Tag: Windows 7

What are Millennials and Why Should an IT Pro Care?

Before yesterday I had never heard the term Millennial.  I was at an event for UK/Ireland MVPs and this was the topic of the keynote.  It’s a term to describe the current generation of people.  So we had the baby boomers in the 50’s, Generation X in the 60’s and 70’s, Generation Y in the 80’s and 90’s, and since then, the Millennial generation has been entering the work force.  They are very different to the baby boomers.

Baby boomers expect everything to be locked down, controlled by policy, restricted, and so on.  Colleagues who worked with me when I was last a domain admin know that’s how I liked to run a Windows network.  Users had no administrative rights unless they had a valid (and approved) business case.  IT did everything when it came to changes.  We minimised the effort by using things like GPO and System Center.  This is how Baby Boomers like it … and the folks in charge right now are Baby Boomers.

People who are entering the workplace are not baby boomers.  They are the Millennials.  They’ve grown up with PCs in their bedroom, phones with always-on Internet access, netbooks with wifi hotspots and 3G cards, and the ability to download and run apps on an as-needed basis.  They are entering the workplace and finding it stifling.  It’s choking their ability to work.  Why?  Because we have implemented a baby boomer infrastructure and expect younger people who think very differently to work in an environment that is 100% alien to them.

Why should the business care?  I’ll keep it quick with 2 arguments.

Employee Competition

Even though there is massive unemployment and graduates have next to know opportunities, there is still some recruiting going on.  Those companies want to hire the very best graduates.  Given the choice, will an employee join the company with the tied down, IBM-esque suit-and-tie environment, where they wait 6 weeks for a laptop, have no administrative rights, can’s use social media, and have forbidding IT usage policies that threaten them with unemployment if they dare look at a news website?  Or will they choose to work for a company that has a more liberal working environment that favours results over appearances, where IT is seen as a tool instead of a 10 foot wall, and where they are free to use their imagination to accomplish their goals?

Business Flexibility

Imagine this: a user is given a task that requires using an application tool set that is not available to them right now.  They need to do some research to find out what is best.  They can reach out on Twitter or Facebook to get some advice.  Now they find the best tools to use.  They check the IT-maintained library, and request an application.  A workflow starts and their boss approves the request.  The application starts installing immediately.  They may need another tool.  This could be available online as an app that can be downloaded or run in the cloud.  They subscribe to it and now they can start working.  They get the results the business needs and they accomplish it in a timely manner, making profit for the company.

Compare it with this.  A user identifies a need for some applications.  They have no means to research what is the best tool, other than vendor sites full of marketing material that glorify their wares.  The user identifies four possible alternatives and requests IT to look into them.  IT gets some demos and sets up a trial for the user after a week or two.  The user picks two tools and a purchasing process starts.  Security get involved to validate the tools, Internal Audit have their say, and after a few more weeks the tools are purchased.  By now, the user has had to give up on getting the tools and attempts to accomplish their goals in an inadequate fashion.  The results are late and the company fails to win the business.

Sound familiar?  It’s the basis of cloud computing.  In other words, IT cannot predict the needs of the business, and the result is that IT becomes a blocking force for the businesses need to change and compete in a fluid and competitive world.

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We baby boomer-ish IT admins and decision makers need to adopt new technologies that cater for the desired working environment of the Millennials and provide the business with a flexible working environment. 

I’ve heard it discussed before that we need to consider letting them bring their own computers to work.  I know that some major corporations are looking into this.  That causes complications about ownership of applications and data.  Maybe Remote Desktop Services or VDI are the answers here.  Maybe App-V is.  Maybe a client hypervisor with a company virtual machine is.  Or maybe we don’t have the correct solution yet because this is a new challenge.

Old school thinking on network design needs to be reconsidered.  If users are bringing in their own PC’s then they need to be isolated from company resources.  We have to validate the machines for security and health (MS NAP/Cisco NAC?).  Internet usage policies need to be opened up to allow for social media.  Businesses need to be more concerned about results than clock punching.

