Connor White

Line Gulli

@smallmouse467954 · Jan 12, 2026 12:37 am

My mother is the backbone of my family while im nothing but a burden

Idk if it matters or is relevant, but my family is Asian with my parents being the first of their family to move and start a life outside their home country. They have worked extremely hard to be able to provide for me, my siblings, and their own families. They send money back home whenever they can and are even helping to support my dads side of the family who live here but aren't doing as well as us. Both my parents work every day to sustain my comfortable lifestyle, my mom especially.
Getting up at 4-5am for work, coming back home around 2pm, cooking for the house (8 people rn, parents, me, 2 siblings, grandma, cousin, uncle) and then going to work again from 7 to 10. Even if the second job is with my dad, cousin and uncle, My mom never has a chance to take a break, and I have no way to help her.
The plan for me originally was that I would go to college and work after finishing my program. Last semester I had failed one of my classes and failed basically all of my finals which has now put me on academic probation. I'm not going to continue the program because I'm not interested in it (wasn't originally) and it seems like more money would be wasted if I did continue. My mom doesn

Philip Jensen

@silverpeacock471409 · Jan 11, 2026 8:06 pm

Windows Server 2025 DCs: Defender not starting, PDQ Inventory scans hanging, Splashtop failing

**TL;DR**
On **Windows Server 2025 (24H2) Domain Controllers**, we hit a boot-time issue where:
* **Microsoft Defender Antivirus fails to initialize at startup**
* **Splashtop Remote Service fails to start**
* **PDQ Inventory scans hang indefinitely**
* Servers can boot into a state where **Defender is effectively disabled**
Disabling/removing **Splashtop** (per vendor guidance) and rebooting restored Defender and system stability.
**Symptoms**
* WinDefend service = Running, but:
* Get-MpComputerStatus initially showed AMEngineVersion = [0.0.0.0](http://0.0.0.0)
* Real-time protection unavailable
* Defender logs **Event ID 5017** at boot:
*“Group Policy hive was not ready when MDE AV service started”*
* SplashtopRemoteService fails with repeated **7000 / 7009**
* PDQ Inventory scans hang (only on affected servers)
No third-party AV. Same OS build, same CUs, same GPOs. One control server did **not** fail.
**Key finding**
Measured boot timing shows:
* Defender **5017** fires \~**29s after boot**
* Group Policy **8000** completes **30–80s later**
Defender is starting **before** computer policy hive is ready.
**Why Splashtop matters**
Every server with this issue had Splashtop in