Dude where's my PFE?

I was a Premier Field Engineer (PFE) for Microsoft.

The dude is out

Dude here, I've left Microsoft, again. I don't get notified when comments are left here as a result....

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 05/21/2018

Disable Bluetooth in Windows 10

Enterprise administrators sometimes ask, how do I prevent Bluetooth file transfers or radio...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 03/15/2017

Office 365 and Office non-365 troubleshooters

I admit it, I got lost trying to format the reddit post (some comments nsfw) correctly with all the...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 10/03/2016

Honored by the activity on Quora.

Thanks everyone for the kind comments! Link is the image...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 09/15/2016

MDT 2013 "no properties are available for this object" when viewing task sequence properties.

It was brought to my attention by a young pad-wan learner tonight that if you follow the...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 09/12/2016

Man about town

Jeffs world, party time, excellent Hi some random stuff of late... Firstly, I had a head concussion,...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 04/15/2016

How to trigger a full memory dump based on a user mode process exception

Scenario: You have something kernel related triggering crashes of user mode processes (you think)....

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 11/04/2015

Windows 10 VDI Optimization Script

Hello party people! Dude here. Carl Luberti has worked some scriptastic magic on WIndows 10 to make...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 10/21/2015

How To: Collect ETL/WPT tracing diagnostics when you can never logon to the host.

First, guess who's back?! Me! I left Microsoft of my own accord last year. I came back. I wrote...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 05/13/2015

Today’s (Cloud) Tip…Performance Guidance for SQL Server in Windows Azure Virtual Machines

Post courtesy of Evan Basalik One of the most resource intensive applications you can run on Windows...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 07/16/2013

Another (Cloud) Tip…Federated vs. Managed Users

By Evan Basalik Office 365 authentication has the concept of two types of users – federated and...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 07/08/2013

Today’s (Cloud) Tip… Same sign-on vs. Single sign-on

By Evan Basalik Customers can leverage Directory Synchronization (DirSync) to keep their local...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 07/08/2013

(Cloud) Tip Of The Day

This tip of the day is cloud yo!  Straight from Evan Basalik, an Senior Support Escalation...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 06/27/2013

How to stand up a MediaWiki on Windows Server 2012 (10 easy steps with pictures)

Step 1. Setup Windows Server 2012 (see my build a lab series for that if you don’t know how)....

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 06/24/2013

Building up a learning lab based on Windows 8 and Hyper-V, Part VI

So in our previous installment, we were at Server Manager, ready to configure our pristine Domain...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 06/23/2013

Building up a learning lab based on Windows 8 and Hyper-V, Part V, the triumphant return

When we last left our “how to build a Hyper-V based lab” blog post, which is here by the way, we...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 06/23/2013

Windows 8 Tip of the Day: How to map a drive in Windows to a Skydrive folder or root.

  1. Open a document in SkyDrive – such as an excel xls or word doc 2) File->Save As (Note folder –...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 06/04/2013

Windows 8 Tip of the Day, Storage Spaces Explained

From Robert Mitchell! Storage Spaces is functionality built into Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 05/31/2013

Windows 8 Tip of the Day–Sysinternals Updates!

Today’s Tip… From Robert Mitchell! A number of SysInternals tools were recently updated.  For...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 05/29/2013

How to redirect Serial Ports in Windows Server 2012 RDS/VDI

This tip came to me from a question someone posed internally that we had to find an answer for by...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 05/06/2013

New books on Hyper-V Networking and Hyper-V Storage! Yay!

Optimizing and Troubleshooting Hyper-V Networking - https://shop.oreilly.com/product/0790145383068.do...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 04/23/2013

Building up a learning lab based on Windows 8 and Hyper-V, Part IV

Installing your Virtual Machine Windows Server 2012 Virtual Machine This is a multi-part series that...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 04/18/2013

Building up a learning lab based on Windows 8 and Hyper-V, Part III

Modifying a Virtual Machine This is a multi-part series that starts here:...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 04/18/2013

Building up a learning lab based on Windows 8 and Hyper-V, Part II

Creating a Virtual Machine This is a multi-part series that starts here:...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 04/18/2013

Building up a learning lab based on Windows 8 and Hyper-V, Part I

Hello folks, the Dude here, helping you make a learning lab based on a single machine. From this all...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 04/15/2013

Hot off the presses, get it now, the Windows 8 VDI optimization script, courtesy of PFE!