Mobility is a huge factor.  The traditional team has gone by the wayside.  Teams are dynamic now.   A person floats between teams on projects.  They can be a member of many teams at once if they work on many projects.  This impacts collaboration (Lync and SharePoint), mobility (wifi) and work presence (home, mobile working, and hot-desking).

Microsoft often refer to their Netherlands office as a new working place.  Back in 2001, I worked in the new DVG campus in Hannover, Germany.  It’s a huge version of that same concept.  It was effectively a giant glass canopy, with buildings, gardens and pathways beneath it.  Employees were assigned to a floor in a building.  They came in the morning and either took and office or an open area desk depending on the type of work they were doing.  They system I worked on enabled their application toolset to follow them from one PC to another (laptops were still very expensive), and they used “mobile” phones that charged overnight in a locker.  IT was using technology from 10 years ago but it was way ahead of what many companies do today.  And I have to say it was one of the most relaxing work places I’ve ever been in.

We IT pros, architects, consultants, and decision makers have a lot to think about in the coming years.  Business requires more flexibility than ever to face up to the current economic challenges.  We need the very best employees and they need the very best tools.  We have to change how we deliver IT to the information worker.

Things to check out:

  • App-V
  • System Center Configuration Manager 2012
  • Remote Desktop Services Session Hosts
  • VDI
  • Private Cloud Computing
  • DirectAccess
  • Network Access Protection

Block Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1

As usual, Microsoft is providing a way to prevent the download and install for a new service pack, this time it’s SP1 for Windows 7 and W2008 R2.

You can prevent the download/install if you use WSUS or ConfigMgr.  For example, you can choose if you want to download serivce packs (or not) and you can choose to approve (or not) the service pack for all machines or groups of machines.

But maybe you use Windows Update directly or maybe you have a one-size fits all policy and you want to blog the install for a few machines?  If so, you can use the blocker.

“A blocking tool is available for organizations that would like to temporarily prevent installation of Service Pack updates through Windows Update.
This tool can be used with:

  • Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (valid for 12 months following general availability of the service pack)
  • Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (valid for 12 months following general availability of the service pack)

This toolkit contains three components. All of them function primarily to set or clear a specific registry key that is used to detect and block download of Service Packs from Windows Update. You only need to use the component which best serves your organization’s computer management infrastructure.

  • A Microsoft-signed executable
  • A script
  • An ADM template
  1. The executable creates a registry key on the computer on which it is run that blocks or unblocks (depending on the command-line option used) the delivery of a Service Pack to that computer through Windows Update. The key used is HKLMSoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftWindowsWindowsUpdate.
    When the ‘/B’ command line option is used, the key value name ‘DoNotAllowSP’ is created and its value set to 1. This value blocks delivery of a Service Pack to the computer through Automatic Update or Windows Update.
    When the ‘/U’ command line option is used, the previously created registry value that temporarily blocked the delivery of a Service Pack to the computer through Automatic Update or Windows Update is removed. If the value does not exist on the computer on which it is run, no action is taken.
  2. The script does the same thing as the executable, but allows you to specify the remote machine name on which to block or unblock delivery of Service Packs.
    Note that the executable and script have been tested only as a command-line tool and not in conjunction with other systems management tools or remote execution mechanisms.
  3. The ADM template allows administrators to import group policy settings to block or unblock delivery of Service Packs into their Group Policy environment. Administrators can then use Group Policy to centrally execute the action across systems in their environment.

Please note that this toolkit will not prevent the installation of the service pack from CD/DVD, or from the stand-alone download package. This simply prevents the service pack from being delivered over Windows Update.”

Native VHD Boot: A Walkthrough of Common Scenarios

Native VHD is a feature of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 where you can configure a machine to boot up from a VHD (virtual hard disk) file instead of a physical file system.  Many people choose to do this for test or demo environments.  It could be handy to know about this feature if you want to quickly use one of Microsoft’s demo VHD’s and you don’t have dedicated hardware to run it on …. just download the VHD, configure Native VHD, and away you go.  But honestly, I’d probably just use my laptop which I would boot up with Hyper-V on my eSATA drive.

