AZ-801 resources - Configuring Windows Server Hybrid Advanced Services Updated: 2024

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When was the last time you checked to make sure your Microsoft account is as securely configured as possible? It’s probably been a while, but properly securing this account should only take a few minutes. Or perhaps more, if it’s in an insecure state.

I’m writing about this now because I’ve spent much of the past several days writing a new chapter for the Windows 11 Field Guide that covers passkeys, security keys, and other related topics. In writing this, I decided to finally do something I’ve wanted to do for years and comprehensively detail how one can secure their Microsoft account. And because I really sweated this one, I ended up rewriting it several times until I felt that it was both approachable and complete, and you’ll be able to see that for yourself soon when it goes live in the book (including the version on this site) soon.

But online account security is tricky. Among the issues, most people have used their Microsoft account for years, and so these accounts were configured in any number of ways, ignored for long periods of time, and they probably include out-of-date information and various misconfigurations. And many might not be taking advantage of the latest passwordless capabilities in this account and on the PCs and devices they use. So I figured it might be worth discussing this outside of the book too.

So let’s get this done. If you’re not already using Microsoft Authenticator or a similar authenticator app on your phone, your Microsoft account is probably in tough shape. So get that installed first: There are versions for Android and iPhone.

Next, open the Microsoft account website using a web browser on your PC and navigate to the Privacy dashboard, authenticating as necessary.

This page provides a Safety review wizard provides a useful high-level overview of where your account is at from a security perspective (among other things). So click the “Get started” under “Make sure you’re safe and secure.” Safety review appears.

In this first step, ensure you have a valid email address and phone number (or two valid email addresses) configured for account recovery. If you don’t, click the appropriate “Add or remove” link and fix them as needed. When both are correct, click “Next” to display the second step, “Secure sign-in.”

This should read “You’re using Microsoft Authenticator.” If it doesn’t, we’ll fix it in a moment.

Either way, you can close or step through the remainder of the Safety review wizard: The next three steps involve Microsoft Edge marketing, more safety resources, and your Microsoft 365 privacy settings (which may be worth examining since you probably have no idea how that’s configured either). When you’re done, navigate to the Microsoft account Security dashboard.

Then, click “Get started” under “Advanced security options” to view the Additional security options page.

Here, you will see your password and the list of the additional ways you previously configured to sign in or verify your identity. If you don’t see “Send sign-in notification” or “Enter a code from an authenticator app” listed here, you need to configure Microsoft Authenticator as an additional sign-in and verification method. But before doing that, look at the “Two-step verification” option in the “Additional security” section below that list.

If this option is set to “On” and you are using Microsoft Authenticator (or a different authenticator app), you’re good to go: Your Microsoft account is in a secure passwordless configuration in which you can sign in or verify it on your PCs, devices, and on the web without having to ever type your password. That is, you don’t just have additional ways to sign in to or verify your Microsoft account, you have configured it to always require an extra step each time you do need to sign in to that account or otherwise verify that account.

If this option is set to “Off,” you will enable it now. So click “Turn on” under “Two-step verification.” An explanatory screen appears.

Click “Next” after you’ve read that. If you aren’t using Microsoft Authenticator (or a different authenticator app), you will be prompted to install that app on your phone and sign-in to your Microsoft account in the app. Do so, and step through the prompts you see in the mobile and in the web browser on your PC. Microsoft will provide you with an account recovery code, and when you return to the Additional security options page on the Microsoft account website, there will be two changes (or one, if you were already using Microsoft Authenticator): There is a new “Send sign-in notification” item in the additional sign-in and verification methods list and Two-step authentication will be set to “On.”

With two-step verification enabled, your account is now more resilient against phishing and other account-related attacks And because you use the Microsoft Authenticator app on your phone to handle any Microsoft account-related sign-in prompts from any and all of your devices, that authentication will be easy and secure: Your phone is protected with biometrics, ideally, or at least a PIN. And that means that a hacker with your username and password won’t be able to get into the account.

Since you’re doing this now, you should also take this time to review your the other security features associated with this account. My recommendations include:

Remove “Text a code” from your additional sign-in and verification methods list. Text-based authentication codes are insecure and easily intercepted. Note that you may need to add additional sign-in and verification methods before you can remove this option (I added a second email account.) Also, removing this option does not remove your phone number from your account, which you can verify on the Your profile page (linked below). But it does remove it as an account recovery option.

