Disabling outdated services and protocols
Microsoft has always had a focus on backward compatibility. It's for this reason that Active Directory domains still control options for enabling compatibility with Windows NT 4 – an operating system that was released in 1996. In recent times, Microsoft has taken to disabling certain very old protocols for security reasons – and with very good reason. Most of them are no longer used, and if they are used, then they shouldn't be. Microsoft even curates a naughty list of devices that use its 30-year old file-sharing protocol SMB (https://aka.ms/stillneedssmb1 and https://aka.ms/StopUsingSMB1).
In this recipe, we're going to look at how we can use DSC to ensure that SMB1 is disabled and stays disabled. You can also use DSC to ensure that other various Windows features that you either do or don't want are installed or uninstalled.
Getting started
You should have completed Chapter 5, Desired State Configuration...
