Category Archives: windows

gadgets, microsoft, virtual reality, windows

Where next for Windows Mixed Reality? At IFA, Acer has an upgraded headset at IFA; Dell is showing Oculus Rift

It is classic Microsoft. Launch something before it is ready, then struggle to persuade the market to take a second look after it is fixed.

This may prove to be the Windows Mixed Reality story. At IFA in Berlin last year, all the major Windows PC vendors seemed to have headsets to show and talked it up in their press events. This year, Acer has a nice new generation headset, but Asus made no mention of upgrading its hardware. Dell is showing Oculus Rift on its stand, and apparently is having an internal debate about future Mixed Reality hardware.

I reviewed Acer’s first headset and the technology in general late last year. The main problem was lack of content. In particular, the Steam VR compatibility was in preview and not very good.

Today I tried the new headset briefly at the Acer booth.

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The good news: it is a big improvement. It feels less bulky but well made, and has integrated headphones. It felt comfortable even over glasses.

On the software side, I played a short Halo demo. The demo begins with a promising encounter with visceral Halo aliens, but becomes a rather dull shooting game. Still, even the intro shows what is possible.

I was assured that Steam VR compatibility is now much improved, but would like to try for myself.

The big questions are twofold. Will VR really take off at all, and if it does, will anyone use Windows Mixed Reality?

gadgets, microsoft, retro, windows

All the way from 1997: Compaq PC Companion C140 still works, but as badly as it did on launch

I am having a clear-out which is bringing back memories and unearthing some intriguing items. One is this Compaq C140 PC Companion, running Windows CE, which launched in December 1997.

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The beauty of this device is that it takes two AA batteries. I stuck in some new ones and found that it started up fine, not bad after more than 20 years. Most more recent devices have a non-replaceable rechargeable battery which usually fails long before the rest of the electronics, rendering the entire device useless (at least without surgery).

The C140 runs Windows CE 1.0 and has a monochrome touch screen designed to be used mainly with a stylus. 4MB RAM, 4MB storage, and comes with versions of Word, Excel, Calendar, Contacts and Tasks. There is also a calculator and a world clock. It is expandable with PCMCIA cards (though not many have drivers). The idea is that you link it to your PC with the supplied serial cable and synch with Outlook, hence PC Companion.

The odd thing is, looking at this device I still find it superficially compelling. A pocketable device running Word and Excel, with a full QWERTY keyboard, stylus holder so you do not lose it, what’s not to like?

A lot, unfortunately. The biggest problem is the screen. There is a backlight and a contrast dial, but it is faint and hard to read in most lights and you constantly fiddle with the contrast.

The next issue is the keyboard. It is too cramped to type comfortably. And the format, though it looks reassuringly like a small laptop, is actually awkward to use. It works on a desk, which seems to miss the point, but handheld it is useless. You need three hands, one for the device, one for the stylus, and a third for typing. The design is just wrong and has not been thought through.

I have searched for years for small portable devices with fast text input. I suppose a smartphone with a Swype keyboard or similar comes closest but I am still more productive with a laptop and in practice the thing that has made most improvement for me is that laptops have become lighter and with longer battery life.

Spare a thought though for Microsoft (and its partners) with its long history of trying to make mobile work. You can argue back and forth about whether it was right to abandon Windows Phone, but whatever your views, it is a shame that decades of effort ended that way.

development, mobile, software development, tech, visual studio, windows

RemObjects Elements: mix and match languages and platforms as you like

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The world of software development has changed profoundly in the last decade or so. Once it was a matter of mainly desktop Windows development for the client, mainly Java for server-based applications with web or Windows clients. Then came mobile and cloud – the iPhone SDK was released in March 2008, kicking off a new wave of mobile applications, while Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) came out of beta in October 2008. Microsoft tussled within itself about what to do with Windows Mobile and ended up ceding the entire market to Android and iOS.

The consequence of these changes is that business developers who once happily developed Windows desktop applications have had to diversify, as their customers demand applications for mobile and web as well. The PC market has not gone away, so there has been growing interest in both cross-platform development and in how to port Windows code to other platforms.

