Windows 8 | Aidan Finn, IT Pro

The Windows 8 and Samsung ATIV SmartPC Battery Test

I wrote most of this blog post while flying. The ending was written in Florida.

When I bought a Windows 8 tablet, one of the things I had in my mind was trans-Atlantic travel. My iPad 1 barely would make it from Dublin (Ireland) to the east coast of the USA. Then I’d have to find somewhere to charge to make it to the west coast. Inevitably, I’d end up having to watch the awful Disney movie on the flickering tube TV with a colour channel missing on the US Airways or Delta flight.

No more. Windows 8 devices offered great battery life. My SmarPC survived for over 12 hours one day while I surfed and worked. Could it do as well playing movies? Movies hammer the battery more because there isn’t as little time for rest.

Today I am flying from Dublin to Orlando, via London. I charged the device overnight, topped it up in Dublin Airport, and have been surviving on batter since. I’m expect a total journey time of just under 17 hours. Obviously the device has to be off for some of that:

Boarding and take-off in Dublin
Landing and transfer in London
Boarding and take-off in London
Lunch during the London-Orlando flight

Will the tablet make it to landing in Orlando? Ideally, I’d like to have some juice left there … just in case I need to get online to google or book something.

My usage so far:

Surfing, tweeting and email for about 20 minutes in Dublin
2 episodes of a 22 minute comedy while traveling to London
Another 22 minute comedy in London
Numerous 42 minute shows in flight, followed by some reading, some emails, and blogging.

We are over Quebec right now, with about 4 hours 12 minutes to go. My battery has 33% left. It is around 12 hours since I topped up the charge in the tablet.

In Florida:

I’m in Florida now. The batter got down to around 4% while we were still 2 hours out of Orlando. While I might have gotten 12-13 hours out of the device with general usage, it is quite clear that watching videos does hammer the battery. I dimmed the screen for the last hour or so but I don’t know if this made much or any difference.

Please keep in mind that there were airplane/security mandated shutdown/reboots and they probably sucked more battery than a simple sleep/wakeup.

Technorati Tags: Hardware,Windows 8

KB2804678–Cannot Exceed 256 Dynamic MAC Addresses By Default On Hyper-V Host

This is not a scenario I’ve encountered … not too many of us will ever have more than 256 virtual NICs on a single host. Microsoft has posted a support article on this scenario:

Windows Hyper-V server has a default limit of 256 dynamic MAC addresses. You have a Windows Server 2012 (WS2012) host which is configured with the Hyper-V role. The Hyper-V server is configured to provide dynamic MAC addresses to the guest machines:

When you start a guest virtual machine, you may encounter the following error message:

The application encountered an error while attempting to change the state of ‘<Virtual machine name>’

Synthetic Ethernet Port (Instance ID CCE417C5-BDD9-4216-85CA-248620EE75C6): Failed to power on with Error ‘Attempt to access invalid address’.

On a Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V host, an Event ID 12565 from source “Microsoft-Windows-Hyper-V-Worker” is logged.

Here’s how this issue is caused. Each host has a default dynamic pool of MAC addresses. This pool is generated as follows:

The first three octets of the MAC address pool are 00:15:5D. This is unique to all Microsoft “devices”, complying with IEEE standards.
The next two octets (4 and 5) in the MAC address pool are derived from the IP address of the host (the last 2 octets of the IP address to be precise). This gives the pool some uniqueness in your server farm. We now have 5 of the 6 required octets for a MAC address.
Finally, the last octet in the MAC address pool is the range 0x0-0xFF. Each instance of this range is used once per virtual NIC (assuming that it’s using a dynamic MAC) on this host

Octets 1 to 3 are unique to Microsoft “devices”. Octets 4 and 5 are for giving the MAC address pool uniqueness for the pool range. And octet number 6 is used to make each dynamic MAC address unique on the network.

If you want to break out a scientific calculator or if you know your computer science, the clue to the cause is in that last piece of the puzzle. We only have octet 6 for each dynamic MAC address instance that can be allocated. An octet is 8 bits, from 00000000 to 11111111. That is 00 to FF in hex. Which is 0 to 255, or 256 numbers. And that means each host can have 256 MAC addresses, by default.

