Discussions

@blowdart:Thanks for the link.  Will read up on it and see if there will be any usage scenarios that will be beneficial.

@evildictaitor: I believe in testing ahead of time, if you don't that's ok.  Are any of the final tests available until RTM?  No.  Although taking the time to work with any new release helps improve skills and preplanning.  Even if one doesn't deploy an operating system within 6 mos to a year or later after release, one will have to deal with it as consumers purchase new computers preloaded with the os and ask you questions.

Here's the thing.  I like being prepared.

Any deployment of Windows in the organization has to balanced with benefits.  Will this improve things for the users, will this make things more secure, is the cost of upgrading worth it when compared to upgrade costs of other software?  In the end, how does it benefit the organization? 

10 hours ago, evildictaitor wrote

*snip*

Microsoft disabled lots of features for the beta so the beta could ship on time, and intends to put them back in before RTM. At Microsoft it is absolutely not the case the difference between beta and RTM is cosmetic.

Name more than 5 major things that changed from Windows 7 beta to Windows 7 RC.

Small changes yes, adjustments yes, performance increases, yes.  Major?

@evildictaitor:  I can appreciate your point of view, but I happen to disagree with it highly.  If you have any idea about how budgets work, then you would know that it's better to go ahead and tell a department they have to upgrade their software six months in advance.  Those of us that got on the ball early were prepared for Vista when it came out.  Departments were notified that software needed to be upgraded, budgets were made to take into account of those new purchases.  Workarounds were prepared ahead of time.  If you wait until RTM to begin the process, you can be years out with a deployment.  Pre-testing allows a large environment to be aware of the problems and look at solutions should the final product not be up to snuff.  In many cases, it allows us to push departments to prepare instead of waiting until the last minute and have confusion.

Should one plan on the beta to be the final. No.  Although, if you have been through this long enough, you would know in 90% of the cases, there are very few large scale changes from beta to release candidate.  RC is usually the polish stage.

I haven't made a final judgement on Win 8 at this point, although if I wasn't testing I wouldn't be doing my job which is preparing an organization for any changes that are coming. If I wasn't keeping up with the press releases about final decisions, I wouldn't be doing my job.

21 minutes ago, magicalclick wrote

@RLO:

Speaking of App Store, do you have to create 700 accounts for installing the app, or is there a coroporate account for volumn licensing? I mean, that's pretty much a next step if you give Win8 a go, so, anyone know how that works? Thank you.

I don't know, if the information is out there, let someone post a link.  In my area, the appstore isn't the answer.  We have tons of "public" access computers, the idea of allowing anyone to install anything at anytime doesn't fly here. Even if it's free.

@evildictaitor:There would be no way that we would "upgrade" to a non-released OS.  When you deal with over 700 machines in a production environment, the first thing you do is begin testing any new release even when it's in beta.  This will allow you to begin to make judgments and prepare a year in advance before it's final incarnation. 

When Vista was released, I was in charge of application compatibilty testing in my previous job. It was up to me to greenlight the OS for production after final release.  Before hand, I had to make sure that hardware met specs, drivers were ready, and any software that had been in the environment was tested to either perform as is, or upgraded, or develop workarounds.  Due to some of the complexities in our environment, only a few were permitted to upgrade.

I did the same with Windows 7 when it was still in beta in my current job.  Once again, I tested and familiarized myself with the os, made sure that the proper drivers were collected, checked software compatibility.  Windows 7 got a full green light. The only department that had any issues was with financial aid.  With them, we had to use a virtualization solution to bring them up to par.  You would think the federal government would have produced a vista/7 compatible software solution by 2011. 

With the current Windows 8 consumer preview, as with every previous edition, I am testing it as a precursor to final release.  At this point, I don't know what to say about the OS.  It's not my daily driver unlike Vista and 7 previously.  The few informal tests I have done with employees have been with negative feedback.  The management of another piece of software is another check in the con column.  With all of this in mind, when the final version of 8 does come out, we are not sure we want to upgrade anyone.

We happen to be more fortunate than the small business.  We are volume licensed, and if we need to, we can run 7 until it runs in the ground by downgrading any new purchases.  As far as any app-store is concerned, that's a consumer concept.  It doesn't work in a high volume environment.  I would guess in any deployment that we would plan, the app-store will be one of the first things cut off by group policy.

