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This Week in IT

Russell Smith - Editorial Director @ Petri.com

Petri's Editorial Director, Russell Smith, brings you the most important Microsoft 365 and Windows news updates every week. This Week in IT is brought to you by Petri.com

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22 episodes
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Avg 18 min
English

Episodes 22

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Counted on this page — what you have heard stays on this device, so it is not something the list can be paged by.

#207
Friday · 49 min
Exchange Gets Throttled, Entra Takes Control, Azure Goes Multicloud
This month, Microsoft has started throttling email from outdated Exchange servers, Entra is taking control away from Active Directory, Microsoft and AWS are embracing multi-cloud, and Windows Search is finally becoming less opinionated. Are these isolated updates, or signs that Microsoft is fundamentally changing how enterprise IT is managed?👏 Sponsored by Cayosoft
#206
August 21 · 1 hr 3 min
Microsoft Is Unifying Copilot. But Why Is Nobody Using It?
Microsoft is merging the consumer and commercial versions of Copilot into a single app but is your corporate data governance ready? At the same time, they've launched an AI security platform where autonomous agents hunt for your vulnerabilities around the clock, and published an AI containment framework that says, in black and white, if you let the AI decide when to ask a human, you've already lost control. Plus, for the first time, Entra admins can discover and govern every tenant connected to their organisation. 👏 Thanks to Cayosoft for sponsoring this episode!
#205
July 17 · 48 min
Copilot Cowork Is Here — But Can You Control the Costs?
Copilot Cowork is here but so are Copilot Credits, cost controls and awkward ROI questions.This month, Russell Smith and Craig Birch also dig into Windows Ready Print, NTLM’s future, and Microsoft’s passkey push.🔗 Episode resources: https://petri.com/podcast/copilot-cowork-is-here-but-can-you-control-the-costs/#microsoft365 #windows11 #microsoftcopilot #artificialintelligence Thanks to Cayosoft for sponsoring this episode!
#203
May 21 · 20 min
Mac Mini Is Now Shadow IT Infrastructure — And IT Isn't Ready
This week, the Mac Mini quietly became the default home for always-on AI agents — and your users are probably already running them outside your security boundary. Meanwhile, VMware just dropped an ARM hypervisor. And if you needed a reason to treat AI agents like real identities, a coding agent just wiped an entire production database and every backup in nine seconds flat.👏 Thanks to Cayosoft for sponsoring this episode!
#202
May 15 · 15 min
Browsers Are Downloading AI Without Permission — Here's What IT Admins Need to Do
This Week in IT, Google Chrome is silently downloading a 4 gigabyte AI model onto devices right now and unless you've deployed one specific policy, there's nothing stopping it. Meanwhile, Microsoft's fix for a sluggish Windows 11 is to spike your CPU to the max when clicking, and they just started the deprecation clock on Entra Connect Sync whether Entra Cloud Sync is ready or not. 👏 Thanks to Cayosoft for sponsoring this episode!
#201
May 9 · 13 min
Microsoft Wants You to Trust Edge but Then Leaves Passwords in Cleartext
This Week in IT, Microsoft Edge is exposing passwords by design, shadow AI agents are lurking on your endpoints, and Azure is quietly pulling the plug on VMs you're probably still running.Thanks to Cayosoft for sponsoring this episode!🔗 Links and resources
#200
April 30 · 14 min
Windows 11 Can Now Undo Everything — Including Your Security Patches
Microsoft is previewing a full system rollback for Windows 11 — OS, apps, files, everything — snapped back to where it was 72 hours ago. It's basically a time machine for your PC. But here's the thing: it can also roll back your security patches. Meanwhile, a single configuration change knocked Outlook off every iPhone for over 24 hours. And Microsoft flipped the switch: Copilot is now doing its thing by default, whether your governance is ready or not. Thanks to Cayosoft for sponsoring this episode.
#199
April 24 · 16 min
Windows 11 Is Getting AI Agents on the Taskbar
Microsoft just confirmed that AI agents — including third-party ones — are coming to the Windows 11 taskbar. The controls to manage them exist the default hands control to the user. Plus, there's a new way to do a Hybrid Entra Join without waiting for Entra Connect to sync, but it needs Windows Server 2025 domain controllers in every domain. And Windows Recall is back in the security headlines — a researcher has proven he can silently drain your entire Recall history after a single Windows Hello tap. Microsoft says that's fine. Thanks to Cayosoft for sponsoring this episode!
#197
April 11 · 18 min
Hackers Bypass MFA with Microsoft’s Own Login – EvilTokens Exploit Revealed
This Week in IT, hackers have a new trick that uses an Oauth 2.0 login process to slip into accounts, no password needed. Meanwhile, Microsoft is locking down its Copilot AI with fresh controls to keep your company’s data under wraps. And just when you’re getting comfortable with Copilot, Microsoft’s already onto the next frontier: autonomous AI agents that won’t wait for your commands but handle your tasks for you, from start to finish.👏 Thanks to Cayosoft sponsoring this episode!🔗 Links and resources: https://petri.com/podcast/eviltokens-...
#196
March 27 · 12 min
Unreliable & Unpatched: Enterprise PCs Are Losing Trust