Review your profile and account info to make sure it’s up-to-date. On the Microsoft account website’s Your profile page, make sure that your name, date of birth, country or region, language, regional formats, billing and shipping addresses are all correct and up-to-date. Then, do the same for your email address(es) (which include the accounts you use to sign in and any aliases you configured) and phone number(s), removing any that are out-of-date (or, in the case of email aliases, never used) and adding any new email addresses or phone numbers as needed.

Consider going truly passwordless. Microsoft is at the forefront of the push to a passwordless future, and it has allowed Microsoft account holders to remove the password from their account since 2021. This configuration change won’t impact your account usage day-to-day in the slightest—you will continue to authenticate using Microsoft Authenticator, for example–but it may still feel weird. (I haven’t removed the password from my primary MSA, but then I haven’t changed that password in several years either. I just never need it.) You can remove the password on the Microsoft account website’s Additional security options page: It’s under “Additional security.”

The more out-of-date your account is, the more time this will take. But it’s worth doing, and important to get it right. And please let me know if any of this is unclear or, God help us all, incorrect or incomplete. It’s important that I get this right as well.

Microsoft recently announced an upgraded version of its developer tools, version 17.8.0, introducing significant improvements to Microsoft.CodeCoverage tools. Notably, the update includes the introduction of the dotnet-coverage tool. Additional enhancements comprise new report formats, an auto-merge tool, performance upgrades, and improved documentation.

A notable addition to the set of tools is dotnet-coverage, which carries various roles, including collecting code coverage for console and web applications, merging coverage reports, instrumenting binaries, and calculating code coverage for individual tests. This new tool significantly contributes to a more complete and efficient code coverage analysis of Microsoft.CodeCoverage.

One notable improvement is the expanded platform compatibility of the tools, achieved through the incorporation of static instrumentation. Regarding that, Microsoft's code coverage tools initially relied on dynamic instrumentation for the Windows platform.

Later versions introduced static code coverage collection, pre-instrumenting libraries on disk for universal .NET platform support. Dynamic instrumentation remains the default, but on non-Windows systems, static is activated, avoiding redundant dynamic instrumentation. Developers control the method through configuration flags.

Furthermore, the code coverage report formats have experienced a comprehensive overhaul to integrate with auxiliary tools such as ReportGenerator. While the default .coverage format remains unchanged, several new formats have been introduced, including Binary (Default) in .coverage format for Visual Studio Enterprise, Cobertura in .cobertura.xml format compatible with Visual Studio Enterprise and text editors, and XML in .xml format for use with Visual Studio Enterprise and other text editors.

A new feature introduced in this update is Auto-Merge for solutions. Executing the command dotnet test --collect 'Code Coverage' at the solution level now automatically consolidates code coverage data from all associated test projects. This process simplifies the management of code coverage across complex solutions.

Addressing a performance concern before the 16.5 release, there has been a notable improvement in the efficiency of code coverage report collection. Previously, this process substantially restrained test execution speed.

With the identified issue rectified, developers can now benefit from an impressive 80% increase in performance, making the code coverage analysis more efficient and less intrusive. The readers can take a look at benchmark results which are available at the official announcement post.

To get started with the most recent features and optimise build processes, developers need to incorporate the latest stable packages into test projects.

<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.NET.Test.Sdk" Version="17.8.0" />
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.CodeCoverage" Version="17.8.0" />

With the note that solutions without C++ code, developers can enhance speed and reliability by deactivating native code coverage using the specified flags in the runsettings configuration.

<EnableStaticNativeInstrumentation>False</EnableStaticNativeInstrumentation>
<EnableDynamicNativeInstrumentation>False</EnableDynamicNativeInstrumentation>

Lastly, the latest documentation improvements can be found in the updated GitHub repository. The repository provides users with a comprehensive information resource and samples for an improved documentation experience.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has released Version 1.0 of Secure Configuration Baselines for Microsoft 365, providing policy configuration recommendations that align with CISA’s requirements and risk tolerance levels while still being easily adoptable.

CISA held several pilots for the Secure Cloud Business Applications project at federal agencies to test guidance and recommended configurations in practice and target advanced cloud security practice adoption, according to two agency officials.

“These pilots demonstrated not only how critical these configuration baselines are to enhancing cybersecurity, but also how valuable it is to have comprehensive guidance to drive cross-organizational adoption in line with enterprise risk management,” said Michael Duffy, associate director of CISA, and Chad Poland, SCuBA product manager. “All participating agency teams were able to adopt a higher security baseline for their M365 email and cloud environments with existing resources- expertise they already had available.”