There are workarounds to this, if you are in the very rare situation where you need more than 256 MAC addresses on a single host.

Use Static MAC Addresses

Turn off (shut down) the VM and assign static MAC addresses. System Center VMM makes this easy with centrally human managed pool of MAC addresses, something like with DHCP.

Manually Modify The Per-Host Dynamic MAC Address Pool

Be very careful with this! You don’t want to create overlapping pools of MAC addresses to confuse ARP on your network. The MAC address range is defined by two registry values in HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionVirtualization:

MinimumMacAddress
MaximumMacAddress

In my example (above), you can see the range runs from 00:15:5d:01:86:ff. 00:15:5d is the manufacturer unique 3 octets for Microsoft “devices”. 01:86 is unique to the range on this host. And 00 to ff is the default range that limits us to 256 MAC addresses.

An interesting thought that came to me after posting this: you might want to be careful if using DHCP for your hosts – seriously, you should not do this! I can imagine how two hosts could end up accidentally with the same default range if HostA has Address1 when it is initialised, and then Address1 is allocated to HostB when it is initialised.

Microsoft says that you can modify this range … but as I warned before: be careful not to overlap over ranges or devices on your network! You can do this by modifying the fifth and or sixth octet of the default calculated dynamic MAC address range. Changing the fifth octet is the risky one … remember that the 4th and 5th octets are unique per host.

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If you don’t have this massive environment then don’t touch these dynamic MAC address ranges unless you have to. If you do have to, then (in my opinion) you should be using System Center. A SQL whiz might be able to run a query in ConfigMgr to report on existing MAC addresses from physical devices. PowerShell will come in handy if you want to get the details exiting MAC ranges on your Hyper-V hosts. Stack Overflow has a script example to query lots of servers that you could tweak. 4sysops has another script example. I haven’t tested them, but you can play to your heart’s content Smile

Technorati Tags: Windows Server 2008 R2,Windows 8,Windows Server 2012,Hyper-V,Virtualisation,Networking

Hold Onto Your Knickers, I’m About To Compliment Windows Phone On Something!

As a listener to TWiT’s Windows Weekly, I’ve heard Paul Thurrott and Leo Laporte talk about Xbox Music Pass. Also called Xbox Music, it is a leasing agreement, where for a few dollars a month, you can stream, download/play (on up to 5 devices) unlimited music.

Because of how Microsoft has typically put arbitrary regional restrictions on apps and contents over the years, I assumed (Arrgh! and regulars know how I hate assumptions) that a sweet deal like this would not be available outside of the USA, or maybe the usual 7 countries. This morning, one of my colleagues came over and asked if I’d tried Xbox Music because he was loving it. I was … surprised.

I just checked Andrew Birch’s amazing feature availability matrix on Andrew Tech Help, and lo and behold, XBox Music is available in more (not all, not even most) countries than I expected.

My colleague has Xbox Music set up on his Windows Phone. It’s nice and seamless. The leasing agreement (you keep the music as long as your subscription is active) allows you to download to and play music on up to 5 devices (just like with Windows Store Apps). We went over to his PC so I could explore. OK, I expect to find mainstream stuff like Radiohead, David Bowie, or X-Craptor, but what about the stuff I listen to? It’s the stuff you don’t find on music shelves (actually there are none of those anymore), but would Microsoft have bothered to add my quirky music in addition to the usual Crappy Lee Jepson or James Farter? Yup, the albums were there. I’m impressed.

So, in Ireland, for €99 per year, you can have unlimited music listening, legally. New stuff and old (the stuff I searched for was released in late 80’s and mid 90’s). You can listen on your Windows Phone or via the (XBox) Music app in Windows 8. Searching is a fantastic experience in Windows 8 (for everything: settings, files, app content) so finding the music you want to listen to or try is superb.

