Sysadmins can't use Microsoft support resources
24 posts across 3 communities in the last 60 days; 88% from r/sysadmin.
“I can't find a link to it, but someone who worked at Microsoft as a developer once documented how it took in the Windows 7 days for a fix to propagate. It look weeks for a minor fix to navigate through internal protocols (various proposals, reviews, and build cycles) to get to a…”
“Working again. Def a problem on MS' end since the web-based activation started working as well, simulatenously.”
“Good luck getting a 1000+ person company, with some people having been in the business for 30 years working on Windows , to move to a Linux desktop. Back end of the house, no problem. You can replace most software with open source, .nix based alternatives most likely. But your…”
Several sysadmins express frustration with the diminishing availability of Microsoft support documentation and resources. They report needing to rely on trial-and-error, community blogs, and constant changes in procedures, making problem-solving difficult.
SOURCES (37)
“Learned this when O365 had an outage and wouldn't give credit. i think even now they're only claiming 99.9%. Good times /s [re: 99.9% uptime sounds great until you do the math: it allows 8h 46m of downtime a year, and your real number is…”
“Imagine, if you will, a new eDiscovery demand arrives. This one's pretty broad and vague so it's gonna be a pain in the ass. But, it's not the first time. These people are using Outlook, New Outlook, and God knows what other client. But, that shouldn't matter. This is an eDiscovery search. Server(Purview) side. But wait, they've got delegates assigned access to the target mailboxes all over the place. And New Outlook and phone mail clients put deleted items from the source ma”
“Good summary. The file sharing enabled by default in external Teams chats is the kind of change that silently breaks a security posture if nobody catches it in the message center.”
“This is more than 30 years ago at this point. Did a "register memory" and on an in production Netware 3.12 server with 30+ logged in users, most using an application with a brteive based database. Server locked up. Trashed the database.”
Ha! We tried to use it, then it was so awful to set up we used SMTP2GO.
“The other half of this that isn't being mentioned is training. Most people learn how to use Microsoft Office in school. You will spend a lot of time trying to teach people how to do something that "just worked" with the previous product, and there's a good chance the open source equivalent might not be able to do all of the things they need at all. Trading some software cost savings for much more time supporting the product.”
“I can't find a link to it, but someone who worked at Microsoft as a developer once documented how it took in the Windows 7 days for a fix to propagate. It look weeks for a minor fix to navigate through internal protocols (various proposals, reviews, and build cycles) to get to a release candidate build. The company where I work is in a regulated space so there's a LOT of process because we have to document that we did due diligence and gather all the evidence needed to survive an audit.”
“Or Microsoft is going to end up leaving the endpoint OS game entirely. VDI-type setups running legacy apps hosted elsewhere, then for everything 'modern', you can run Chrome on other people's operating systems.”
“They just don't switch. Not every company is a megacorp with an IT department, they don't care as long as it works and doesn't require relearning everything from scratch every three years.”
“Don't think the Microsoft route would be cost effect for me since there is only 15 workstations at the moment.”
“Working again. Def a problem on MS' end since the web-based activation started working as well, simulatenously.”
“Okay I'm sorry. I must be deeply disturbed or something but we enabled Microsoft 365 Backup in the office admin center. Everything I've seen on the Googles tells me that the billing should show up in Azure under the account that you assign in the office admin center but there is absolutely nothing showing up for billing in Azure on that account. I've even watched the silly video about departmental billing and none of that stuff exists in our Azure account. Has anyone been able to act”
“COM add-ins aren’t ever coming back. It’s not incomplete in that one area. It’s just that COM add-ins are native code and New Outlook for windows is a website in a box. If you don’t use web plugins, then it’s not compatible. Therefore also, no COM add-ins, no VBA scripting. Mail merge is weird and not good. Server side only Mail rules and they are weak. Still lots of missing features. No drag and drop anything. It’s garbage.”
“Correct. I've got my Claude all set up to have basically full log access to 365. It lets me get much more detailed and nicer looking reports than Microsoft gives me, and I only have to go to one place as opposed to five.”
“Remind your 365 users to save as PDF or.. well, MS would say, tough! submitted by /u/JE53119 [link] [comments]”
“Microsoft doesn't give any attention to orgs with less than 2500 seats. Everything smaller than that goes to the Microsoft Partner ecosystem. You should find an MSP (ideally local) that is a Microsoft Partner and specializes in your stack.”
“I'm hoping someone here has dealt with something similar or knows how to get Microsoft to actually act. Background: We're a Microsoft AI Cloud Partner and hold Partner Success Expanded Benefits (MAICPP). In June 2026 we renewed and went to redeem our 35x Microsoft 365 Business Premium (no Teams) licences through the new Partner Center redemption experience. The mistake: The new redemption flow (introduced in Australia March 2026) changed from product keys to a billing account-based check”
“Oh man. That reminds me of a 50 line hta I built 20 years ago. And I’m pretty sure it was still actively in use for thousands of users only a few years back (it was doing something simple in a Citrix farm). Wonder if it’s still there? I agree, they were simple, and much more user friendly than a black powershell/command prompt.”
“Good luck getting a 1000+ person company, with some people having been in the business for 30 years working on Windows , to move to a Linux desktop. Back end of the house, no problem. You can replace most software with open source, .nix based alternatives most likely. But your best bet is to keep Windows workstations on Entra and then tie everything into that.”
“You could... and have tried in the past when clients wanted to ditch Microsoft... but it ends up being shit unless you have a really narrow scope of workflow and application requirements. In current environment, not a chance.”
“So we are building the whole business world around Entra and Windows because the finance department can't use Excel on macOS?”
“That’s the basis for 99% of these posts otherwise it’s a v lot of effort for bugger all gain”
“Fully managed is where the money is. They want to get their hooks into the organization and then make you and your team appear to management to be unaffordable and unnecessary.”
“Nah, a lot of the in-depth technical discussions have just ended up elsewhere. This sub is too large to foster “only in-depth posts” without much more aggressive moderation.”
“Then you need a new MSP. I work for an MSP, and I have worked in hybrid environments with internal IT. What some MSPs forget is that it is not their network. And that's the rule weather it is a hybrid relationship or a full support customer. It's not my network, I am only there to help the internal IT department. I will advise my clients, but it's ultimately their decision.”
“Lol. So if MS has a screwy/usurious Billing system then it is my fault? And if I complain about the same then somehow I am just unskilled? Lol. But just to clarify - you are saying a professional sysadmin should never speak of bugs in the system in case they are seen as unskilled and that if you help someone out you are not a sysadmin? Unique perspective”
“Its not mandatory. However... azure is q pernission disaster. Sometimes you have all rbac roles and still 1 checkbox is greyed out.... untill .ms finally gets shit in order its the most cost efficient way. Knowing how crap ms is these days.... id say ask again in 10 years 🤣🤣🤣”
The Soul of the company was sold by Balmer, it’s long gone.
“I do actually agree on the Azure AD point. It was clunky and the decision to rename was a good one. On the name itself, it is actually their best name in a LONG time. The word actually has a relevant meaning, it's quick and easy to say, and as a whole term 'Entra ID' is difficult to be misheard. Also, I'm so glad they didn't pick another word that is pronounced differently in non-American countries, like Azure. I pronounce it the American way simply because it's a name an”
“Wait until you get to interact with an actual human working for 365 as frontline support.”
“Yeah I agree, I think what has highlighted it more with M$ is the move to the cloud as meant the old support resources are no longer available that you could fall back on. They keep moving the goal posts to ensure only a select few actually know the rest of us have to work it out via trial and error then it gets Blogged - and then they change it again.”