@evildictaitor: VLC could be an option, but the legal is concerning.  In the end it's one more piece of software to keep track of and update. 

As far as schools and legalities are concerned, I wouldn't feel safe just because we are an academic institution.  The MPAA has chased institutions for students using limewire and other P2P software on academic networks.  Blocking the software makes sure our network stays healthy, as well as making the legal people happy.

Right now, we are not even sure we are ready to consider a jump to 8.  The learning curve is way too large for a percentage of our employees. 

If they make the mediapack available to Volume Licensing Customers under Software Assurance I will have less of an issue with this, but as it stands yet another hoop for us to have to deal with. 

With Windows 7 it was one less piece of software that we had to worry about keeping up with licensing keys, figuring out which images needed to be different, what some users needed and others didn't. 

Pushing the responsibility to the OEM sounds fine from the Ivory Tower view of streamlining.  Unfortunately for me, it's just another headache to deal with.  We keep a standard Win 7 Enterprise image we deploy to our classrooms, having built in DVD support allows me to tell an instructor to just pop in a DVD and it will work.  With Win 8, we are either having to look at volume licensing, buying dvd players, or having to keep up with individual product codes for each PC we purchase.

Headache.

@figuerres:

I can't speak as a developer, but I can speak as a tech that works with Microsoft technologies day in and day out.  About three years ago, I made a decision that it was time to stop putting all my eggs in the Microsoft basket.  I started seeing a trend in the company that started to disturb me and I made a decision to purchase my first Mac.  I absolutely hated it, but even then I could see changes coming and hedged bets. If I wanted to be the best I could be, I had to be able to handle anything thrown at me.  At that point, OSX could become an honest alternative to Windows in the enterprise. 

Since then Apple has run away from the enterprise.  Apple has stopped production of the XSERVE, has taken their server product and made it a shell of what it once was.  If you want enterprise management of all those iPads and iPhones, well you might as well buy a Microsoft System Center product.  In fact, look at Apple's documentation on iPad management. They always refer you back to a "third party Mobile Device Management" device.  Of course, Apple doesn't even give you a list of third party device management solutions.  I guess they figure we can all use Google to find out, it's not like Apple cares.  When was the last time Apple released a version of iWork?  How about the lunacy of the Final Cut Pro release?

Apple doesn't want the responsibility of business, why would they?  Farm everything out to the developer community to fill the gaps.  Let the developers build the office productivity apps, let the developers build the server management apps, let the developers do apps, while Apple will just keep on doing hardware and a base operating system.  Where a Microsoft would create a new server product, Apple is just going to farm out that work.

As a developer, you should see the opportunities that are available to you.  Take them.

As far as your complaints, for every vocal opponent out there, there are many of us that aren't.  For me, if they can't listen to beta testers anymore or the masses screaming, my voice isn't going to make much of a difference.  My telemetry will.

First you need to make sure you network location is set to Home.  Second, Windows Media Center only works with Media Center Extenders, such as Xbox 360.  DLNA is supported with Windows Media Player 12.  To use this feature, open Windows Media Player.  Right click the item you wish to play and select Play To.  You should see your DLNA device as an option. Click the device and wait.

Here's a more extensive post that describes the full process: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2009/05/12/media-streaming-with-windows-7.aspx

We are in a middle of a rollout of Win7 across all of our campuses, and I will say that Windows 7 has been unbelievable improvement.

We have a ton of Dell computers that were rated as Vista Basic compatible (yes, intel gma) and the performance increase over Windows XP on the same machine is unbelievable.  To hear that the same performance requirements for Windows 8 is the same for Windows 7 gives me hope. 

As soon as the beta bits for Windows 8 hit, I will get a better idea of where we stand, but for now I am pleased with the performance in Windows 7.

@BitFlipper: Click on your gamertag on Windows Phone, then click on edit.  Scroll down for the instructions of changing the Live ID association.

As far as signing in an out like a console.  I don't believe that is supported.

@AndyC: I agree that a real roaming profile would be rubbish.  But it seems to me that is what is being proposed in all but name.  Synchronization of settings: i.e. Favorites, Feeds, Application Settings, and remapping the documents to a skydrive folder isn't that far fetched.  Do I like the idea? Nope.  Not so much for the data corruption issues, as so much as I like local storage.  Until Windows 8 comes out, we really have no idea what they really mean by cloud.  We could be looking at something similar to Apple's MobileMe in the end.