Embarcadero took Delphi, a favourite development tool based on an Object Pascal compiler, down a cross-platform path but not to the satisfaction of all Delphi developers, some of whom looked for other ways to transition to the new world.

Founded in 2002, RemObjects had a project called Chrome, which compiled Delphi’s Object Pascal to .NET executables. This product was later rebranded Oxygene. For a while Embarcadero bundled a version of this with Delphi, calling it Prism, after abandoning its own .NET compilation tools.

The partnership with Embarcadero ended, but RemObjects pressed on, adding language features to its flavour of Object Pascal and adding support for Mac OS X, iPhone and Java.

In February 2015 the company was an early adopter of Apple’s Swift language, introducing a Swift compiler called Silver that targets Android, .NET and native Mac OS X executables.

The company now offers a remarkable set of products for developers who want to target new platforms but in a familiar language:

  • Oxygene: Object Pascal
  • Silver: Swift 3 (and most of Swift 4)
  • Hydrogene: C# 7
  • Iodine: Java 8

Each language can import APIs from the others, and compile to all the platforms – well, there are exceptions, but this is the general approach.

More precisely, RemObjects defines four target platforms:

  • Echoes: .NET and .NET Core including ASP.NET and Mono
  • Cooper: Java and Android
  • Toffee: Mac, iOS, tvOS
  • Island: CPU native and WebAssembly

So if you fancy writing a WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) application in Java, you can:

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As you may spot from the above screenshot, the RemObjects tools use Visual Studio as the IDE. This is a limitation for Mac developers, so the company also developed a Mac IDE called Fire, and now a Windows IDE called Water (in preview) for those who dislike the Visual Studio dependency.

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Important to note: RemObjects does not address the problem of cross-platform user interfaces. In this respect it is similar to the approach taken by Xamarin before that company came up with the idea of Xamarin Forms. So this is about sharing non-visual code and libraries, not cross-platform GUI (Graphical User Interface). If you are targeting Cocoa, you can use Apple’s Interface Builder to design your user interface, for example.

Of course WebAssembly and HTML is an interesting option in this respect.

A notable absentee from the list of RemObjects targets is UWP (Universal Windows Platform), a shame given the importance Microsoft still attaches to this.

RemObjects is mainly focused  on languages and compilers rather than libraries and frameworks. The idea is that you use the existing libraries and frameworks that are native to the platform you are targeting. This is a smart approach for a small company that does not wish to reinvent the wheel.

That said, there is a separate product called Data Abstract which is a multi-tier database framework.

These are interesting products, but as a journalist I have struggled to give them much coverage, because of their specialist nature and also the demands on my time as someone who prefers to try things out rather than simply relay news from press releases. I also appreciate that the above information is sketchy and encourage you to check out the website if these tools pique your interest.

android, microsoft, mobile, Notes from the field, tech, windows

Configuring the Android emulator for Hyper-V

Great news that the Android emulator now supports Hyper-V, but how do you enable it?

Pretty simple. First, you have to be running at least Windows 10 1803 (April 2018 update). Then, go into Control Panel – Programs – Turn Windows Features on and off and enabled both Hyper-V and the Windows Hypervisor Platform:

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Note: this is not the same as just enabling Hyper-V. The Windows Hypervisor Platform, or WHPX, is an API for Hyper-V. Read about it here.

Reboot if necessary and run the emulator.

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TroubleshootIng? Try running the emulator from the command line.

emulator -list-avds

will list your AVDs.

emulator @avdname -qemu -enable-whpx

will run the AVD called avdname using WHPX (Windows Hypervisor Platform). If it fails, you may get a helpful error message.

Note: If you get a Qt library not found error, use the full path to the emulator executable. This should be the one in the emulator folder, not the one in the tools folder. The full command is:

[path-to-android-sdk]\emulator\emulator @[avdname] -qemu -enable-whpx

You can also use the emulator from Visual Studio, though you need Visual Studio 2017 version 15.8 Preview 1 or higher with the Xamarin tools installed. That said, I had some success with starting the Hyper-V emulator separately (use the command above), then using it with a Xamarin project in Visual Studio 15.7.5.

