Salaries (Europe only) - IT 2026

role:

salary:

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experience/scope:

benefits:

https://redd.it/1ryr9gu
@r_systemadmin

IT Contract work

Company i worked for for the last 23 years was acquired by another company last October. after endless meetings to transfer knowledge they are finally ready to fully take over the environment. My current official role is IT Director but i see myself more of IT Manager/sysadmin jack of all trades ... After having a meeting yesterday with head of IT for the new company, they proposed contract work on a monthly basis (no long term commitment). Needed time is 5 hours per month. New company is based in Austria and I'm based in Canada. The ask is following:

1. what is appropriate dollar amount per hour to ask?

2. does month to month contract makes sense or should i insist on something longer, perhaps minimum 6 month commitment?



https://redd.it/1ryu1qh
@r_systemadmin

M365/EXO Error creating new resource mailbox (Cannot convert a primitive value to the expected type)

It seems I can't create new resource mailboxes (room or equipment calendar) in M365 EXO. I'm seeing the error:

"Error executing request. An Azure Active Directory call was made to keep object in sync between Azure Active Directory and Exchange Online. However, it failed. Detailed error message: Cannot convert a primitive value to the expected type 'Edm.Int64'. See the inner exception for more details." etc. DualWrite (Graph) RequestId: xxx The issue may be transient and please retry a couple of minutes later. If issue persists, please see exception members for more information."

Well, this hasn't worked for hours now. Anyone seeing this? We're pure EXO shop, no on-prem Exchange.. I assume mailbox creation events should be visible in Purview audit log, but nothing there, not even errors.

I should note that modifying existing resources works fine. For example, changing display name for a resource changes it in Entra too, I can see 'Microsoft Substrate Management' process doing its job.

Nothing relevant in M365 admin center service health section... I'm in north EU.

https://redd.it/1rytbmw
@r_systemadmin

Excessive Authentication Prompts after applying KB5078752

Anyone else seeing this? We applied KB5078752 to our domain controllers on Monday evening and starting Tuesday we're seeing users getting password prompts, generally from Outlook. The prompts would generally indicate a locked out account but this is not the case. It doesn't seem to be all users but certainly a large portion of them. We're running a hybrid Exchange environment.


No stale Kerberos tickets, no cached bad credentials. We're at a loss here as of now.

https://redd.it/1ryv6rd
@r_systemadmin

Difficulty communicating with C-level traveling in China. Any ideas?

We currently have a C-level role traveling in China who weve lost contact with a few days ago.

Originally they were able to use Teams per normal but a few days in they lost access to all MS systems. From there we were able to coordinate getting WeChat setup using internal messaging in an app we develop, but after a day of communication that way it appears they have lost access to that internal system and to WeChat as well. There's word that they were banned from wechat but Im not sure how that got back to us.

They are supposedly returning in a few days and barring some form of foul play these sort of trips will likely be a regular occurence moving forward.

We've had some critical payroll related communication get held up because of this, resulting that payroll will be a full week late, presuming no foul play and them returning on time to approve it.

We're US based, any ideas for keeping some sort of communication channel alive on subsequent trips?

Edit:

The issue affecting payroll is unusual, and it would normally not have been a problem for them to be out of communication. We're hit with both simultaneously which is what is causing the pressure here.

Edit 2:

From what I gather from this thread, communication using a US based SIM should work. We believe they left their US phone at home and got a temp once they landed, but that is speculation at this point with the lapse in communication. Even so, from what it sounds like most channels should still normally work and there must be something else going on. Since discussion has hyper-focussed on the payroll issue, which is a seperate problem we're addressing, and less so on the communication issue, I'm flairing this resolved.

https://redd.it/1ryirwn
@r_systemadmin

What are you using to remote control computers?

Hello

We're a company of about 400 people. We don't have a proper solution in place to remote control (see and control the screen) of the user computers.

We've been using Quick Assist but it's a pain in the ass if you need to do anything as admin.

TeamViewer is a no go because it supports unattended access.

We need to be able to push it with Company Portal to multiple PCs.

What are my fellow system admins using to get Service Desk onto other people's computers?

https://redd.it/1ryzrdi
@r_systemadmin

How bad is the laptop supply chain?

For the past several weeks, I absolutely cannot find AMD Ryzen 370 or 375 laptop chips -- for example, configurations with those CPUs have completely disappeared from the lenovo.com store. We also cannot get our normal VARs to ship those chips.

Some other configurations are still available, but prices seem to have gone up significantly.

We have a resorted to buying small quantities whenever we find a sale. Pretty inefficient, but we are saving the business money.

I'm curious if you've seen similar things, especially in larger Enterprises? We are relatively small and do not have strong relationships directly with the OEMs.

https://redd.it/1ryzea5
@r_systemadmin

Azure Outage?