There is a free 30 day trial. I’m told it restricts the number of hours you can listen until you start to pay. It looks like, if you start the trial it will automatically convert into a paid subscription unless you cancel.

Albums seem to be a thing of the past for most people. You can try a new artist or style of music with no financial commitment (better than laying down €22 for a CD in a “store”), pick and choose songs you like, download them to your Windows Phone to listen to on a plane (with no Internet connection), and create playlists. And it’s all legal. And €100 is a paltry annual amount.

Right now Xbox Music is available on Windows Phone 8, Xbox 360 (stream only and requires Xbox Live Gold), Windows 8 and Windows RT. Windows 7 and Windows Phone 7 are not included, and XP is well out of mainstream support so it’ll never be included. Other services such as Spotify have great cross-platform support. They’ll have that advantage while Xbox Music doesn’t support Android and iOS. Allegedly, Microsoft will bring support to those two mobile device OSs sometime this year. Back in November, Brad Chacos on PCworld.com reported:

Android and iOS support will come "within 12 months

It’s good to see some of the “3 screens and a cloud” stuff appearing in the consumer space on Windows 8/RT, Xbox, and Windows Phone 8.

The People hub in WP8 is superb if the phone is your personal device (I still hate that it opts in social network contacts lists by default on my work device), and live tiles are better than dead icons. Those are innovations by Microsoft (sure, MSFT are being sued over Live Tiles so there is some question there [covering my a$$]) that we should be thankful for, and that might be contributing to the aging of iOS.

Handset hardware quality is infinitely better than it was in the last generation. The few of us in the office that have the HTC 8x love the hardware.

I still cannot forgive the arbitrary regional fencing of features. There is no licensing issue for podcasts. They are put out on the net via RSS feeds and shared via loads of catalogs. If Microsoft can share podcasts via the Marketplace in some countries then there is absolutely no reason not to do it in all countries. That sort of bollo% is what led me to assume (arrgh!) that Xbox Music (actual licensed content) wouldn’t be available here.

Technorati Tags: Windows 8

Hyper-V Manager Windows Store App

I was checking my feeds and saw a story on Sandy Berkouwer’s blog called “Embracing the new Windows 8 Interface with these Three Free IT Pro Apps”. The second app was a Hyper-V Manager, available in the Windows Store, and designed to run in the new Windows UI, on Windows 8 and Windows RT (including Surface et al).

The app is not published by Microsoft. It is by CompuGeek Software. The app is free and is in the Windows Store. It gives you basic functionality:

Start, pause, and save virtual machines
View screenshots of virtual machines
View server status and amount of memory free
Support for multiple servers
Support for Active Directory domains

There is no connect window for KVM access to the VM. It is a very basic management/monitoring app. The app requires that you install a service on the Hyper-V Manager.

Technorati Tags: Hyper-V,Virtualisation,Windows 8

Fujitsu President Masami Yamamoto is Wearing His A$$ As A Hat

I just read on TabTaimes that Fujitsu president, Masami Yamamoto, is blaming weak demand for Windows 8 on poor hardware sales. Huh!?

Bloomberg reports that Yamamoto told Japanese press that:

Fujitsu Ltd. (6702), Japan’s biggest provider of computer services, … will miss its annual shipment target for personal computers amid slow demand for Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)’s Windows 8 operating system

How many Fujitsu Windows 8 machines have I seen in my tour of retail outlets in Germany, UK, and Ireland? Exactly: zero. I’m sure if they were out there, they’d be snot green like the classic 1990’s laptops I had to use when I worked in a Fujitsu-owned company Smile with tongue out

Admittedly, demand for traditional form factors has plummeted. People want tablets. But you cannot get them in the stores. I’ve seen only 1 Windows RT device on a shelf in Ireland, and it isn’t even a true tablet (Lenovo Yoga).

Dude, you cannot sell something if you do not supply it. You might have heard of supply and demand?

In the same story, Dell says:

… it’s seeing strong demand for computers and tablets running Windows 8. Interest in the operating system is “quite high,” Dell Chief Executive Officer Michael Dell said at a conference in Austin, Texas.