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android, tech, virtualization, windows

Hyper-V compatible Android emulator now available

An annoying issue for Android developers on Windows is that the official Android emulator uses Intel’s HAXM hypervisor platform, which is incompatible with Microsoft’s Hyper-V.

The pain of dual-boot just to run the Android emulator is coming to an end. Google has announced that the latest release of the Android Emulator will support Hyper-V on both AMD and Intel PCs. This a relief to Docker users, for example, since Docker now uses Hyper-V by default.

Google Product Manager Jamal Eason has made a rather confusing post, positioning the new feature as mainly for the benefit of developers with AMD processors. Intel HAXM does not work with AMD processors.”Thanks to on-going development by Intel, the fastest emulator performance on Windows is still with Intel HAXM,” says Eason, stating that HAXM remains the default on Intel PCs and is recommended.

However the new Hyper-V support works fine on Intel as well as AMD PCs. The official docs say:

Though we recommend using HAXM on Windows, it is possible to use Windows Hypervisor Platform (WHPX) with the emulator. Situations in which you should use WHPX with the emulator are the following:

  • You need to use Hyper-V at the same time.
  • You are using an AMD CPU.

The new feature is “thanks to a new Microsoft Windows Hypervisor Platform (WHPX) API and recent open-source contributions from Microsoft,” says Eason.

It is another case of Microsoft doing the hard work to make Windows a better platform for developers, even when they are targeting non-Windows platforms (as is increasingly the case).

microsoft, security, tech, windows

Account options when setting up Windows 10, and Microsoft’s enforced insecurity questions

How do you sign into Windows 10? There are now four options. I ran through a Windows 10 setup using build 1803 (which was released in April this year) and noted how this has evolved. Your first decision: is this a personal or organisational PC?

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If you choose Setup for an organisation, you will be prompted to sign into Office 365, also known as Azure AD. The traditional Domain join, for on-premises Active Directory, has been shunted to a less visible option (the red encircling is mine). In larger organisations, this tends to be automated anyway.

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But this one is personal. It is a similar story. You are prompted to sign in with a Microsoft account, but there is another option, called an Offline account (again, the red circle is mine).

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This “Offline account” was in Windows 7 and earlier the only option for personal accounts. I still recommend having an administrative “offline account” set up so you can always be sure of being able to log into your PC, even without internet. Think about some of the scenarios. Someone might hack your Microsoft account, change your password, and now you cannot even log onto your PC. Unless you have an offline account.

I’ve been awkward and selected Offline account. Windows, or rather Microsoft, does not like it. Note the mind games in the screenshot below. Although I’ve made a positive selection for Offline account, the default and highlighted option now is to change my mind. I do not like this.

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Now I can set up my offline account. A screen prompts for a username, then for a password, all the time nagging that I should create an online account instead.

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I type and confirm the password; but now I get this:

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Yes, I have to create “security questions”, with no option to skip. If you try to skip, you get a “This field is required” message. Worse still, they are from a pre-selected list:

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I really hate this. These are not security questions; they are insecurity questions. Their purpose is to let me (or someone else) reset the password, forming a kind of back door into the PC. The information in the questions is semi-secret; not impossible for someone determined to discover. So Microsoft is insisting that I make my account less secure.

Of course you do not have to give honest answers. You can call your first pet yasdfWsd9gAg!!hea. But most people will be honest.

Does it matter, given that a PC account offers rather illusory security anyway? Unless you encrypt the hard drive, someone who steals the PC can reset the password by booting into Linux, or take out the disk and read it from another PC. All true; but note that Microsoft makes it rather easy to encrypt your PC with Bitlocker, in which case the security is not so illusory.

Just for completeness, here is what comes next, an ad for Cortana:

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Hey Cortana! How do I delete my security answers?

I do get why Microsoft is doing this. An online account is better in that settings can roam, you can use the Store, and you can reset the password from one PC to restore access to another. The insecurity questions could be a life-saver for someone who forgot their password and need to get back into their PC.