Microsoft has released a document on the subject: “Describes the functionality and usability of native VHD boot, which is a feature in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2”.

P2V Migration for Software Assurance

This new solution is available for download now.

Microsoft P2V Migration for Software Assurance automates the delivery of an updated and personalized Windows 7 operating system while backing up and converting the legacy Windows XP or newer desktop and its applications for seamless use within Windows 7.

Microsoft P2V Migration for Software Assurance uses the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) and Sysinternals Disk2vhd to convert a user’s existing Windows XP or later client environment to a virtual hard disk (VHD), then automates the delivery of an updated and personalized Windows 7 operating system containing a virtual machine (VM) with the user’s previous Windows environment, applications, and Web browser. The user’s previous virtual desktop retains its existing management components, domain membership, and policies. The process also publishes applications and the browser so that the user can access them seamlessly within the Windows 7 Start menu.

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TechEd Europe 2010 Keynote – Big Shock: It’s All About The Cloud

I’m not at the poor cousin of the TechEd family this week.  Last year’s experience put me off.  However, I’m tuned into the keynote to see what’s happening.  The very good news is that Stephen Elop (the speaker at last year’s keynote where half of the room walked out) has left for Nokia and that Brad Anderson (Microsoft Corporate Vice President, Management & Security Division) is taking over the duty.

While I’m waiting … I would expect lots of System Center v.Next/2011 content to be on show this year.  Those products tend to make big headlines at MMS and almost all of the family has some big release next year .. OpsMgr, VMM, ConfigMgr.  Oh … here we go …

Brad starts off my pitching “the cloud”.  It’s not a surprise.  And the message is …. .everyone else in cloud is wrong; Platform-as-a-Service is the way to go.  The huge investment in Azure did not affect that ;-)  Dagnammit – I don’t have enough drink in the house for the “MS keynote – cloud drinking game”.

Windows Phone is next up.  It’s only launching today in the USA.  The first pitch is “choice”.  Obviously aiming at where MS feels Apple is weak, i.e. lack of handset variety.  Some would say that makes Apple is strong because the control the hardware/OS integration completely.  The see-it-all-at-once and social media integration in WP7 is very good on the face of it (I actually have an iPhone rather than WP7).  WP7 should also be controllable using System Center.  Not much reaction at all to a “do you want a demo of it?” question by Anderson.  Problem: geeks are at the show and they’ve already seen the demo.  It’s a demo of the apps really – aimed squarely at the developers in the audience.  Nice looking apps from Tesco and Ebay.  Eek, the developer demo is canned.  Looks pretty similar to what I saw in the PDC keynote. Dev stuff – I’m taking a quick power nap.  Brad is back with the news that since the European launch 3 weeks ago, 600 European apps are published.

We need to deliver apps to users in a predictable and secure way.  There is tension between users and IT – gimme gimme gimme versus control.  I smell ConfigMgr v.Next.  It’s all about IT delivery being focused on the user, e.g. user pulling down apps and the apps following the user around to different PCs if they are the “owner” PC.  User centric client computing is the brand that MS is using.  Ahh … SP1 first.  Ah … Windows 7 marketing first.

88% of worldwide businesses (what size is not mentioned) say they will move to Windows 7 in the next 2 years.

SP1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 new virtualisation features:

  • RemoteFX (previously blogged): big for VDI graphics in the LAN
  • Dynamic Memory (previously blogged).  Claiming a 40% density improvement in VDI.  Anderson claiming that will give Hyper-V the best density in VDI in the market.

Michael Kleef comes on stage.  He big-ups the Citrix relationship.  Citrix are embracing RemoteFX and it’ll feature in XenDesktop.  Now we see IE8 running in a XenDesktop VM via ICA.  A flash video in full fidelity and audio is playing.  HP BL460 blades are in the background and a perfmon view shows the CPU utilisation is minimal – because the work is being done by the GPU.  A Silverlight application in IE9 is run with lots of graphics, moving bits, and BI reporting.  Hmm, the Citrix WAN scaling tools can allegedly stretch RemoteFX over the WAN … interesting!

