Monthly Archives: September 2012

gaming, windows

Ancient game plays better in Windows 8 than Windows 7

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Windows 8 runs the 1999 game Age of Empires II better than Windows 7, which curiously messes up the screen graphics unless you terminate the Windows Explorer process – a fact that I noted in December 2010. Here is the game in Windows 7:

and in Windows 8, without fiddling with Explorer:

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The fact that the game runs better in Windows 8 is probably due to some obscure bug-fix, though I like to think that somewhere in the development team is a fan of this old but excellent game (it is great multi-player) who decided to make it work.

microsoft, virtualization, windows

Microsoft’s Hyper-V Server 2012: too painful to use?

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A user over on the technet forums says that the free standalone Hyper-V is too painful to use:

I was excited about the free stand-alone version and decided to try it out.  I downloaded the Hyper-V 2012 RC standalone version and installed it.  This thing is a trainwreck!  There is not a chance in hell that anyone will ever use this thing in scenarios like mine.  It obviously intended to be used by IT Geniuses in a domain only.  I would really like a version that I can up and running in less than half an hour like esxi.  How the heck is anyone going to evaluate it this in a reasonable manner? 

To be clear, this is about the free Hyper-V Server, which is essentially Server Core with only the Hyper-V role available. It is not about Hyper-V in general as a feature of Windows Server and Windows 8.

Personally I think the standalone Hyper-V Server is a fantastic offering; but at the same time I see this user’s point. If you join the Hyper-V server to a Windows domain and use the administration tools in Windows 8 everything is fine; but if you are, say, a Mac user and download Hyper-V Server to have a look, it is not obvious what to do next. As it turns out you can get started just by typing powershell at a command prompt and then New-VM, but how would you know that? Further, if Hyper-V is not joined to a domain you will have permission issues trying to manage it remotely.

Install Hyper-V Server, and the screen you see after logging on does not even mention virtualization.

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By contrast, with VMWare’s free ESXi has a web UI that works from any machine on the network and lets you get started creating and managing VMs. It is less capable than Hyper-V Server; but for getting up and running quickly in a non-domain environment it wins easily.

I have been working with Hyper-V Server 2012 myself recently, upgrading two servers on my own network which run a bunch of servers for development and test. From my perspective the free Hyper-V Server, which is essentially Server Core with only the Hyper-V role available, is a great offer from Microsoft, though I am still scratching my head over how to interpret the information (or lack of it) on the new product page, which refers to the download as a trial. I am pretty sure it is still offered on similar terms to those outlined for Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 by Program Manager Jeff Woolsey, who is clear that it is a free offering:

  • Up to 8 processors
  • Up to 64 logical processors
  • Up to 1TB RAM
  • Up to 64GB RAM per VM

These specifications may have been improved for Hyper-V Server 2012; or perhaps reduced; or perhaps Microsoft really is making it a trial. It is all rather unclear, though I would guess we will get more details soon.

It is worth noting that if you do have a Windows domain and a Windows 8 client, Hyper-V Server is delightfully easy to use, especially with the newly released Remote Server Administration Tools that now work fine with Windows 8 RTM, even though at the time of writing the download page still says Release Preview. You can use Server Manager as well as Hyper-V Manager, giving immediate access to events, services and performance data, plus a bunch of useful features on a right-click menu:

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In addition, File and Storage services are installed by default, which I presume means you can use Storage Spaces with Hyper-V Server, which could be handy for hosting VMs with dynamically expanding virtual hard drives. Technically you could also use it as a file server, but I presume that would breach the license.

For working with VMs themselves of course you have the Hyper-V Manager which is a great tool and not difficult to use.

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The question then: with all the work that has gone into these nice GUI tools, why does Microsoft throw out Hyper-V Server with so little help that a potential customer calls it “too painful to use”?

Normally the idea of free editions is to entice customers into upgrading to a paid-for version. That is certainly VMWare’s strategy, but Hyper-V seems to be different. It is actually good enough on its own that for many users it will be a long time before there is any need to upgrade. Microsoft’s hope, presumably, is that you will run Windows Server instances in those Hyper-V VMs, and these of course do need licenses. If you buy Windows 8 to run the GUI tools, that is another sale for Microsoft. In fact, the paid-for Windows Server 2012 can easily work out cheaper than the free editions, if you need a lot of server licenses, since they come with an allowance of licenses for virtual instances of Windows Server. Hyper-V Server is only really free if you run free software, such as Linux, in the VMs.