Hats off to Carl Luberti!  So, here it is, without further ado….its’ time to start Optimizing!...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 04/09/2013

Windows 8 Tip o the Day!–Windows Defender All Grown Up

Today’s Tip… by Robert Mitchell! While Windows Defender has been available for a while (first...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 04/04/2013

Windows 8 Tip of the Day–Understanding Startup Items

Todays Tip from Robert Mitchell… First for Windows RT, As part of the effort to improve battery life...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 03/18/2013

Xperf for the layman, performance analysis unchained, Windows Assessment Toolkit revealed.

If you have been following along in performance land the last year or three, you’d hear about...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 03/15/2013

How to deploy 2775511 using SCCM, by the Gris!

https://blogs.technet.com/b/michaelgriswold/archive/2013/03/13/kb2775511-deployment-for-the-sccm-admi...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 03/14/2013

Download this KB now!

And test it first please. An enterprise hotfix rollup is available for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 03/12/2013

Windows 8 Tip of the Day–Startup and MSConfig

Another gem by Robert Mitchell!   Today’s Tip… I remember back in NT4 the only way to track...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 03/08/2013

Windows 8 Tip of the Day, SMB protocols

Today’s Tip…brought to you by Robert Mitchell! SMB 2.0 was first introduced in Windows Vista/Windows...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 03/07/2013

Quickly give someone a file in Windows 8

So Pieter Wigleven (a Dutch PFE that came to make some content with me in Seattle this week) had...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 02/22/2013

Windows 8 Tip of the day - How to recover ~6GB of space on your Microsoft Windows Surface

Here is how you can recoup ~6GB of space on your 32GB Surface. Here is what you need to do: (edited...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 01/30/2013

20 minute delay deploying Windows 7 on 802.1x? Fix it here!

Someone mentioned to me that he has a 20 minute delay deploying Windows 7 to 801.1x EAP...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 01/24/2013

The network impact of a Windows 8 RT device on your network.

Edited! So someone had this question.  It’s a good one.  I didn’t know the answer so I...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 01/22/2013

Windows 8 Tip of the Day–Bitlocker PIN

Today’s tip… While it still requires administrative privileges to configure BitLocker, with Windows...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 01/22/2013

Windows 8 Tip of the Day–Bitlocker

Today’s tip… Previously, BitLocker encryption has been an ‘all or nothing’.  Either a volume...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 01/21/2013

How to get Best Practice Analyzers to collect with PowerShell!

This update comes to us from Chuck Timon, a SSEE in CTS…   In PowerShell, run – Get-BPAResult...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 01/18/2013

Windows 8 Tip of the Day

Today’s tip… To quickly start your Windows8/Server 2012 machine - Bring up Charms (Winkey+I OR mouse...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 01/18/2013

Windows 8 Tip of the Day–NTFS changes in Windows 8

Good Morning Internet, todays tip of the day is on Windows 8 and NTFS changes made: There is a...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 01/11/2013

Tip of the Day for Windows 8!

A new blog series from the Great Robert Mitchell by way of the Dude! Who is Robert Mitchell you may...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 01/10/2013

The one I'm proud of

I did a few talks at TechEd (and TechReady for that matter) this year. And this is the one I was...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 12/13/2012

VDI RunAsRadio.com post

The dude did a recording on VDI for RunAsRadio with Richard Campbell.  Link below....

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 11/07/2012

Deconstructing the PFE VDI Optimization Script

Here we deconstruct the post that is located here: ...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 10/18/2012

The Microsoft Premier Field Engineer (PFE) view on Virtual Desktop (VDI) Density

For some, VDI is about density. How many guests can we stuff into a host with performance and user...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 10/15/2012

What does a good boot look like (aka, what should I be happy with)?

It’s a question I wasn’t prepared for in class last week, but one that made sense really.  For...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 10/14/2012

There and back again…a tale of XP performance tracing…

So back in the day, when Plug and Play was sort of a new concept and auto-negotiating network...

Author: Jeff Stokes Date: 09/19/2012

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