Anyone else having issues connecting to Azure VMs or having host pools dropping and coming back up constantly?

https://redd.it/1ryz7en
@r_systemadmin

Slow opening Start Menu on Windows Server 2025 Terminal Servers fixed with registry key

So this has been annoying some of us Citrix and Terminal Server admins using Windows Server 2025: The Start menu takes a few seconds to open the first time after logging in. A user on the Citrix subreddit (all credit to him for not giving up and then sharing the solution for free) got a solution from Microsoft support using a registry key. I've already tried it, and the response time is much better now:

>Path: HKLM:\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\StartMenu
Value: PrelaunchOverride
Type: REG_DWORD
Data: 1

Hope this is helpful for some of you too.

https://redd.it/1rz2u2d
@r_systemadmin

Am I Getting Fucked Friday, March 20th 2026

Brought to you by r/sysadmin 'Trusted VAR': u/SquizzOC with Trusted Telecom Broker u/Each1Teach1x27 for Telecom and u/Necessary_Time in Canada

PMs are welcome to answer your questions any time, not just on Fridays.

This weekly thread is here for you to discuss vendor and service provider expectations, software questions, pricing, and quotes for network services, licensing, support, deployment, and hardware.  

Required Info for accurate answers:

* Part Number
* Manufacturer/vendor
* Service Type and Service Location (DM Service Location)
* Quantity (as applicable)

All questions are welcome regarding:

* Cloud Services - Security, configurations, deployment, management, consulting services, and migrations
* Server configs
* Storage Vendor options, alternatives, details,
* Software Licensing - This includes Microsoft CSPs
* Single site and multi-location connectivity – Dedicated internet access, Broadband, 5G
* Voice services- SIP, UCaaS, Contact Center
* Network infrastructure - overlay software, segmentation, routers, switches, load balancing, APs
* Security - Access Management, firewalls, MFA, cloud DNS, layer 7 services, antivirus, email, DLP….
* POTS replacement lines

https://redd.it/1rz0uci
@r_systemadmin

Leaving MSP life for internal IT. Same work, twice the pay

I’m wrapping up my last couple weeks at an MSP and just accepted an internal senior infrastructure role.

What’s bothering me isn’t even the move itself it’s the pay gap. The new role is offering almost twice what I’m making now… for essentially the same responsibilities.

At the MSP, I’ve been handling infrastructure, security, client environments, training new hires; all the usual “this is definitely more than your title” type of work. You stay busy, you get good exposure, but the compensation never really catches up to what you’re actually doing.

Then you interview somewhere internal and realize this is just normal pay on the other side. I’m not even trying to complain, it just puts things into perspective. MSPs are great for learning, but it’s hard to ignore how long you can sit there underpaid while taking on more and more responsibility.

Anyway, looking forward to the change and finally being able to focus on one environment instead of reacting to a new fire everyday.

https://redd.it/1rzd9gu
@r_systemadmin

Thoughts on self managing MS365 Business Premium security for 2-4 business users without an IT background myself?

Long story short, I'm a CPA firm owner and am going to pay a consultant a 1 time fee to set up all that Business Premium has to offer (Autopilot, InTune, Email Encryption, SharePoint set up, Backups for everything, Endpoint/Defender protection). I've shopped MSPs and prices are $200/month/user+ and I don't know that I'll get a ton of value from this in the short immediate term. Definitely something I will 100% hand off once I'm at 4+ users and have more revenue growth.

I consider myself pretty tech savvy on the personal side but business security is a bit outside my depth and obviously higher stakes. Is the Business Premium suite and built in device management tools/file and email security and monitoring for employees sufficient for a very small business to self manage once set up professionally? Or does an MSP make sense due to security concerns?

https://redd.it/1rzfavu
@r_systemadmin

Enabling Microsoft managed Secure Boot toggle on devices without latest BIOS updates

I've been hoping that this specific question would be covered on the hundreds of AMA's for this topic but so far it hasn't (unless I missed one). But, I understand that the device needs to be on a minimum BIOS version for everything to work properly because the proper certs aren't included in older ones. We are in the process of verifying and updating endpoints to BIOS versions that meet this requirement but not everyone has been taken care of yet.

My question is, if I enable the Microsoft managed SB Cert Update toggle in Intune, it will update the cert on devices with the latest BIOS, but what happens to those devices not up to date yet? Do I need to wait until I get everyone updated before flipping that switch or will it just throw EVID 1801 until they get the new BIOS?

I seem to recall reading something about doing one before the other could potentially get you into a situation where you end up replacing the new cert with old somehow and not getting the latest (I know I butchered that explanation but this cert thing is tricky to wrap my head around).

https://redd.it/1rz3uq0
@r_systemadmin

Those in non profit tell me if im paranoid

Small IT team. Manager basically says I have the job . 2 weeks go by I assume im not hired. Someone not the alleged boss says they want to bring me in, ok. Then week later says offer pushed back. Then a week later says they need asap but not perm but contract so I can work asap.

I wont lie. I likely fucked up every interview ive had (5 total since july) because im bad at interviews (also I just given generic responses given i dont know what their environment is like for help desk).

I am about to lose my house so I grabbed a short contract which is asset management and deploy aka warehouse. This shit takes a heavy toll on my disabled body. Basically open laptop boxes label ajd repack
For shipping.

Now this job wants me to stop what im doing(guaranteed checks) to start asap as a contract .