Personally I like Hyper-V Server for another reason. Its restricted features mean that there is no temptation to run other stuff on the host, and that in itself is an advantage.

microsoft, virtualization, windows

Upgrading to Hyper-V Server 2012

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After discovering that in-place upgrade of Windows Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 to the 2012 version is not possible, I set about the tedious task of exporting all the VMs from a Hyper-V Server box, installing Hyper-V Server 2012, and re-importing.

There are many reasons to upgrade, not least the irritation of being unable to manage the VMs from Windows 8. Hyper-V Manager in Windows 8 only works with Windows 8/Server 2012 VMs. It does seem to work the other way round: Hyper-V Manager in Windows 7 recognises the Server 2012 VMs successfully, though of course new features are not exposed.

The export and import has worked smoothly. A couple of observations:

1. Before exporting, it pays to set the MAC address of virtual network cards to static:

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The advantage is that the operating system will recognise it as the same NIC after the import.

2. Remove any snapshots before the export. In one case I had a machine with a snapshot and the import required me to delete the saved state.

3. After installing Hyper-V 2012, don’t forget to check the date, time and time zone and adjust if necessary. You can do this from the sconfig menu.

4. The import dialog has a new option, called Restore:

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What is the difference between Register and Restore? Do not bother pressing F1, it will not tell you. Instead, check Ben Armstrong’s post here. If you choose Register, the VM will be activated where it is; not what you want if you mistakenly ran Import against a VM exported to a portable drive, for example. Restore on the other hand presents options in a further step for you to move the files to another location.

5. For some reason I got a remote procedure call failed message in Hyper-V Manager after importing a Linux VM, but then when I refreshed the console found that the import had succeeded.

6. Don’t forget to upgrade the integration services. Connect to the server using the Hyper-V Manager, then choose Insert Integration Services Setup Disk from the Action menu.

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Cosmetically the new Hyper-V Server looks almost identical to the old: you log in and see two command prompts, one empty and one running the SConfig administration menu.

Check the Hyper-V settings though and you see all the new settings, such as Enable Replication, Virtual SAN Manager, single-root IO virtualization (SR-IOV), extension support in a virtual switch, Live Migrations and Storage Migrations, and more.

microsoft, windows

No in-place upgrade for Hyper-V Server 2012

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Microsoft’s free Hyper-V Server is a great bargain though I am beginning to think the company is pulling back on the idea. It is there for download; but the home page makes no mention of the fact that it is free, and the download page calls it trial software:

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Further, support information for this specific edition is hard to come by. Here is one thing I discovered though: there is no in-place upgrade from Hyper-V Server 2008 R2, though the setup teases. This is what you get. First, an offer to upgrade in-place:

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with the text, “This option is only available when a supported version of Hyper-V Server is already running on this computer”.

and then the bad news:

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which in case you cannot read it says,  “Hyper-V Server (Server Core) cannot be upgraded to Hyper-V Server 2012”.

This document, which covers in-place upgrade options for Server 2012, does not even mention Hyper-V Server. It does say this about Server Core, on which Hyper-V Server is based:

Upgrades that switch from a Server Core installation to the Server with a GUI mode of Windows Server 2012 in one step (and vice versa) are not supported. However, after upgrade is complete, Windows Server 2012 allows you to switch freely between Server Core and Server with a GUI modes.

Note that it says “in one step”, suggesting that an upgrade from Server Core to Sever Core should work; then you can add the GUI later if you want. In the case of Hyper-V Server, there is no GUI option anyway; so you would have thought it should be OK. Given the lack of attention to this edition generally though, I wonder if it is a victim of “it’s the free version, let’s not bother".

Incidentally, in-place upgrade from Hyper-V Server 2008 to Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 worked fine.

microsoft, mobile, nokia, software development

Nokia and Windows Phone 8: more questions than answers

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Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop announced the Lumia 820 and 920 yesterday in New York; new versions of its high-end Windows smartphones and the first to run the forthcoming Windows Phone 8 operating system. Windows Phone 8 runs the same kernel as Windows 8 on PCs and is a significant step towards unification of Microsoft’s development platform.

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Among the key features announced yesterday:

Wireless charging with the Qi standard and a couple of deals to place charging points in public places. The London Heathrow Virgin Atlantic lounge and the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf chain will have charging points; not much, but a start. Wireless charging accessories include the JBL PowerUP which combines wireless charging and an audio dock.

