setup a VPN server for a small environment, branch office or for a hosted server scenario. This VPN (Virtual Private Network) server allows you to connect from remote clients or firewalls to the Windows Server.

I already did a similar post for other versions of Windows

To install VPN access to a Windows Server 2019, simply follow this step by step guide:

Read More

May182018May 18, 2018May 18, 20180Commentby Thomas Maurer
IT Camp 2018 Overview

Speaking about Azure Stack at IT Camp 2018 in Cluj-Napoca

Posted in Cloud, IT, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Azure Stack, Work

I am happy to announce that I will be speaking for another year at IT Camp in Cluj-Napoca Romania. This will be my third time I will be part of this amazing IT conference in Transylvania, this time for IT Camp 2018. In my session I will speak about Azure Stack and provide you with information how you can leverage Azure Stack in your datacenter.

IT Camp 2018 Speaker Thomas Maurer

ITCamp 2018

Azure Stack - Everything you need to know!

Microsoft released Azure Stack as a Azure appliance for your datacenter. Learn what Azure Stack is, what challenges it solves, how you deploy, manage and operate a Azure Stack in your datacenter. Learn about the features and services you will get by offering Azure Stack to your customers and how you can build a true Hybrid Cloud experience. In this presentation Thomas Maurer (Microsoft MVP) will guide you through the highly anticipated innovations and experience during the Azure Stack Early Adaption Program and Azure Stack Technology Adoption Program (TAP).

It will be again an amazing event with a lot of top speakers, a lot of fun and a lot of knowledge for networking. I hope I see you there!


May072018May 7, 2018May 8, 20180Commentby Thomas Maurer
Azure Kubernetes Service

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) – The best place to host your containers

Posted in Cloud, Containers, Docker, IT, Kubernetes, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Azure Stack, Virtualization, Windows Server

Microsoft today at Build 2018 announced that they will rename Azure Container Service (AKS) to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) manages your hosted Kubernetes environment, making it quick and easy to deploy and manage containerized applications without container orchestration expertise. It also eliminates the burden of ongoing operations and maintenance by provisioning, upgrading, and scaling resources on demand, without taking your applications offline.

  • Drastically simplifies how you build and run container-based solutions without deep Kubernetes expertise
  • Auto Update, auto scale
  • New capabilities integrated with dev tools and workspaces, CI/CD networking, monitoring tools, etc.
  • All included in the Azure Portal

Create Azure Kubernetes Service AKS

This will be a great services to run containerized workloads in a very simple manor and reduce management overhead.

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) will also be available on Azure Stack, as announced in the Azure Stack Roadmap update a couple of months ago.

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) on Azure Stack
Managed Kubernetes with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) on Azure Stack will make it even easier for Azure Stack users to manage and operate Kubernetes environments in the same ways as they do in Azure, without sacrificing portability. This new service features an Azure-hosted control plane, automated upgrades, self-healing, easy scaling, and a simple user experience for both developers and cluster operators. With Container Service, customers get the benefit of open source Kubernetes without complexity and operational overhead. This update applies primarily to Azure Stack users.

With AKS on Azure and Azure Stack. and other services like the Azure Container Registry, Docker for Windows, Windows Server and Hyper-V Containers, Visual Studio Team Services Integration for Azure and Containers, the Microsoft container story becomes very strong. It allows you to run your container workloads in a very simple CI/CD pipeline (VSTS), deployment on Managed Kubernetes (AKS) and deploy it where ever you need it, in the public cloud (Azure) or on-premise (Azure Stack).

Yes Microsoft still has ACS (Azure Container Service), which allows you to deploy different pre-configured container environments and orchestrators, like Docker Swarm, Kubernetes, DC/OS, for scalable deployments and management of containerized workloads.


May062018May 6, 2018May 6, 20180Commentby Thomas Maurer
Azure Storage Explorer

Microsoft quietly released Azure Storage Explorer 1.0.0

Posted in Cloud, IT, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Azure Stack, Web, Windows, Windows 10, Work

Microsoft quietly released Azure Storage Explorer 1.0.0 back in April. There was not a lot of noise about it, but it is great that this tool finally reached version 1.0. Azure Storage Explorer is a standalone app that enables you to easily work with Azure Storage data on Windows, macOS, and Linux. This works with Azure as well as Microsoft Azure Stack.

Azure Storage Explorer is an easy to use tool to manage Azure Storage types:

  • Access multiple accounts and subscriptions across Azure, Azure Stack, and the sovereign Cloud
  • Create, delete, view, and edit storage resources
  • View and edit Blob, Queue, Table, File, Cosmos DB storage and Data Lake Storage
  • Obtain shared access signature (SAS) keys
  • Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux

Version 1.0.0 brings some new features which were highly requested. Especially the shared account store with Visual Studio 2017 and the improved Azure Stack  integration are very welcome.

