evildictaitor

• Announcing TechEd Achievements

  May 02, 2013 at 5:21 PM

  I can't tell you how disappointed some people are going to be that these aren't real Xbox achievements...

• "It looks like you're writing a service!" - "Do you want security with that?"

  Apr 03, 2013 at 2:23 PM

  FYI, the URL for cansecwest 2013 talks: http://cansecwest.com/csw13archive.html

• Defrag: High CPU Usage, Audio Interrupt, Sharing Printers and Files

  Feb 04, 2013 at 1:45 PM

  @WinDev:

  We are not targeting ARM devices.  We are targeting Intel (which as we understand it is the only way to do what I mentioned before, which is to write a desktop app to proxy communications to the device).  So that's not an issue.  Just talking to a virtual serial port on an Intel device.

• Defrag: High CPU Usage, Audio Interrupt, Sharing Printers and Files

  Feb 02, 2013 at 10:32 AM

  @Larry:

  "Our devices use the FTDI VCP drivers (http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm ).   The most common device we target is the E-Seek M250 (http://www.e-seek.com/product_m250.asp ). "

• Defrag: High CPU Usage, Audio Interrupt, Sharing Printers and Files

  Jan 31, 2013 at 6:46 PM

  Thanks Larry. I've passed the message on, and we'll see what happens.

  Just for completeness, would it be possible for you to forward the question to someone on the devices team or Windows team internally at MS to see if they have a creative solution that doesn't require buying new hardware? It'd be nice to get a canonical "do it this way" or "it can't be done", just for completeness if nothing else.

• Defrag: High CPU Usage, Audio Interrupt, Sharing Printers and Files

  Jan 30, 2013 at 11:15 PM

  2 hours ago

  @evildictator: couldn't you use the in-built camera of the RT device to "scan" the barcode? I mean, I know the Surface's cameras aren't the highest resolution, but I think they are reasonably sharp to distinguish standard barcodes...
  
  just a thought...
  
  - ron

  We thought of that too, but it still doesn't fix the problem that the point-of-sale retailer has a barcode scanner and would like to use that to scan barcodes, instead of picking up the entire Windows RT device and waving it over the product.

• Defrag: High CPU Usage, Audio Interrupt, Sharing Printers and Files

  Jan 30, 2013 at 7:01 PM

  Let's see if we can get a proper Microsoft response to a question asked in this thread in the Coffeehouse.

  Basically the premise is this:

  Suppose you are an application developer for a point-of-sale type Windows Store App, and you want to integrate the ability for a customer with a barcode scanner to be able to use it. In this scenario the developer of the app is not the manufacturer of the barcode scanner, and the barcode scanner is pretty old and isn't built with a Windows8-app style manifest.

  Is it possible, and if so, how is it possible for a Windows RT device to communicate with the barcode scanner?

  Here's some stuff we've already thought of (all of which have reasons why they are bad).

  1. We could run a desktop app that does the heavy lifting and get the app to talk to it, but this violates the Windows Store Guidelines (3.1).

  2. We could write drivers that expose the device to the app, or even try pushing out a manifest to an existing driver via WinQual but since we're not the manufacturer of the device, this isn't ideal.

  3. We could sideload the app, but that requires an Enterprise licence, or we could even use Windows Intune to sideload, but that requires a regular subscription, and is a bit of an overkill just in order to get a point-of-sale app to talk to a barcode scanner.

  So anyway, is there an elegant solution to being able to get a non-enterprise non-Intune Windows RT app to talk to an improperly manifested non Windows-8 compliant device for application developers that don't make the device (and thus can't change the driver easily) in a way that doesn't violate the Windows App Store guidelines?

• Ping 166: Facebook Graph Search, WP8 Nominated, Nokia Drive, Microsoft loves the 90's

  Jan 28, 2013 at 8:59 PM

  Reminds me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mWSM1duydE

• Defrag: Multi-mon, Mouse Latency, Ransomware

  Jan 23, 2013 at 8:06 PM

  2 hours ago

  Windows 8 Enterprise
  SCCM 2012
  Active Directory
  Windows Server 2008R2 DC's and 2008 Forest level
  
  1) Deploy required apps via SCCM to Windows 8, app is set to install for all users and is targeted at a device collection and to install without user logged in. In our environment computers versus users is not one to one and users may use several different devices during the day. The software is a site license so it can and should be installed on all systems. What we currently see is that shortcuts will not be created on the start screen for all users, there doesn't appear to be an all users start screen so does Microsoft either
  a) expect each user on each machine to naturally search for apps or
  b) expect some serious scripting to replicate icons on each users start screen or
  c) System Center SP1 addresses this?
  
  2) Windows 8 App Store, I take it this is not for business or education use as there doesn't appear to be any way for centralized control of purchases or account management for Microsoft Accounts by the company that purchases both the hardware and software. I know App Locker and group policy can do some things in this area but it doesn't address Windows RT devices at all. I know the just released version of Intune has some RT options but it doesn't address the creation and authorization of Microsoft Accounts beyond what would appear to be a very manual and time consuming process. I feel sorry for K12 schools because they though RT was the answer to the iPad and the Chromebook with Live@EDU and the ability for them to generate Microsoft Accounts, oops they are royally hosed.
  
  

  I strongly suggest that you take a look at Windows Intune. You can get a free 30 day trial. It allows you to push apps to all Intune devices, run a company store and it connects to SCCM / ActiveDirectory and works with all Windows8 devices including Windows RT. You can also configure iOS and Android devices using it - including foreign BYOD deviecs, so it's a good all-purpose solution for the enterprise and seems to solve lots of the problems you're coming across.

• Inside Windows 8: Arun Kishan - Windows App Model

  Nov 26, 2012 at 12:55 AM

  1 day ago, felix9 wrote

  I hope [Mark Russinovich] was not drove away from WinDiv by Sinofsky.

  He's senior tech lead for Azure, so he's not really been involved all that much in Win8. http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/

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