PureView imaging technology. This is Nokia’s brand name for a bunch of photo features. Most significant is “floating lens technology” on the larger 920 which, Nokia claims, overcomes camera shake to enable the camera to take in “five times more light”; think of it as a virtual tripod that allows longer exposure without motion blur. If it works it is a huge feature for photo enthusiasts.

City Lens augmented reality which overlays the view through the phone’s camera with data about what to do and where to go; apparently there is data for indoor as well as outdoor locations.

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Synaptics ClearPad touch which enables gloved finger support. Since Synaptics is a third-party I guess this feature is unlikely to be exclusive to Nokia for long.

Windows Phone 8 operating system shown off by Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore, including more customizable Live Tiles and a “Blink” feature from Microsoft Research which takes multiple shots in quick succession to enable interesting features like avoiding closed eyes and allowing after-the-event editing using alternate shots.

Screenshots are now a built-in feature. Who cares? Journalists of course; non-availability of this trivial feature meant fewer screenshots of Windows Phone 7 on the web.

Lumia 920 has a 4.5 inch screen, 1.5Ghz dual core Snapdragon S4, front and rear cameras, 1GB RAM, 32GB storage.

Lumia 820 has a 4.3 inch screen,  1.5 Ghz dual core Snapdragon S4, front and rear cameras, 1GB RAM, 8GB storage, microSD slot.

The big disappointment yesterday: no announcement concerning price or availability. Here is what the press release says:

Both phones will be available in pentaband LTE and HSPA+ variants and are expected to start shipping in select markets later in the year. Nokia will announce pricing and specific roll-out dates country by country when sales are due to begin.

Worries about a delay were not relieved by Microsoft’s announcement that the Windows Phone SDK preview will be available to select developers from September 12. “Next Wednesday I’ll share detailed instructions on how current Windows Phone developers with published apps can apply. But I do want to set your expectations that program access will be limited,” says Microsoft’s Todd Bix. He adds that, “The full Windows Phone 8 SDK will be made publically available later this year when we unveil Windows Phone 8.”

That suggests a considerable wait before availability. Even if the Lumias go on sale the same day that the SDK is final, it sounds like November at best; and that gives developers no time at all to work with the new SDK before launch. Key developers have early access of course.

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Overall the event was less than it should have been, at a time when Android looks vulnerable thanks to Apple’s patent win over Samsung last month.

In some ways though, Nokia’s announcements have little to do with the key questions over Nokia’s Lumia range and Windows Phone 8. Quality is one issue; the launch of the Lumia 800 was damaged by the device’s poor battery life and tendency to sulk and become unchargeable; the rumour is that return rates were unusually high. The knock-on effect is to make it hard for retailers to recommend it to their customers, though firmware updates eventually improved matters. How is battery life on the 820 and 920? What has been done to address quality issues?

Another question, and to me the biggest one, is how Windows 8 for PCs will fare in the market and the impact it will have on Windows Phone. The more time I spend with Windows 8 the more I like it, especially on a tablet, but also on the desktop. There is a barrier to adoption though as the new user interface is a demanding transition for some users. If Windows 8 tablets succeed, there will be instant recognition for the phone user interface and users will have a reason to demand it over iPhone or Android, something that has been lacking up to now.

On the other hand, if appreciation for the nice features of Windows 8 is drowned out by a chorus of “give us back the Start menu”, while vendors focus on expensive fiddly hybrids rather than simple, lightweight tablets, then I doubt Windows Phone 8 will take off either.

Currently I use a Lumia as my main smartphone and (battery life aside) get on well with it. Nokia’s experience with the operating system should mean that this new generation is better, and the phones look good. As Elop himself said though, this is all about ecosystems, and the viability of his third ecosystem is still in the balance.

mobile, smartphones

Nokia City Lens: augmented reality on your Lumia 920 Windows 8 phone

Nokia has announced the Lumia 920 with features including Qi wireless charging, PureView camera, and of course Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 8 operating system.

One eye-catching feature presented by Nokia’s Jo Harlow is City Lens, which uses augmented reality to overlay the view through your phone’s camera with tap-able labels showing information about local restaurants, stations, shops and so on.

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A great feature; I am sceptical though since Local Scout, a feature in Windows Phone 7 that was meant to find local places of interest including restaurants, shops and so on, was worse than useless in my experience. Information was missing, out of date, and lacked the necessary momentum to have user reviews of any consequence. It was a little better in the most central locations, such as central London.