This Week in IT, Omnissa says enterprise PCs are “unreliable, unpatched, and unloved” with Windows machines crashing 3-times more and updating far slower than Macs. At the same time, Washington is ripping foreign-made routers off the market over spying fears, effectively banning new Wi-Fi equipment from abroad to safeguard networks. And just as hackers weaponize AI to hijack logins, Microsoft is releasing AI agents in Defender to hunt down identity thieves inside your organization. Thanks to Cayosoft for sponsoring this episode!
#195
March 20 · 15 min
Microsoft’s Windows 11 Quality Pledge—What’s Changing?
Microsoft just officially announced a significant Windows 11 quality manifesto, including taskbar upgrades, smarter Copilot integration, and a promise to fix the update chaos. At the same time, a hacking group hijacked Microsoft Intune and wiped tens of thousands of a company’s devices overnight. Craig Birch, Principal Technologist at Cayosoft joins me to discuss the incident. And just when migrating servers to Azure seemed like months of work, Microsoft’s new AI Copilot agent promises to plan it in minutes. Thanks to Cayosoft for sponsoring this episode!🔗 Links and resources
#193
February 27 · 12 min
No Internet, No Problem: Microsoft’s New Offline Cloud and Excel Agent Mode
Imagine running Microsoft’s cloud entirely on your own terms. This week, Microsoft’s Azure Local and Microsoft 365 Local go live, letting governments and regulated industries run mission-critical workloads and AI models completely offline. Meanwhile, Excel’s Agent Mode expands to Europe and even works with files stored on your own PC, and Windows 11’s latest preview update pumps up system reliability with a built-in network speed test, Sysmon integration and more. Sponsored by: Cayosoft
#192
February 20 · 10 min
Copilot Confidential: When AI Reads Your Sensitive Emails
Microsoft 365 Copilot has been caught reading confidential emails it was supposed to ignore, an alarming privacy blunder. Meanwhile, Chinese hackers exploited a backdoor in Dell’s backup software for 18 months without anyone noticing. And as Broadcom hikes VMware prices, IT leaders are looking to reduce reliance on it. Thanks to Cayosoft for sponsoring this episode!🔗 Links and resources: https://petri.com/podcast/copilot-confidential-when-ai-reads-your-sensitive-emails/
#191
February 13 · 12 min
Microsoft Email Meltdown: 4,000 Accounts Hacked via Outlook Add‑In
What if Microsoft’s email system suddenly categorized genuine emails as phishing attempts? It happened this week, disrupting businesses. Plus, 4,000 Microsoft accounts got hacked through a genuine Outlook add-in from the official Store, and we’ll reveal how attackers pulled that off. And Microsoft’s building a brand-new mini-OS in Rust to keep bad code in a cage.
#190
February 6 · 10 min
Windows 11 Takes Off, Copilot Stalls, and Microsoft Refocuses on Security
This week in IT, Windows 11 adoption just jumped past 62 percent — after months of going nowhere. At the same time, Microsoft admits that barely 3 percent of Microsoft 365 users are paying for Copilot. And Redmond has reassigned senior leadership to focus on quality and security.
#189
January 30 · 12 min
Windows 11 Security Shake‑Up: Admin Protection Flaws + Kerberos RC4 Endgame
Administrator Protection—meant to lock down Windows 11 —was hacked in testing and forced Microsoft to rethink the design before it even ships. At the same time, Kerberos is finally saying goodbye to RC4, with enforcement deadlines that could break legacy auth if you don’t prepare. And Microsoft just gave admins a first‑party way to manage configuration drift across Microsoft 365 with new Graph UTCM APIs.
#188
January 23 · 11 min
Windows 11 26H1: Built for New Silicon. Nvidia PC Chips Are Next
Nvidia is about to crash the Windows‑on‑Arm party. Its first PC chips could arrive with a special Windows 11 build just for new silicon. At the same time, Mandiant just made it trivial to crack a decades‑old protocol that some companies still run in production. And a new class of AI bugs shows how MCP servers can be turned into cloud‑credential vending machines.
#187
January 16 · 10 min
Windows 11 Update Causes OS to ‘Gain Weight’
Windows 11 just got heavier — literally. A new security update is doubling the size of critical OS files and Microsoft says it’s absolutely necessary. At the same time, the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit is quietly being killed off, pushing IT departments toward modern deployment, and this month’s Patch Tuesday unleashes 113 fixes, including a fresh zero-day already under attack.
#186
January 9 · 13 min
Windows 11’s Exclusive Update for AI PCs (and This Week’s Top IT News)
Microsoft is bending its own rules with a special Windows update only for new AI-powered. Plus, Teams is about to start auto-blocking malware and phish by default for everyone, and if you’re migrating from Slack to Teams, Microsoft’s rolling out a new tool to make it seamless. Thanks to Cayosoft for sponsoring this episode! 🔗 Links and resources: https://petri.com/podcast/windows-11s-exclusive-update-for-ai-pcs-and-this-weeks-top-it-news/
#185
Dec 19, 2025 · 13 min
GPT‑5 Arrives in Copilot Studio - Plus Clipboard & Login Upgrades!
This week in IT, Microsoft quietly turns Copilot Studio into a fully‑fledged AI platform—bringing GPT‑5, human‑in‑the‑loop controls, and curated action groups. Meanwhile, the Windows Clipboard may soon convert anything you copy into the format you need, and Windows 11 authentication is getting a WebView2 makeover.

Showing 1–20 of 22 episodes