But such things should be optional. There is nothing odd about wanting an offline account.

gadgets, microsoft, tablets, tech, windows

Surface Go: Microsoft has another go at a budget tablet

Microsoft has announced Surface Go, a cheaper, smaller model to sit at the budge end of its Surface range of tablets and laptops.

The new model starts at $399, will be available for pre-order today in selected territories, and ships on August 2nd.

In the UK, the Surface Go is £379 inc VAT for 4GB RAM and 64GB storage, or £509.99 inc VAT for 8GB RAM and 128GB storage.

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I go back a long way with Surface, having been at the launch of the first device, Surface RT, back in 2012. The device was a flop, but I liked it. The design was genuinely innovative and sought to make sense of a Windows in transition from desktop-only to a viable touch/tablet device. It failed primarily because of the poor range of available apps, lack of user acceptance for Windows 8, and somewhat underpowered hardware. There were also keyboard issues: the fabric-based Touch keyboard was difficult to use because it gave no tactile feedback, and the Type keyboard less elegant and still somewhat awkward.

Surface Pro came next, and while it was more useful thanks to full Windows 8 and an Intel Core i5 CPU, it was disappointing, with battery life issues and a tendency to stay on in your bag, overheating and wasting battery. There were other niggling issues.

The big disappointment of Surface for me is that even with full, Apple-like control over hardware and software, the devices have not been trouble-free.

Another issue today is that Windows 10 is not designed for touch in the same way as Windows 8. Therefore you rarely see Windows tablets used as tablets; they are almost always used as laptops, even if they are 2-in-1 devices. The original kickstand design is therefore rather pointless. If I got another Surface it would be a Surface Laptop or Surface Book.

Of course they are not all bad. It is premium hardware and some of the devices are delightful to use and perform well. They are expensive though, and I suggest careful comparison with what you can get for the same money from partners like HP, Lenovo and others.

What about this one? Key specs:

  • 10″ screen, kickstand design
  • 1800 x 1200 (217 PPI) resolution
  • 8.3mm thick
  • USB-C 3.1 port, MicroSD, headphone jack socket
  • Intel® Pentium® Gold Processor 4415Y
  • Windows Hello camera supporting face-recognition log in
  • Up to nine hours battery life
  • Intel® HD Graphics 615
  • Display supports Surface Pen with 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity
  • Signature Type Cover with trackpad supporting 5-point gestures
  • Windows Hello face authentication camera (front-facing)
  • 5.0 MP front-facing camera with 1080p Skype HD video
  • 8.0 MP rear-facing autofocus camera with 1080p HD video
  • Single microphone
  • 2W stereo speakers with Dolby® Audio™ Premium

It sounds a great deal for £379 or $399 but you will pay more, for three reasons:

  • The base spec is minimal in terms of RAM and SSD storage and you will want the higher model
  • The Type Cover is essential and will cost – a Pro Type Cover is $159.99 and this may be a bit less
  • The Surface Pen is £99.99 or $99.99

This means your $399 will soon be $550 or more.

It could still be a good deal if it turns out to be a nice device. The Hello camera is a plus point, but where I would particularly recommend a Surface is if you want Pen support. Microsoft is good at this. Unfortunately I do not get on well with pen input, but some people do, and for artists and designers it is a real advantage.

Notes from the field, tech, windows

Notes from the Field: dmesg error blocks MySQL install on Windows Subsystem for Linux

I enjoy Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) on Windows 10 and use it constantly. It does not patch itself so from time to time I update it using apt-get. The latest update upgraded MySQL to version 5.7.22 but unfortunately the upgrade failed. The issue is that dpkg cannot configure it. I saw messages like:

invoke-rc.d: could not determine current runlevel

2002: Can’t connect to local MySQL server through socket ‘/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock

After multiple efforts uninstalling and reinstalling I narrowed the problem down to a dmesg error:

dmesg: read kernel buffer failed: Function not implemented

It is true, dmesg does not work on WSL. However there is a workaround here that says if you write something to /dev/kmsg then at least calling dmesg does not return an error. So I did:

sudo echo foo > /dev/kmsg

Removed and reinstalled MySQL one more time and it worked:

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Apparently partial dmesg support in WSL is on the way, previewed in Build 17655.