City Lens could be great though, a practical application of augmented reality (historically a solution looking for a problem) which has obvious appeal.

microsoft, sharepoint

Colligo Briefcase: offline SharePoint for iPad and iPhone

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I took a quick look at Colligo Briefcase, an offline SharePoint 2007 and 2010 client for the Apple iPad and iPhone. There is a free Lite version, limited to 50Mb and with cut-down features; Briefcase Pro which costs a modest $2.99; and Enterprise which adds centralized management.

SharePoint is a powerful collaboration platform, but Microsoft’s client support if you would rather not use a web browser is surprisingly poor. You are really meant to use Office, which of course does not exist on iOS, and even then the offline support is poor.

I used Briefcase Pro, which connected first time to my on-premise SharePoint server. I selected which lists and libraries to sync, and a few minutes later everything was available. Impressive. Better, in fact, than Microsoft’s own SharePoint Workspace on a PC; but that is not saying much.

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Briefcase lets you easily preview Office documents. I am sure there are certain formatting or content types that do not work, but I found this effective for Word and Excel. OneNote is not supported for preview; a shame. I could not even get OneNote documents to open in OneNote on the iPad.

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I confirmed that Briefcase works fine offline. In Airplane mode, I could still browse and preview documents.

I tried but was unable to connect to Microsoft’s SkyDrive. There may be a way. This would be useful, since Microsoft’s own SkyDrive app does not work offline.

My biggest concern with Briefcase is security. What if confidential documents are in SharePoint and the iPad or iPhone is stolen? Briefcase Enterprise has a remote wipe capability, but it is still a concern. You can set an additional PIN on the app:

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More worrying though is how data can leak out of Briefcase into other locations. Imagine a user has an iPad and has agreed to Apple’s default settings for iCloud and Pages, the iPad word processor. In this mode, documents in Pages are automatically synched with iCloud.

Now the user wants to edit a Word document that is in Briefcase. She hits Open in … and selects Pages. Pages does not just open the document, it imports it. The user views or edits it in Pages. Now that document is sent to iCloud, and in due course will turn up on other iOS or Mac computers belonging to that user.

Another issue with Pages is that there is no easy way to get it back into SharePoint. Pages can use WebDAV, which should work, but must be configured separately. This may be why Colligo suggests Documents to Go. Supported apps have an Open in Briefcase option that enables upload.

The Enterprise edition of Briefcase lets administrators disable the Open in command to improve security. This is unfortunately necessary if you require any sort of security for SharePoint data accessed through Briefcase.

It is a shame there is no quick way to open a Briefcase document in the web browser. There is a Copy Link option, which you can paste into Safari, but you have to re-authenticate and it is not seamless.

A few niggles then; but given that most users will do more viewing than editing while on the go, Briefcase is an excellent and, for the Pro edition, low-cost way to use SharePoint offline.

.net, microsoft, professional

Windows Server 2012: a great upgrade

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Remember how everyone hated Windows Vista but admins loved Server 2008? The awkward truth: they were built on the same core code. History may be about to repeat with Windows 8 and Server 2012, which also share code.

That said, I actually like Windows 8; but it is controversial because of its dual personality and the demands it places on existing Windows users to learn new ways to navigate the user interface. Server 8 has the Start screen too, but it boots to the desktop and most tools are available through the new Server Manager in any case, so I doubt it will cause much concern.

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That is, if you install the GUI at all. Microsoft is a convert to the “No GUI on a server” idea and you are meant to install Server Core, which has no GUI, where possible, and run Server Manager on a Windows 8 client. There is also an intriguing intermediate option called the Minimal Server Interface, which has the GUI infrastructure but no Explorer shell or Internet Explorer. It sounds odd, but I quite like it; it is a bit like one of those stripped down Linux desktops where nothing gets in the way of the apps.

The Windows Server Evaluation Guide [pdf] does a good job of covering what’s new but runs to 177 pages, posing a challenge for those of us asked to review the new operating system in the usual 1500 words or fewer. I have had a go at this elsewhere. I will say though that from my first encounter with Server 2012, then called Server 8, at a press workshop in September 2011, I was impressed with the extent and significance of the new features. It does seem to me a breakthrough on several levels.

Virtualisation is one of course, with features like Hyper-V Replica doing what Microsoft should be doing: bringing features you would expect in large-scale enterprise setups within reach of small organisations. If you are not ready for public cloud, a couple of substantial servers running Hyper-V VMs with failover via Hyper-V Replica is an excellent setup.