Red flags are burning for me, saying this non profit cant pay me as permanent
Am I wrong? I feel like I cant burn my current gig for a bs likely short non profit (both are same pay just non profit os permanent with bennies).

Fml.

https://redd.it/1rzirkz
@r_systemadmin

GPO structure, best practices and pitfalls, and guidance

A long time ago I worked for a company who had amazing GPO's and now I'm trying to recreate it. The company I'm doing this for has zero GPO's and is fully Azure. They have DC's in Azure VM running to manage and maintain all servers and host pools (which is quite alot)

The previous admin did not really use GPO's and was always manually configuring regkeys and language and other stuff.

So company.old had a really great philosophy regarding GPO's, which lines up with the best practices somewhat, a baseline GPO for computer/user wide settings which need to always be set (for instance outlook caching, default apps, languages, timezones etc....) and specific GPO's for really specific scenario's (password policy, naming conventions, shared drives, etc...)

All GPO's were set at the root level (except RDS GPO's) and scoped with security groups and item-level targeting. It worked amazing, no GPO logon delays, no conflicting issues.

IMO, best practices mess up the GPO governance and maintance, it makes it so complex to place GPO's in specific OUs, disable inheritance, lock OUs etc.... I want it scalable

This is an example of our OU structure and how I would like the GPO to be set:

GPO & OU structure

Drive mapping GPO example

Drive mapping GPO delegation

This works, but is complex in setup, I need to specifically scope the com group of the servers I want to apply it to in delegation (same as domain computers = read), otherwise, due to the loopback processing on the AVD servers, it will also get applied on those computers. (User & Computer policies). So the srv - global uc - baseline does not have the domain computers as read, but I'll need to add every srv group to this GPO delegation (or add the GPO to every OU within each business unit and new business unit.

Maybe I'm overcomplicating since I'm doing a deep dive in this, and want to have it perfect and scalable, and am putting too much weight into it, but I would prefer it only to be assigned on one place and work with the least amount of modifications on the delegation



https://redd.it/1rzmfk3
@r_systemadmin

Network Beginner

I haven't been working in IT for very long, and I think I might have misunderstood something. I have a Unifi Cloud Key and a Layer-2 switch (not from Unifi) at one location. Now I want to set up multiple subnets and a firewall there.

That’s why I bought the following:

\- Unifi Gateway Lite

\- Ubiquiti Pro Max (Layer-3)

I bought the Ubiquiti Pro Max because I thought the switch had to be Layer-3 capable so I could configure multiple subnets on a single switch. But I’m realizing now that’s actually wrong, isn’t it? If I understand correctly, does that mean the Gateway Lite handles inter-VLAN routing, rather than the switch?

https://redd.it/1rzoyp7
@r_systemadmin

VMOBackup Down?

I just setup 2 new clients here for M365 Backup as I can't justify telling them to buy a Synology with current hardware prices and I have seen VMOBackup previously recommended. Well about 6AM EST or 3 hours ago I went to check the backup history and I am getting a timeout. Now a little after 9AM EST DNS I am still getting a timeout. I've also tried via VPN and a remote jump box to rule out firewall issues on my side. The DNS appears to resolve to a single EC2 instance. Is this normal for VMOBackup and if so who do you recommend?

Edit: It is finally back online now.

https://redd.it/1rzrbqy
@r_systemadmin

Anyone using Graph /beta sign-in logs in prod?

Hey all,

I’m looking at using Graph /beta (sign-in logs) in prod and wondering if anyone here has real experience with it.

How reliable is it actually? any missing data, throttling, or weird limits you ran into? also does it match what you see in portal / log analytics or not?

I’m also thinking to skip Event Hub and just poll Graph (cheaper 😅) and build some detection logic on top — curious if anyone tried that and how it worked out.

are you using it as main source or more like best effort?

any quick thoughts would help a lot, thanks!

https://redd.it/1rztx2g
@r_systemadmin

Dell Precision 5680/5690 Crashing on Teams Meetings All Drivers & BIOS Updated, Still No Fix

Users with Dell Precision 5680 and 5690 laptops are experiencing a critical issue: when joining a Microsoft Teams meeting, the system crashes completely.
The laptops become unresponsive, and the only way to restore functionality is by performing a hard reset (power reset).
We have already performed several troubleshooting steps, including updating all drivers and the BIOS. Unfortunately, none of these actions have resolved the issue.
At this point, we have tried nearly all standard solutions, but the problem persists.
Does anyone have experience with this issue or suggestions on how to resolve it? Any insights would be greatly appreciated.

https://redd.it/1rzxnku
@r_systemadmin

Thinking of consulting on the side

Not sure if it’s “general discussion”.

I’ve been in IT about a decade, and I have a CISSP now. Employed full time. I’ve been kicking around the idea of consulting on the side and starting an LLC. Especially with the new HIPAA Security Rule proposals, perhaps the local mom and pop dentist need help understanding the requirements? Could do an SRA, for example.

Or maybe the burger joint owner watched too many movies is worried about the hackerz?

Not an MSP, just consulting so no ownership.

Has anyone done something like this? Am I crazy?

https://redd.it/1s00ovb
@r_systemadmin