Microsoft 365: Microsoft shares a workaround for hanging/slow running Outlook

[German]Microsoft has already published a support article on June 19, 2023, which deals with a problem under Microsoft 365 in connection with Outlook. Outlook starts extremely slowly in certain situations and gets stuck in the startup logo. The cause is probably an unexpected switch from REST to MAPI.

Continue reading

Posted in issue, Office, Software | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Exchange Online: Updated requirements for SMTP relay as of November 1, 2023

Exchange Logo[German]Quick note for administrators who use Exchange Online as an SMTP relay to send bulk email. Microsoft is adjusting the requirements for using SMTP relay functionality accordingly as of November 1, 2023. The company made the announcement in a June 19, 2023 blog post.

Continue reading

Posted in Cloud | Tagged | Leave a comment

AI is when ChatGPT gives you "valid keys" for Windows 10/11

Windows[German]It's a little bit of fun that shows that Microsoft doesn't really have a handle on its AI solution ChatGPT (yet). What only Chinese bot farms have been able to do so far, could also be done with ChatGPT (or Google's Bard): Let em search valid product keys for activating Windows 10, Windows 11 (and possibly Office) from the Internet. Someone just tried this and it seems to have worked.

Continue reading

Posted in General, Software | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Cloud outages: Microsoft reveals details of DDoS attack by Anonymous Sudan/Storm-1359

[German]It was hacker attacks that brought Microsoft cloud services to their knees for hours on and off since June 5, 2023. My reports here on the blog that a hacktivist group called "Anonymous Sudan" claimed responsibility didn't turn out to be an airhead at the end of the day. I had cited information on a Post Incident Report For Microsoft 365 over the weekend that described some details and countermeasures. But there is also a publicly available blog post that confirms these attacks and gives details.

Continue reading

Posted in General | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Edge 114.0.1823.51

EdgeMicrosoft has already updated (after the Chrome security update) the Edge browser to version 114.0.1823.51 (security and bug fixes) on June 15, 2023 in the Stable and Extended Stable Channel. In the meantime, the release notes are online and state that the vulnerability CVE-2023-33145 is also closed. On June 13, 2023, version 109.0.1518.115 was patched to close the exploited vulnerability CVE-2023-307.

Posted in browser, Security, Update | Tagged | 2 Comments

Why ISL Online: Critical factors when choosing a remote desktop solution

[Sponsored Post]In the rapidly evolving IT world, choosing the right remote desktop software is critical for organizations that value security, ease of use and reliability. One provider of secure remote access that has been on the market since 2001 is ISL Online, which presents some considerations for choosing such software below. More ...


Office 365 (Current Channel, Build 16501.20210) can't print multi-pages of tasks

[German]Quick question to my blog readers who are using Microsoft 365/Office in the Current Channel. Are there any complaints that multi-page output is not possible when printing tasks (but not from calendars or mails)? I just received a user report, which I briefly introduce below.

Continue reading

Posted in issue, Office | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Windows 11 22H2: Windows Defender Application Control blocks programs, files, network drives, websites (June 2023)

Windows[German]To secure Windows, Microsoft recommends Windows Defender Application Control in enterprise environments. The last few days, however, this feature seems to cause issues due to an definition update. I have received reports that users "suddenly" could neither open files nor run programs. Even accessing network drives or opening Internet pages was no longer possible. They were told that the app was blocked by Windows Defender Application Control. It looks like the Microsoft Defender Security Intelligence Update version 1.391.1503.0 is the cause.

Continue reading

Posted in issue, Windows | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Microsoft's cloud outage was result of a DDoS attack

[German]Since June 5, 2023, there have been repeated problems with the availability of the Microsoft cloud and the services offered there. I had speculated in my blog posts that there might be an attack behind it, especially since a hacktivist group Anoynmous Sudan had claimed that. From Microsoft circles it was said uniso "nothing known". Now I have a Post Incident Report For Microsoft 365, that indicates, that there must have been DDoS attacks on Microsoft's cloud.

Continue reading

Posted in Cloud, issue | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Outlook 365 damages PDF and Office files since April 2023

[German]Short addendum from this week. I received a tip that Microsoft Outlook 365 has been constantly corrupting Office files – and probably also PDF documents – since April 2023. If you don't have a backup, you may lose attachments – deadly if you have to archive mails including attachments. Microsoft's assumption that this is related to a Windows update and was fixed in June 2023 on patchday is unfortunately incorrect. Here is an overview of the problem.

Continue reading

Posted in Cloud, issue, Office | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Firefox Update 114 enables DoH-this may cause issues

Mozilla[German]The days I noticed some comments in my German blog that users report issues with Firefox. The possible cause is the activation of DNS over HTTPS (DoH) and use of the Cloudflare DNS server, as one user told me.

Continue reading

Posted in browser, issue | 2 Comments