  • Enhanced authentication that allows Storage Explorer to use the same account store as Visual Studio 2017. To use this feature, you will need to re-login to your accounts and re-set your filtered subscriptions.
  • For Azure Stack accounts backed by AAD, Storage Explorer will now retrieve Azure Stack subscriptions when ‘Target Azure Stack’ is enabled. You no longer need to create a custom login environment.
  • Several shortcuts were added to enable faster navigation. These include toggling various panels and moving between editors. See the View menu for more details.
  • Storage Explorer feedback now lives on GitHub. You can reach our issues page by clicking the Feedback button in the bottom left or by going to https://github.com/Microsoft/AzureStorageExplorer/issues. Feel free to make suggestions, report issues, ask questions, or leave any other form of feedback.
  • If you are running into SSL Certificate issues and are unable to find the offending certificate, you can now launch Storage Explorer from the command line with the –ignore-certificate-errors flag. When launched with this flag, Storage Explorer will ignore SSL certificate errors.
  • There is now a ‘Download’ option in the context menu for blob and file items.
  • Improved accessibility and screen reader support. If you rely on accessibility features, see our accessibility documentation for more information.
  • Storage Explorer now uses Electron 1.8.3

May022018May 2, 2018May 2, 20182Commentsby Thomas Maurer
Surface Pen

Quick Windows Tip: Use the Surface Pen as remote for PowerPoint

Posted in Hardware, IT, Microsoft, Surface, Windows, Windows 10

As some of you may know, I am giving a lot of presentations using PowerPoint on my Surface Pro or my Surface Book.  And since I am using a Surface devices, I also added a Surface Pen to my setup. I can draw on my screen in meetings or to take notes. And the Surface Pen does to a great job inking, drawing and taking notes, especially when using Windows Ink on Windows 10.

A couple of weeks ago, I was presenting on the Microsoft Tech Summit Switzerland, and I realized that my USB clicker was empty. I could not find a battery replacement that quickly before my session started. Fortunately, I remember a new functionality Microsoft added a couple of weeks or months ago to PowerPoint and the Surface Pen. Since you can pair the Surface Pen with your computer to use some cool features in Windows 10, like starting apps by clicking the back of the Surface Pen, the Microsoft Office team took advantages of that.

Use the Surface Pen as a PowerPoint clicker

Surface Pen Bluetooth

To use the Surface Pen as a PowerPoint clicker, you just need to pair it using Bluetooth. When you are running Microsoft PowerPoint in Presenter Mode, you can simply start using the Surface Pen as a PowerPoint Remote. You can use your Pen as a clicker or as a remote for PowerPoint. If you are doing a presentation and you want to jump to the next slide just press the back of your pen once. If you want to jump back to the previous PowerPoint slide, just hold the button on the back of the Pen and PowerPoint will switch to the previous slide.

I know this is a pretty small feature, but it can turn out to be a very cool presentation saver!

If you want to know to set this up, just check the Microsoft Office support page: Use your digital pen as a slide-show clicker


Apr262018April 26, 2018April 26, 20180Commentby Thomas Maurer
encrypted messages in Outlook.com

Encrypt Mails in Outlook.com (or Hotmail)

Posted in Cloud, Home, IT, Microsoft, Office, Office365, Web, Windows, Windows 10

This is pretty cool! If you are an Office 365 Home or Office 365 Personal subscriber, Outlook.com (formerly known as hotmail.com or live.com) now includes encryption features that let you share your confidential and personal information while ensuring that your email message stays encrypted and doesn’t leave Office 365. This is useful when you don’t trust the recipient’s email provider to be secure.

So what does encrypt mean:

As an Outlook.com user with either an Office 365 Home or Office 365 Personal subscription, you’ll see the following:

  • Encrypt: Your message stays encrypted and doesn’t leave Office 365. Recipients with Outlook.com and Office 365 accounts can download attachments without encryption from Outlook.com, the Outlook mobile app, or the Mail app in Windows 10. If you’re using a different email client or other email accounts, you can use a temporary passcode to download the attachments from the Office 365 Message Encryption portal.
  • Encrypt and Prevent Forwarding: Your message stays encrypted within Office 365 and can’t be copied or forwarded. Microsoft Office attachments such as Word, Excel or PowerPoint files remain encrypted even after they’re downloaded. Other attachments, such as PDF files or image files can be downloaded without encryption.

If you want to know more about Encryption of Outlook.com E-Mails, check out the this support Page: Learn about encrypted messages in Outlook.com


Apr252018April 25, 2018April 25, 20180Commentby Thomas Maurer
Thomas Maurer Supercharging Hyper-V with quantum computing

Speaking at the Hyper-V Community + Hybrid Cloud Community Pre-Day in Germany

Posted in Cloud, Containers, Docker, Hyper-V, IT, Microsoft, Powershell, Virtualization, Windows, Windows 10, Windows Server, Windows Server 1709, Windows Server 1803, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019, Work

I already announced that I will be speaking at the Cloud & Datacenter Conference 2018 in Germany again this year. One day before the conferences starts there is a Pre-Day with the Hyper-V Community and Hybrid Cloud Community, where I will have another session. This session will purely focus on the latest and greats in Hyper-V.

Hyper-V Community + Hybrid Cloud Community Pre-Day

Supercharging Hyper-V with quantum computing

Okay, I am not really talking about quantum computing, but hey there are some cool features in Hyper-V you should definitely know about! In this session Thomas Maurer will talk about 10 hidden Hyper-V features everyone should know about. This covers different features for Hyper-V on Windows Server as well as on Windows 10. Be prepared for a lot of Demos!

The Speaking at the Hyper-V Community + Hybrid Cloud Community Pre-Day will take place on 14th May in Hanau Germany (Close to Frankfurt). I hope to see you there!



  • About

    Thomas Maurer

    My Name is Thomas Maurer. Microsoft MVP. Work as a Solutions Architect and Technology Lead for itnetX, a consulting and engineering company located in Switzerland. I am focused on Microsoft Technologies, especially Microsoft Cloud & Datacenter solutions based Microsoft System Center, Microsoft Virtualization and Microsoft Azure.

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