Back to the cloud with SaaS.  Office365 is a next generation replacement for BPOS.  Intune (very basic desktop management) is on deck.  Demo of Office365.  We’re in yawn-ville at the moment.  This keynote needs a shot of adrenaline.  InTune is being sold as “management”.  It’s very, very light compared to ConfigMgr.  Nice idea – but I’d rather see a cloud based child-site for ConfigMgr.  Anderson promises that InTune will become as rich as ConfigMgr.

A RC of ForeFront EndPoint Protection is available today.  It is based on the same architecture as ConfigMgr.  That means you can have one integrated infrastructure to manage desktops and servers configuration and security.  And that’s all there is about that.  I guess the ForeFront teams got more pop today than they did last year 🙂

Now it’s cloud (IaaS), cloud (PaaS) and private cloud for the rest of the day.

Infrastructure as a Service.  Private Cloud computing from MS is Hyper-V and System Center.  What momentum does Hyper-V have?  Hyper-V has grown 12.6 points and VMware has grown over 4 points in the market over the last 2 years. 

Announcements:

  • Hyper-V Cloud: This is the partnership program that I’ve just blogged about.  It’s a bundle of software and hardware.  MS has a set of funds called Accelerate.
  • Lots of guides, etc: previously blogged.

HP Hyper-V partnership: HP Cloud Foundation for Hyper-V is an integration between HP Blade System Matrix and MS System Center.  HP is announcing HP CloudStart based on rapidly deploying private clouds based on Hyper-V.

What’s coming in the next version of System Center?  Greg Jenson has the answers.  3 key features:

  • Elastic
  • Shared infrastructure in the data centre
  • Deployed by an application owner by self-service

This is made possible by the next version of VMM.  We get the demo shown at TechEd NA 2010 in the Spring.  This features Server App-V.  VMM vNext is almost identical to what you get in Azure VM Role and that also has Server App-V.  Modelling of an n-tier app architecture is shown, highlighting elasticity.  That’s great for techies …. we want self service so that’s what’s up next!  We see some delegation of the service template to a potential app owner.  It’s similar to 2008 R2 but with a service template which describes an architecture rather than deploy a VM.  That’s understanding the business app owners and their needs.  Deploying a new service = deploy the template.  Things like IIS and SQL will be deployed as virtualised applications that are abstracted from their VM’s.  That allows zero downtime patching of VM’s from the template.

Azure Virtual Network allows a cross-premises domain between your site and Azure.  Azure VM Role allows you to run Windows Server 2008 R2 VMs.  I blogged about that announcement from PDC.

Power nap while Azure dev stuff is talked about.  Next we see OpsMgr using the RC (but supported) management pack for Azure to monitor an Azure based application.  It can respond to spikes in demand by spawning Azure instances.  Careful now; don’t want a nasty credit card bill at the end of the month because of elastic growth that incorrectly interprets slow response times.

Anderson wrapping up by saying that we will likely use a mix of cloud technologies.  We have different solutions to choose from and integrate to suit the needs of our businesses.

Over 70% of MS research/development resources are focused on the cloud.

SP1 RC for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

Microsoft just announced the release of the Service Pack 1 release candidate for Windows 7 and W2008 R2.  This will be the only RC release before the eventual RTM release.  You can download it now.  The download page still talks about the beta release.  I guess that’ll get updated pretty quickly?

I haven’t seen any details on additional changes since the beta.  I know that MS demonstrated an additional Hyper-V feature at TechEd NA 2010 that was not in the beta.  This allowed Hyper-V admins to use PowerShell to configure virtual switches to filter out traffic from VMs if they used a non-assigned IP address – useful where you don’t trust the delegated admins of those VMs who are logged into them with admin rights (and could change the IPs to try do a spoof attack).