Technorati Tags: Windows 8,Hardware

Winding Down To The End Of The World … Time For Some Fun

With the world ending tomorrow, it’s time to have a laugh.

Technorati Tags: Windows 8

Changes Coming To Windows Intune (And The Market)

Windows Intune is Microsoft’s client device management system that is run from the cloud. That means that you don’t install a management server; you log into a portal, install agents on a client device, and manage those devices from that portal.

The Competition

Intune competes against products such as Kaseya and Level Platforms. Intune was very late to the market versus these products. And admittedly, these products have huge market penetration and more functionality. They recognised that their target market was the small/medium enterprise (SME). A savvy product manager understands that most SMEs don’t normally have an IT department; anything beyond a password reset is usually (not always) done by a service provider (selling managed IT services). Kaseya and Level Platforms figured that out, and they sell a partner driven product, allowing white labelling, partner invoicing, centralised management, etc.

In Ireland, I’d guess that a big majority of service providers are using one of these two products to manage PCs and servers on their client sites.

Windows Intune – The Past

Windows Intune was released about 2 years ago (exact date isn’t important). As a nerd, I was interested. I saw the potential for partners to use it, and I saw the potential for large businesses to use Intune for mobile workers and small branch offices (retail POS devices).

Microsoft partners evaluated Intune. Unfortunately they found it lacking:

Less functionality than Kaseya or Level Platforms
No server management functionality – SMEs have servers too!

But the real kicker, as I covered back in March 2011, was the price (I got some heat for that blog post from a certain devices and services company):

Microsoft really screwed the pooch by overpricing non-USA markets for the same cloud-based service. Eurozone markets were charged 40% more than USA customers at that time. That was moronic.
Bundling Software Assurance in the deal drove the price up to $11 per device. Meanwhile, the competition was around half the price.

Imagine trying to promote or sell a product that is twice the price of the competition, and has less functionality than that same competition, and the competition already has huge market penetration. And that’s why Windows Intune barely made any sales at all … anywhere on the planet.

The Shifting Sands

While Intune, Kaseya, Level Platforms are aimed at everywhere from the SME to Fortune 500, their core market is the SME. In Ireland, most of our companies are SMEs. Sure. we’re a small country of 4 million people, but it’s the same in Germany, the UK, France, Australia, Canada, and the USA. There are only so many CitiGroups, Koch Brothers, etc.

In Ireland:

20% of servers are sold to companies with fewer than 100 employees
75% of <25 user businesses (and there’s lots of them) don’t own a server – their primary IT cares are networking, file/print, and email
55%-60% of SBS servers are estimated to be of the 2003 generation

Fact: there is no more SBS. Microsoft isn’t making a Windows Server that is a DC, Exchange server, file/print, and Sharepoint server for that market any more. The solution for that market is “the new Office”, i.e. subscriptions of Offce365 with Office 2013 included in the package (Office Web Apps, Click-to-Run, or temporary run anywhere). If you want, you can sell a Microserver to that 75% of <25 user companies with Windows Server 2012 Essentials to give them:

A domain controller with Group Policy
Cheap bulk storage in the office
Integration with Office365

Microsoft partners have been hearing the story about Office in the cloud since BPOS back in 2008 (or thereabouts – not that important). The majority of partners had no interest: Microsoft was direct invoicing the customer and that stole the customer relationship from the partner. Office365 just did not have market penetration with the market that mattered: the Microsoft partner. They’re the guys that advise, design, and implement IT for the SME. Microsoft screwed the pooch again (that’s one sore pooch!).

Microsoft got the same feedback the world over:

Change Office365 licensing so partners can resell it and they’ll be interested
Halve the price of Windows Intune (remove the SA obligation) and you might have a fighting chance

As of February 2013, partners will be able to resell Office 365 (with Office 2013 included) via the Open program to customers. That is a huge deal. The subscription price will also include leased Office 2013 that is installed and managed from the cloud; that means the customer gets more bang from their buck:

Office 2013: regularly updated from the cloud
Email
Collaboration via SharePoint (and a new app store)
Lync for presence, meetings, and online events
Plus whatever MSFT decides to add to the package

That means the role of the server in the smaller SME fades, maybe even disappears. Note: some SMEs will always need local storage, Group Policy, and/or LOB apps that can’t be cloud based, but this is not a back versus white world; it’s all shades of grey. Maybe the server management functionality of Kaseya and Level Platforms isn’t as necessary any more!