Another is the effort Microsoft has put into modularisation and automation.

For modularity, Server 2012 is not quite at the level of the Debian server which hosts this web site, where I can add and remove packages with a simple apt-get command, but it is getting closer. You can now move between Server Core and full GUI simply by adding and removing features; it sounds easy, but represents an enormous untangling effort from the Windows team.

On the automation side, PowerShell has matured into a comprehensive scriptable, remoteable platform for managing Windows Server. I love the PowerShell History feature in the Active Directory Administration Center, which shows you the script generated by your actions in the GUI.

Storage is a big feature too. The new Storage Spaces are not aimed at Enterprises, but at the rest of us. We are beginning to see an end to the “help, we are running out of space on the C drive” problem which can cause considerable problems. You can even mount virtual disks as folders rather than drive letters, another sign that Windows is finally escaping its DOS (or CP/M?) heritage.

Annoyances? Lack of tool compatibility is one, specifically that you the new Hyper-V manager will not manage 2008 R2 VMs, and the new RSAT (Remote Server Administration Tools) require Windows 8.

More seriously, there are times when the beautiful new Server Manager UI gives mysterious errors, and as you drill down, you are back in the world of DCOM activation or some such nightmare from the past; which makes you realise that under the surface there is a ton of legacy still there and that Windows admins are not yet free from the burden of trawling the web for someone else with the same troubling error in Event Viewer. Maybe this is common to all operating systems; but Windows seems to have more than its share.

Never mind; this is a great upgrade and shows that Microsoft, for all its frustrations, is still capable of turning out strong products.

windows

Windows 8 desktop user tip: learn mouse-top-left-drag-down

Windows 8 is a difficult adjustment for some users, particularly those with long experience of earlier versions. With its dual personality it is always going to be a little odd; but I have found it just as productive as Windows 7 for desktop use. In fact, thanks to its good performance and other new features, I prefer it.

Some actions in Windows 8 are not obvious though, hence the puzzlement of first-time users staring at the desktop and wondering how to get back to the Start screen.

There is one mouse movement in Windows which I find particularly useful, which is mouse to top left corner and drag down. This works in both the Desktop and Modern UI (“Metro), provided that at least one Modern UI app is running. It displays a list of all running Modern UI apps, with the one you last used (before the current app) at the top.

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This is an app switcher, and I use it frequently to get back to the desktop from a Modern UI app in one quick mouse movement. However it has other functions too. If you right-click an app in the list, a close button appears. If you have a screen wide enough to support Snap, you can also snap the app to left or right.

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You can also activate Snap by click-and-drag on an app in the list. Just drag it a little to the right. When you release the mouse, it will be snapped left. Or drag it all the way to the right to snap there. Or if the screen is already in a split view, drag it to the centre of the screen to replace the current occupant.

development, professional, software development

Embarcadero releases RAD Studio XE3

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Embarcadero has released RAD Studio XE3, a major upgrade to its suite of tools for Windows, cross-platform and web development.

New in this version:

  • Windows 8 compatibility
  • Metropolis framework for desktop apps that have the look and feel of Windows 8 “Modern UI” (formerly Metro) apps. Live Tile support is included via a proxy Windows Runtime app.
  • Prism XE3 for .NET development, including support for the Windows Runtime in Windows 8, using a Delphi-like language.
  • Version 2 of the FireMonkey cross-platform framework, with improved touch support, a new grid control
  • Easier data binding in both FireMonkey and the Windows-only VCL (Visual Component Library) framework
  • New HTML5 Builder tool which replaces RadPHP. The new tool supports cross-platform mobile development by integrating PhoneGap, which lets you wrap HTML apps as native mobile apps.

Mac OSX support is included but iOS support has been removed, pending release of a forthcoming Mobile Studio product.

64-bit C++Builder is not in this release. 64-bit Delphi was introduced in the previous XE2 release.

Embarcadero has backed down from a proposed change to the license for the Professional edition which prohibited connection to remote databases. This restriction now only applies to the dbExpress database framework.

More when I have installed the actual release. The most eye-catching feature is Metropolis, though whether there is really a demand for a fake Modern UI framework is an open question. There are also concerns about deployment, which will not work on Windows RT (the ARM version) and may involve some hacks on x86, since it cannot go through the Windows Store.

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Last year’s RAD Studio XE2 was an amazing release in terms of announced features, but plagued by quality issues which left some developers disappointed.