They added that the application of M365 Secure Configuration Baselines is needed in the cyber threat environment and requires a relatively low level of cyber team effort.

CISA also launched the ScubaGear tool for assessing organizations’ M365 services against agency-recommended policies. It works to reduce the effort to evaluate tenant configurations of agencies by generating as-is report to serve as a starting point.

The tool has been downloaded more than 4,000 times since its launch, helping organizations boost their cybersecurity posture.

Are you bored out of the regular Taskbar design that you get in Windows 11 and want something new and refreshing? If the answer is yes, we have a very cool customizing tool for you that allows you to alter the look and feel of your Taskbar. In this post, we are going to talk about Taskbar Styler which lets you customize the Windows Taskbar.

Taskbar Styler is a mod that alters your taskbar and new design elements to it. To install it, you need to download and install Windhawk. For that, open a browser of your choice, navigate to windhawk.net, and then click on the download button. Once the app is downloaded, open File Explorer, go to Downloads, and run the installer. Wait for it to install, and once done, open it.

To install the Taskbar Styler mod, you have to go to Explorer, search “Taskbar Styler” and then install it. Now that Taskbar Styler is installed, let us start configuring it.

To access the Settings of Taskbar Styler, go to Home > Installed Mods, click on Details associated with Taskbar Styler, and then Settings. You will see the following style options when you go to the Settings tab.

1. Control Styles
2. Resource Variables

Let us discuss them in detail.

1] Control Styles

Control Styles allows you to target a specific object Taskbar and then style it the way you want. It has two sections, Target and Style. You are supposed to enter the name of the object in the Target field and then the way it should be formatted in the Style one. If you want to add a new style, just click on Add new item in the Style section. To target a new object, click on Add new item in the Target section.

Styles are defined as Style=Value, e.g., Height=5. Use := to employ XAML syntax, such as Fill:=<SolidColorBrush Color=”Red”/>. To apply a style only when a visual state matches, use Style@VisualState=Value.

Now, let us discuss a few design examples that you can try.

To configure the corner radius of a button in the Taskbar

• Target: taskbar:TaskListButton
• Style: CornerRadius=0

To configure the running indicator’s size and color

• Target: taskbar:TaskListLabeledButtonPanel@RunningIndicatorStates > Rectangle#RunningIndicator
• Styles:
  • Fill=#FFED7014
  • Height=2
  • Width=12
  • Fill@ActiveRunningIndicator=Red
  • Width@ActiveRunningIndicator=20

To make the background gradient of the Taskbar list buttons

• Targets:
  • taskbar:TaskListButtonPanel > Border#BackgroundElement
  • taskbar:TaskListLabeledButtonPanel > Border#BackgroundElement
• Style: Background:=<LinearGradientBrush StartPoint="0.5,0" EndPoint="0.5,1"><GradientStop Offset="0" Color="DodgerBlue"/><GradientStop Offset="1" Color="Yellow"/></LinearGradientBrush>

You need to open two Target fields for two different values, but the Style option will have the same value.

To hide the Start button

• Target: taskbar:ExperienceToggleButton#LaunchListButton[AutomationProperties.AutomationId=StartButton]
• Style: Visibility=Collapsed

If you notice that no effects are being applied to your taskbar, you need to do a refresh. A refresh will force your Taskbar to apply the changes we made earlier.

Read: How to make Windows 11 Taskbar look like Mac Dock

2] Resource variables

Resource variables define size and padding for various controls. Here are several examples:

• TaskbarContextMenuMargin: The margin between the taskbar and the start button context menu.
• ContextMenuMargin: The margin between the taskbar and the notification area context menu.
• MediumTaskbarButtonExtent: The width of the taskbar buttons.

Note: After making the changes to Control Styles and/or Resource Variables, make sure to click on Save Settings.

If you want to see what happens to the source code when you make all these changes, just go to the Source Code tab. However, you won’t be able to make changes to that code.

In case a new update is rolled out, and you want to install it, just click on the Update button. Whereas Disable and Remove buttons are used to stop and delete the tool, respectively.

So, if you like this tool, go to windhawk.net to download and install it.

TIP: Our portable freeware Ultimate Windows Tweaker lets you tweak the settings of your Taskbar, Thumbnails, File Explorer, and more!

Read: Best Free Microsoft Store Apps to Customize Windows 11

Can you customize Windows 11 taskbar?

Yes, you can customize the taskbar on a Windows 11 or 10 computer. Microsoft allows you to make basic changes such as changing the background or accent colors of the taskbar in Settings. You can open Settings by Win + I, go to Personalization > Taskbar, and then make changes to the Taskbar. However, if you are not satisfied with the options mentioned there, use Winhawk’s Taskbar styler to tailor your Taskbar to your taste.