The New Windows Intune

The current version of Windows Intune (sometimes called v3) added the ability to manage mobile devices running Android and iOS (iPhones and iPads). That includes policies and software distribution:

The ability to link to apps in the platform’s app store, which is included in all mobile device management products
App sideloading, which allows you to install an app onto a device without using an app store or jailbreaking

The management stuff is good. The app store stuff is very good for larger enterprises that could afford to get custom apps developed for mobile devices, but that just a flashy unrealistic demo for the SME.

v4 of Windows Intune is on the way, as Mary Jo Foley reported yesterday. It will be continuing support for mobile devices (including Windows Phone), and adding Windows 8/RT support too. But here’s the big news: Windows Intune pricing is changing (and in a good way). There will be two SKUs:

Some notes:

Microsoft did not screw the pooch (that lucky puppy!) on the non-USA pricing, e.g. they recognized that $6 is not €6!
You can purchase Windows Intune without SA (no Windows 7/8 Enterprise) and still get your free managed Antivirus in the form of Endpoint Protection. The price is $6 or €4.89 per user.
You can choose to buy the SA SKU to lease Windows 8 Enterprise and it’s extra features
You can also choose to add on MDOP (not shown) if you subscribe to the SA option

€4.89 ($6) per user per month for client device management with managed antivirus. But here’s the nice bit: The likes of Forrester says that the modern worker can have up to 5 smart devices. The per user licensing of Windows Intune covers 5 devices! Let’s compare:

Let’s say you were a Windows Intune v2 user with a PC and laptop. Your cost was €11 per device per month. Your total price is €22. With the new pricing, you are charged €4.89 per user and you can have up to 5 devices, including PCs, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. You just saved €17.11 per month. Nice!

BTW, Windows Intune has always allowed partners to subscribe on behalf of customers. The idea here is that you sell a managed service and include the price of the management into your service charge. You will be able to buy on behalf and cross charge for both Windows Intune and Office365 for your managed SME customers.

What the SME Will Look Like

For the SME, the Microsoft solution is cloud-centric and looks like this:

Everything is cloud connected. Cloud-based management is perfect for mobile devices (tablets on the move, smartphones not on the network, and roaming/home users). Traditional on-site management such as LanDesk or System Center Configuration Manager aren’t really that good for those mobile devices because those management solutions are designed for the WAN, not for the Internet.

Office 365 has the same benefit: the SME with less than 25 users doesn’t want a server with 12+ GB of RAM to run SBS. Sell them Office365 and give them the same basic tools and mobility that a Fortune 500 has. No matter where they go or work, they’ll always have access to their data and communication/collaboration tools.

The managed service provider wins too:

They resell the solutions to their customers, offering a superior experience. The clever providers do more than just deploy; they add value, finding a unique selling point (USP) that keeps the customer coming back to them. You’ll go out of business if you rely on installing Office for a living.
They can manage customer infrastructure remotely: RemoteAssist via Windows Intune gets you onto customer devices, Windows Intune can install software remotely, Office365 puts critical services in the cloud that can be managed from a web browser.

What the Medium/Large Company Will Look Like

Here we’re talking about the bigger company with more complexity:

So here we see a bit of “best of both worlds”. System Center is used to deploy and manage the internal infrastructure and services on Hyper-V/private cloud. PCs and laptops on the corporate WAN are managed by System Center too.