No Windows 8 Until 2012

It’s been widely reported this afternoon that news of a Windows 8 release schedule appeared very briefly on a Dutch MS website (before being pulled).  I have a nagging feeling that something similar happened there with Windows 7 sometime back …

Anyway, the story was that we wouldn’t see an RTM of the new server/desktop OSs for another 2 years.  I used to think that we’d see some announcements at TechEd Europe in November.  It is 2 years since we had the Windows 7/Server 2008 R2 “Better Together” announcements at TechEd Europe in Barcelona.  If you stick to the promise of 2 year release cycles (to the Software Assurance customers) then we should be entering that cycle now.  But it appears that we won’t enter that for another 6-12 months.  My guess would be TechEd NA 2011.

OK, so SA customers might be peeved that their recent SA purchases won’t bring an upgrade – they do get other benefits, some which they might value and others they may not.  But there is a bright side for the rest of us.

Think back 5 years.  Windows XP arrived in 2001.  It didn’t exactly go through a widespread deployment straight away.  In these parts, many people didn’t start to deploy it until 2004-2006.  Seriously!  The long time between XP and Vista gave businesses a chance to get off of the old hardware and onto XP. 

That doesn’t exactly suit the revenue generation of Microsoft.  They want people buying SA or upgrade licenses.  That means they need to provide a reason to pay extra.  And that mean more frequent releases.  Vista came along and it went down like the Hindenburg.  It wasn’t awful but the reaction was.  Mainly the issue was that it was very different and people/businesses had invested in an XP platform.  Official sales figures were misleading because SA figures are presented.  In reality, few deployed it. 

Windows 7 has had a positive critical response.  Think about this; it’s effectively Vista 1.1.  What’s changed?  There are improvements (drivers, performance and usability) but businesses have had more time to get used to it.  But it’s still not widely deployed in the business.  Money is short and upgrade projects take time and money.  Many of the better together solutions are excellent but most businesses have already purchased 3rd party solutions so the motivation to move might not be there now.

The fix is time.  And that’s why I’m happy about Windows 8 not being directly around the corner. 

Example:  Many people want x64 laptops in the office for 4GB+ RAM.  Fair enough.  But the catch is the firewall.  Why?  Cos the stupid VPN clients that they have right now are 32-bit only and a 64-bit client is only available if they purchased the firewall vendor’s equivalent of Software Assurance and many business don’t.  And the likes of CheckPoint go and require backdating of support + a new per user VPN license!  There’s an opportunity to deploy Windows 7 Ultimate/Enterprise with DirectAccess.

Windows 7 will gain more and more acceptance.  Eventually business applications will drive an upgrade like happened with XP. 

And what’s nice for an IT Pro that works with lots of technology: time to learn the stuff.  The constant churn means you can’t get in depth knowledge.  With time, you can learn the products, use them, adapt to the quirks, get inventive, etc.

So what if Windows 8 is “late”?  It’s a good thing.  Plus it means that MS has more time to come up with something cool and get it right.  I’d rather have late than wrong.

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Live Essentials 2011; First Impressions

I installed Live Essentials 2011 on my netbook earlier this evening.  My overall first impressions are good.

I use Live Messenger to chat to some friends in the UK and USA.  I’m not a heavy user but it’s handy.  Now it has the ability to integrate into other social networks including Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace.  It has been set up to be extensible.  The social media stuff is a little cluttered with 2 columns.  I’d rather have 1 column like in Facebook.  The core piece of Messenger looks tidy enough.

The Mesh Beta proved to be very useful to me over the last 18 months as I worked on two books.  I could sync up different machines so I could work on my netbook on the train or a laptop at home.  One thing annoyed me; it was messy to set up.  I could do it but I wouldn’t expect any end user to be able to do it.  Live Mesh is much better set up for the ordinary end user and less annoying.  You can sync up IE favourites and Office configurations with the selection of a few checkboxes.  Adding folders to sync is an absolute breeze.  Everything syncs via a dedicated Skydrive sync folder (maximum data of 5GB).

Sugarsync looks good and is recommended by friends of mine in case more than 5GB is needed.  Test it for yourself.