Read: Best free Taskbar Customization software for Windows

How do you customize your desktop in Windows 11?

To customize the desktop in Windows 11, you need to go to Settings > Personalization. There you will see various objects to customize such as Background, Colors, Taskbar, and Fonts. 

Also Read: How to customize and change Chrome Color and Theme.

Jedi Survivor is crashing on Windows devices with an EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION error for some users. This issue is frustrating as Jedi Survivor is a paid game. In this post, we will see what to do if you get the Jedi Survivor EXCEPTION ACCESS VIOLATION error. 

Start Wars Jedi: Survivor has crashed! Out apologies for crashing amidst your killing/surviving spree. Please provide us with details so that we may fix the issue

Unhandled Exception: EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION memorizing address 0x0000000000000000

If you get a Jedi Survivor EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION error, follow the solutions mentioned below to resolve the issue.

1. Disable Nahimic Service
2. Verify game files
3. Delete the config folder
4. Download the latest version of Microsoft Visual C++ and DirectX
5. Update Graphics Drivers
6. Disable XMP
7. Reinstall the game

Let us talk about them in detail.

1] Disable Nahimic Service

Nahimic is a gaming audio software developed by A-Volute, a French company. However, due to a bug, the game is having issues with this service. Disabling the service will not turn off audio, you will still be able to hear, but it will just disable nuanced sound enhancements you have made to your audio profile. To disable Nahimic Service, follow the steps mentioned below.

1. Open Services from the Start Menu.
2. From the list, search for Nahmic service, right-click on it, and select Properties.
3. Set the Startup type to Disabled,  then click on Stop and Apply > OK.

See if this helps.

2] Verify game files

Next up, we need to verify the integrity of game files and make sure that they are not corrupted. Every launcher gives an option to verify and repair the game files, so, just follow the steps mentioned below to remove any possibility of corrupted game files.

Steam:

1. Open Steam.
2. Go to the Library.
3. Right-click on the game and select Properties.
4. Click on Local Files > Verify the integrity of game files.

Epic Games:

1. Open the Epic Games launcher.
2. In the Library, go to your game, and click on three dots.
3. Click on Manage > Verify.

EA App:

1. Open EA App.
2. Go to the Library and then to the Star Wars game.
3. Click on the three dots and then on Repair.

3] Delete the config folder

If you have made some changes to the configuration of the game, it gets stored in the Config folder. However, incorrect configuration can make alterations to the game that stop it from launching on your particular system; not just that, the config folder is also vulnerable to corruption. Therefore, we will delete the folder and expect the game to launch easily.

To do the same, go to Path-To-Steam-Library\steamapps\common\Jedi Survivor\SwGame and delete the config folder.

4] download the latest version of Microsoft Visual C++ and DirectX

Microsoft DirectX is a set of APIs that are used to handle tasks related to game programming and video. We need to have the latest version of DirectX to run Star Wars Jedi Survivor. So, go ahead and update DirectX, and along with it, update Microsoft Visual C++.

5] Update Graphics Drivers

Outdated graphics drivers cause compatibility issues, which causes most games to crash. Hence, you should update the integrated and dedicated graphics drivers to the latest version and then run Star Wars. You can install the latest version of the driver from either the manufacturing website or Device Manager.

6] Disable XMP

Star Wars Jedi is a demanding game, and it needs a lot of RAM. We have noticed that on some AMD systems, XMP or Extreme Memory Profile is not allocating the required memory. So, you need to disable XMP on your system and then try.

7] Reinstall the game

If all else fails, your last resort is to uninstall the game and install a fresh copy of the same. This will allow Windows to recreate all the files and folders that could have been corrupted.

Hopefully, this will do the trick for you.

How to fix Unhandled Exception Exception_Access_Violation?

When a program attempts to access a protected memory address, an EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION memorizing address error may occur. To resolve it, you can first restart the computer and then start a program. Otherwise, disable Data Execution Prevention for that particular program and see if it helps.

Read: Fix Steam Corrupt Update Files error on Windows PC

How do I fix Jedi Survivor crashing on startup?

If Jedi Survivor is crashing on startup, first check if there is any demanding application running alongside it. You need to terminate any application that’s taking a lot of your resources. If that doesn’t work, repair the game files using the launcher as instructed earlier.

Also Read: Why are games crashing on my PC?