Windows Intune is used to manage:

Mobile devices not on the corporate WAN
BYOD (laptops, tablets, phones) machines that are brought into the office and might sit on some isolated wireless networks with firewalled access to applications in the corporate WAN.
Devices in small branch offices, that might otherwise be too complicated to manage in System Center

With SP1, System Center 2012 can integrate with Windows Intune to give IT a single console for device management. That unification of infrastructure is one of the goals of System Center 2012, enabling easier administration (another goal). In this design, System Center 2012 SP1 Configuration Manager will deploy software to, patch, and provide AV for the following on the corporate WAN:

Windows 8/RT, and older
Mac OS
Linux
Windows Servers too – never forget them!

Windows Intune will manage the following mobile devices from the cloud:

Windows 8/RT and older tablets, PCs, and laptops
Android phones and tablets
iOS iPhones and iPads

Office can reside in both the private cloud/internal infrastructure and in the cloud via Office365.

So there you go, Windows Intune will be:

Cheaper
Be the solution for BYOD, mobile devices, home workers, and small branch offices
Reflect the changing nature of large enterprises with mobility and BYOD
Reflect the changing nature of SMEs that are moving to the cloud
A much more interesting solution for managed service providers, such as Microsoft partners working in the SME space

Technorati Tags: Intune,Windows,Windows 8,System Center,Office

Tablets Are The Entry Point For Windows 8 In Business – Pay Attention Partners!

TabTimes has a story that says:

Tablets will be the ‘stepping stone’ for Windows 8 adoption in enterprise

I agree. Whether there’s resistan to change from IT, or a lack of desire to move beyond Windows 7 at this point, mobile devices are what will drive Windows 8 deployment in the business. This is driven by 3 desires:

Users Want Tablets

They want light, mobile, touch devices with long battery life. The iPad, a consumer device, is selling into businesses in huge numbers. The traditional 15” laptop that’s heavy, unattractive, and has a short battery life is not meeting the demands of the mobile worker. It’s been a constraint on their ability to work for years … spending more time worrying about finding the next power outlet than dealing with their customers.

IT Needs Control

Redmond might think that BYOD is only a large enterprise phenomenon, but it’s happening in SMEs and large enterprises. Every event I present at, I see a large percentage of people using tablets to stay in contact with work/customers and/or to take notes. All these businesses need control over mobile devices. Consumer devices aren’t designed to be managed. There’s lots of solutions for managing iPads, iPhones, Android, etc, but not one of these control systems can manage a mobile device the same way as a business can manage and support a PC.

The Business Wants Cost Reduction

1 PC. 1 laptop. 1 tablet. 1 smart phone. Maybe a home PC too. That’s a lot of stuff for one user. And that’s a lot of cost for the business (licensing, support, etc). Wouldn’t a tablet (such as my Samsun ATIV SmartPC) that runs Windows 8 Pro, can do all the tablet stuff, and do the common light weight Office stuff, be a replacement for all but the phone? Actually, with Lync/Skype, you could replace some of that phone stuff too Smile It’s an x86 device so you can run your LOB apps, run your Windows Store apps, and manage it like a laptop.

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That’s why I think the Windows 8 tablet with an Intel processor is such a great business machine, and the thing to focus on for Microsoft infrastructure deployment partners. I’ve been talking about this in the Distributor/partner bootcamps that we’ve been doing at work. New devices are now possible that suit the needs of business users. Intel based Windows 8 Pro tablets offer the best of both worlds: tablet and PC. Mobility, battery life (mine has 13 hours), lightness, and legacy support. Plus you can deploy a corporate OS image onto them! Attach Software Assurance and you get all the nice stuff in Windows 8 Enterprise. Use a single device instead of a farm of devices for each user, and use the cost savings to get SA, the Enterprise edition, and take advantage of the mobility, remote access, security, and manageability features that Windows 8 Enterprise includes.

As a partner, you can deploy these devices for your customer … fine. You make a couple of quid and they get the equivalent of a disconnected iPad. The real magic is when you implement the services that light up this device … be it a managed Office365 account, Windows Intune management (early next year), or enable remote access via Windows Server 2012 (Direct Access, Remote Desktop Services, etc). That’s where the services company adds value and can make a living.

Technorati Tags: Windows 8