Note: be cautious about fully uninstalling MySQL if you have data you want to preserve. Export/backup the databases first.

development, linux, microsoft, tech, windows

Case sensitive directories now possible in Windows Explorer as well as in the Windows Subsystem for Linux

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Experienced Windows users will know that occasionally you hit a problem with case sensitivity in file names. The problem is that on Linux, you can have files whose name differs only in case, such as MyFile.txt and myfile.txt. Windows on the other hand will not normally let you do this and the second will overwrite the first.

The latest build of Windows 10 (1803, or the April 2018 Update) has a fix for this. You can now set directories to be case-sensitive using the fsutil command line utility:

fsutil.exe file setCaseSensitiveInfo <path> enable

You can then enjoy case sensitivity even in Windows Explorer:

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This is not particularly useful in Windows. In fact, it is probably a bad idea since most Windows applications presume case-insensitivity. I found that using Notepad on my case-insensitive directory I soon hit bugs. I double-click a file, edit, save, and get this:

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Press F5 and it sorts itself out.

Developers may have written applications where a file is specified with different case in different places. Everything is fine; it is the same file. Then you enable case-sensitivity and it breaks, possibly with unpredictable behaviour where the application does not actually crash, but gives wrong results (which is worse).

If you are using WSL though, you may well want case-sensitivity. There are even applications which will not compile without it, because there are different files in the source whose name differs only by case. Therefore, WSL has always supported case-sensitivity by default. However, Windows did not recognize this so you had to use this feature only from WSL.

In the new version this has changed and when you create a directory in WSL it will be case-sensitive in both WSL and Windows.

There is a snag. In the full explanation here there is an explanation of how to adjust this behaviour using /etc/wsl.conf and also the warning:

Any directories you created with WSL before build 17093 will not be treated as case sensitive anymore. To fix this, use fsutil.exe to mark your existing directories as case sensitive.

Hmm. If you are wondering why that application will not compile any more, this could be the reason. You can set it back to the old behaviour if you want.

Should Microsoft have made the file system case-sensitive? Possibly, though it is one of those things where it is very difficult to change the existing behaviour, for the reasons stated above. Note that Windows NT has always supported case-sensitive file names, but the feature is in effect disabled for compatibility reasons. It is poor for usability, having files whose names differ only in case which are therefore easily confused. So I am not sure. Being able to switch it on selectively is nice though.

microsoft, tech, windows

“An invalid name request was made”: an ugly error from the Windows 10 app platform

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I went to open Spotify this morning, installed from the Windows Store, but saw the following error:

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This is not user friendly. However I have the latest April update of Windows 10 (this may be the reason of course) which can reset and repair apps. Just right-click the app and choose App Settings. I clicked Repair. Got a nice tick. However the same error message.

So I tried Reset. This completely reinstalls the app and resets its settings (annoying). Got a nice tick. Same error message.

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Figuring this might be worth a blog post, I went to Open Live Writer, also installed from the Store. Oh dear. An invalid name request was made. The name requested cannot be retrieved at this time.

In true Windows style, the actual name requested is hidden, not that I was consciously wanting to retrieve any kind of name. I just want the app to run, and being locally installed, reckon it should just work.

I reverted to the non-Store version of Open Live Writer to make this post.

In the event viewer, I see this:

0x801F0005: Cannot create the Desktop AppX container for package SpotifyAB.SpotifyMusic_1.80.474.0_x86__zpdnekdrzrea0 because an error was encountered configuring the runtime.

Next thing to try: reboot. Everything is fine.

This is ugly though. Something broke multiple apps installed from the Store. I will update if I discover more about the reason for this.

Update: A tweet from Microsoft Lead Program Manager Stefan Wick states that a fix is in the works:

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