Live Writer is how I usually write blog posts when I am at home or on the road.  Like all of the other tools, it features the ribbon interface.  So far, so good.  It seems to be a little fast to me on my netbook than the previous version.

The Windows Live Mail client is the rich client for Live/Hotmail.  The big thing I see there is conversation view.  And you know what –> it’s done better than than I saw in the Office 2010 pre-RTM versions (I still use Office 2007 because my publisher makes big changes to the ribbon).  Live Mail gives me simple one-click access to a complete conversation.  That’s going to make a big difference to me because I’m on some mail lists where the threads can be scattered over time and intermingled.  Now I have something to sort all of that out.

Most digital camera owners are casual photographers, using the JPEG format.  They’ll like Live Photo Gallery.  The ribbon reveals more functionality that can be done, including basic editing and adding metadata to photos.  I work more in the Photoshop world.  However, I do use Live Photo Gallery to quickly add photos to Flickr.  It continues to excel there, and also offers uploads to YouTube, Facebook, Live Groups, and Skydrive.  There are additional upload plugins that you can configure via a built-in link.  One tool that I liked in the past was ICE (Image Composite Editor).  It seems to have been integrated, allowing for simple and high quality stitching of photos to create panoramas.

That’s it for now.  So far, so good!

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Doing a Windows 7 Assessment in the Real World

Last night I talked about how I needed to use ConfigMgr to help with my MAP assessment.  Today, I had to drop MAP.

I have to be realistic with this project.  The site has a mix of PCs.  Some are old and some are new.  There are 32-bit and 64-bit processors.  Some users require 4 GB RAM or more (and thus 64 bit processors).  And as with everyone, money cannot just be thrown at a problem.  In this project, PCs with what we see as inferior processors will be recycled (or donated) after being securely wiped.  New PCs will be purchased, prepared, and given to power users.  Their old PCs will be reconditioned and re-used.  PCs with not enough RAM or disk will be upgraded where possible.  64-bit operating systems will be used where possible but it is likely that most will be 32-bit (unless more than 3 GB RAM is required).

And this is where MAP fails:

  • It doesn’t tell me what size a disk is, only that it has a certain amount of free space.
  • It doesn’t give me information about 64-bit processor functionality.
  • It doesn’t give me hardware model information so that I can check if I can put more than 2 GB RAM into the chassis.

I also had another problem with MAP.  Remember that this is a site where there are lots of old machines with old builds.  Remote access of WMI (even with all the permissions and policies configured) doesn’t seem to work.  Plus people are in and out with laptops so I have to time my scan perfectly.

So I went back to ConfigMgr and its reports.  The benefit is that an installed agent will do the hardware inventory and report back to the ConfigMgr server.  No remote WMI required.  This makes it more reliable.  I also get a scan when the agent is installed.  And I’ve done that 3 ways:

  1. ConfigMgr push.
  2. Start-up script.
  3. Sneaker-net: This is a crusty network and I noticed that the agent push was not as successful as it should have been.

There are some basic reports for Vista and Windows 7 assessments.  I stress basic.  The same problems exist here.  But the reports gave me a template that I could work with.  I started off by creating a report that queries for the number of each of the different models of computer on the network.  That gives me the information I need to check hardware maximum capacities.  I then created a collection that contains all agent managed desktops and laptops.  I took the Windows 7 assessment report, cloned it, and rewrote the SQL query for the report.  I then ran that report against my new managed client computer collection.  It gives me the following for each computer:

  • Computer name
  • Computer model
  • CPU model, speed, and 64-bit support
  • Physical memory
  • Physical disk size

I’ve enough information there to plan everything I need.  I can dump it into Excel and work away to create my reports.  I can price hardware component upgrades and computer replacements.  I can plan the OS deployment.  It would have been nice to do this with MAP but unfortunately the basic nature of the reports and the lack of an agent (for circumstances such as those that I’ve encountered on this project) did not help.

ConfigMgr continues to rock!  Plus I was able to show it off to some of the folks at the site.