what did you learn today? (part 2)
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I would have loved to do this in our office, sadly our primary LOB app won't even successfully install under WINE. Since that won't work (and the vendor was supposed to give us the new web UI version but pivoted and made that cloud only before official release), it doesn't matter what else may or may not work under Linux.
And because of our customizations (we have a source license) there's no way to replicate our changes in the cloud version of the product (includes calls to Python scripts and other external programs on the server), never mind the way we have it integrated with other services on-prem, in some cases with direct database access.
So Windows 11 it is, as new machines come in and stuff gets upgraded when Win 10 EoL/EoS finally happens.
We have a couple customers in a similar situation and they use hVDI from us to run their LOB app and then they run Mac Books primarily.
I can tell Broadcom cares about me and everyone who is still using VMware.
They know I'm worried about the price increases, the lack of information about anything, about not having any support options when I'm oncall (because I can't fucking login at all to Broadcom support), about all the products that they're discontinuing.
So in their majesty they've decided to give me something to take my mind off everything - a new VMSA! Welcome VMSA 2024-0012, where if an attacker is on the same network as your virtualcenter they can own it with a single packet. None of this logging in nonsense, either, unauthenticated remote code execution is what all the in crowd want.
They know I'm worried about the price increases, the lack of information about anything, about not having any support options when I'm oncall (because I can't fucking login at all to Broadcom support), about all the products that they're discontinuing.
So in their majesty they've decided to give me something to take my mind off everything - a new VMSA! Welcome VMSA 2024-0012, where if an attacker is on the same network as your virtualcenter they can own it with a single packet. None of this logging in nonsense, either, unauthenticated remote code execution is what all the in crowd want.
TIL if you remove IE from a terminal server w/ DISM it will break the everloving fuck out of QuickBooks.
moosemaimer
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Not sure the exact version update, but they did FINALLY patch IE out of Quickbooks. And there's some registry fuckery you can do to repoint ie.exe to launch Edge instead, albeit with some error messages complaining about it, although QB will run (at least, the client).
Our QB server is officially now a historical repository, and we're running on a new program full-time. Opinions seem to be about 50-50 between "this is so cool, you can do X!" and "none of this works, how are we supposed to do Y?"
Our QB server is officially now a historical repository, and we're running on a new program full-time. Opinions seem to be about 50-50 between "this is so cool, you can do X!" and "none of this works, how are we supposed to do Y?"
Working with support now, but something is defintiely broken w/ Enterprise 24 as it won't even try to activate. Even put IE back and it still won't fucking activate. I fucking hate them so much.
Well, turns out that what happened is a known thing that Enterprise apparently just does and you have to do some Konami Code BS to pull up a window that'll let you put in an activation code like activating windows by phone back in the day.
Quickbooks (and Intuit) is in a super frustrating twilight zone of 'Hey, QB is kinda broken... heck, leave it. We want them to get on the cloud subscription version anyway.' Hey, you realize the cloud version can't really properly import all the files and doesn't support all the features of the old version and you still have to support the old one for years to come so you're losing tons of money on support costs and customer exodus? 'Oh... uh.. yeah. Well, screw it. Subscriptions will make up all that. We'll just raise the price.'
That's a bad day for every person trying to call 911. Potentially really really bad.
For sure. Boston Fire among other departments have also failed back to telling people to use the fire boxes to call them.
moosemaimer
Ars Scholae Palatinae
I can't remember exactly if/how much of that system $lastjob was responsible for, but GOD DAMN do I not miss those days. A worst-case scenario here is "the fileserver is down, make it be up."
Apparently the SPLA version of Office LTSC/2021 can only activate with a MAK and not w/ ADBA/KMS. Which is wonderfully confusing because they issue you both a MAK key and a KMS key in the VLSC.
E: turns out you can use the non SPLA version and it'll happily activate with ABDA against the KMS key in the VLSC.
E: turns out you can use the non SPLA version and it'll happily activate with ABDA against the KMS key in the VLSC.
Everything is badly broken in the IT world right now. Broadcom, Oracle, Cisco, Adobe, and Microsoft, which probably impacts 99% of the Fortune 500, are all on an intense enshitifaction binge along with Sen Palpatine -level of licensing. The products are all getting worse, service and support are nonexistent, and prices are skyrocketing.
Competitors aren't given much of a chance due to idiotic patent laws and toothless antimonopoly legislation. It's depressing.
Is it just me, or were things in a much better place 10-15 years ago?
Competitors aren't given much of a chance due to idiotic patent laws and toothless antimonopoly legislation. It's depressing.
Is it just me, or were things in a much better place 10-15 years ago?
VMWare production support 10 years ago was great. 5 years ago business critical support at 100k a year was a dumpster fire.
We had a ticket open with Microsoft for 6 months because an exchange mail rule wasn't working the way Microsoft's documentation said it should, after 6 months they said they didn't know and because we didn't have premier support they were closing the ticket.
We had a ticket open with Microsoft for 6 months because an exchange mail rule wasn't working the way Microsoft's documentation said it should, after 6 months they said they didn't know and because we didn't have premier support they were closing the ticket.
extending beyond the 500 you have various flavours of BUSL appropriation/re-appropriation/PE there's a customer to be squeezed.
TIL that SmartScreen appears to be broken in Server 2016. Works fine in 2019 and 2022. And strangely I'm seeing very little about this being reported.
With access or a support session? Because I'm not seeing the same in our environment. But we also host ours on-prem so there may be a version difference too.,
Well it's SmartScreen, the invisible malware checking thing built into Windows. Needed to install some software on a few different servers, got "SmartScreen can't be reached right now" warnings on the 2016 boxes but not the others.
Me this morning after finally resetting my Broadcom support login after intentionally not using it to let the dust settle: "Huh not bad, Okta Verify, cool our entitlements are all here"
Me later this morning trying to grab vCenter 8: "What the fuck why is it just spinning? Refreshing doesn't help? Oh look it says no products found"
I see.
Me later this morning trying to grab vCenter 8: "What the fuck why is it just spinning? Refreshing doesn't help? Oh look it says no products found"
I see.
I too waited a bit to login there again and when I went to download some updates for their latest security faceplant in vCenter, I was able to login (after about 13 redirects) and then 'we need more info before we can let you download the free patch update for a very heinous security problem we told you to come here to fix.'
They asked for location data and helpfully suggested that I was in Albania (street address and all) and pre-populated some ridiculous phone number from yet another country. I'm guessing some of their databases got completely munged during the scramble so they really have no idea who I (and many others) really might be.
Thankfully I am not paying them anything substantial, just riding out the last developer package we paid for at work. I think we will be trying out Proxmox again and have already moved a few things to Hyper-V and KVM. VMWare/Broadcom can't possibly come out of this whole thing with anything less than a whole chicken farm of egg on their faces. A business blunder for books to be written about.
They asked for location data and helpfully suggested that I was in Albania (street address and all) and pre-populated some ridiculous phone number from yet another country. I'm guessing some of their databases got completely munged during the scramble so they really have no idea who I (and many others) really might be.
Thankfully I am not paying them anything substantial, just riding out the last developer package we paid for at work. I think we will be trying out Proxmox again and have already moved a few things to Hyper-V and KVM. VMWare/Broadcom can't possibly come out of this whole thing with anything less than a whole chicken farm of egg on their faces. A business blunder for books to be written about.
I can finally see my entitlements are there, but I can't look at them because I don't have access. Which means I can't download esxi 8 or vCenter 8 either to get a project rolling even though I am fully licensed for it. Support ticket open for a month on this issue. Originally I couldn't even see them. /sigh
Not sure how messed up things are for you but can you do demo licenses for what you need and at least get started? I think you can get evaluation licenses for some things at least.
No company, I can't return the bad parts since you are making me send them to Madagascar by way of Texas. So they haven't even been replaced yet.
luckily, we have a great rep who will smooth it out for us.
luckily, we have a great rep who will smooth it out for us.
Maybe. I can't get the bits at the moment either though. I just need to call support again and try and get the damn bits. I have the license numbers as I downloaded them before the switch over.
I still can't login at all to the Broadcom site.
I regenerated my account when I got the Broadcom email, verified I could login, and then waited for the Tsunami changover to occur.
Changeover occurred and I tried logging in, and it doesn't even recognise my account at all.
I passed this up the chain to the person negotiating with Broadcom so that we could pay them money and got an inside contact.
I've emailed roughly once a week and get back (paraphrased) "I'm doing what I can but your account is screwed and nothing can be done at this time".
Oncall has verily luckily been quiet.
I regenerated my account when I got the Broadcom email, verified I could login, and then waited for the Tsunami changover to occur.
Changeover occurred and I tried logging in, and it doesn't even recognise my account at all.
I passed this up the chain to the person negotiating with Broadcom so that we could pay them money and got an inside contact.
I've emailed roughly once a week and get back (paraphrased) "I'm doing what I can but your account is screwed and nothing can be done at this time".
Oncall has verily luckily been quiet.
TIL that people think it's reasonable to:
Predictably, the above leads to actually important alerts being missed with alarming regularity...
- send alerts every hour for a certificate expiration that is 30 days in the future
- send alerts every hour for a supposed issue that is not in fact actionable
- permanently mute alerts because they don't have time to address them today
Predictably, the above leads to actually important alerts being missed with alarming regularity...But think about how you can inflate your case closure numbers! ITS THE METRICS! PLAY THE GAME! WIN EMPLOYEE OF THE QUARTER!!!TIL that people think it's reasonable to:
How does anyone live like this?
- send alerts every hour for a certificate expiration that is 30 days in the future
- send alerts every hour for a supposed issue that is not in fact actionable
- permanently mute alerts because they don't have time to address them today
"Working and closing 384 tickets in a single day, employee of the quarter goes to Vince-RA!!!!!" ...... "Please clap?"
That is some impressive dust. Do they not have filters on their HVAC system?