TechAgility

Some cool links and resources came across my desk this morning

Microsoft TechNet Deployment Tech Center

http://www.microsoft.com/desktopdeployment/

Microsoft Deployment Team Blog

http://blogs.technet.com/msdeployment/

MCS - "The Deployment Guys"

http://blogs.technet.com/deploymentguys/

Newsgroups:

microsoft.public.deployment.desktop

microsoft.public.sms.tools

Non-Microsoft resources:

MyITForum

http://www.myitforum.com/myITWiki/OSD.ashx

Johan Arwidmark’s team site and blog

http://www.deployvista.com/

Deployment Forum – Jerry Honeycutt’s site

http://www.deploymentforum.com/

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit Video Walkthroughs:

MDT Lite Touch walkthroughs

http://blogs.technet.com/deploymentguys/archive/2008/03/13/microsoft-deployment-toolkit-lite-touch-video-walk-through.aspx

SCCM 2007 and Microsoft Deployment Toolkit - Video Walkthrough

http://blogs.technet.com/deploymentguys/archive/2008/03/20/sccm-2007-and-microsoft-deployment-toolkit-video-walkthrough.aspx

BDD 2007 Lite Touch and SMS 2003 Zero Touch Video Walkthroughs

http://blogs.technet.com/deploymentguys/archive/2008/04/03/bdd-2007-lite-touch-and-sms-2003-zero-touch-video-walkthroughs.aspx

Windows XP Whitepaper – Preserving OEM Activation 1.0: 
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457078.aspx.

Windows Vista Whitepaper – Preserving OEM Activation 2.0:  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=8f9753d6-0714-4940-884a-33027683e328&DisplayLang=en

written by dcaddick

So this turned up in my email this morning courtesy of Login Consultants and I must admit that I am intrigued as to what it’s full capabilities will be, but judging by their previous efforts with tools like Flex Profiles I’m sure it will be a very useful tool indeed.

May 7: 1st Beta Release Free “Login Virtual Session Indexer”

May 7th Login Consultants will release the first beta of Login Virtual Session Indexer (Login VSI), a free and easy to use benchmarking methodology from Login Consultants. The Login VSI is a complete toolset that allows you easily to compare scalability of all virtualization platforms and technologies. Login VSI supports all recent Windows OS’s (including 32 and 64bit), Office 2003 and 2007, all application streaming technologies and most importantly both SBC and VDI.

Because the setup is so simple there is an infinite amount of combinations and technologies you can now compare. For instance, you can also measure the relative impact of a virussanner or performance optimization technologies. Additionally, Login VSI will be a perfect tool to compare scalability of different virtualization platforms. Enter May 7th in your agenda, and watch our website www.loginconsultants.com.

written by dcaddick

I have recently been looking at what is available in the way of Media Streaming devices and other forms of DVR under this post - Everex gPC Mini as a potential Media Streaming device? or mini HTPC? - and this news from Sigma Designs certainly would appear to raise the bar as far as performance goes for the next generation of Set top boxes?

The only annoying part of this is that because I keep an eye on what is potentially coming to market, I keep putting off making a decision because I’m waiting for the next release…  <sigh>

The really annoying part of this <below> is the Microsoft Mediaroom, not because of what it is, but because of what it promises that is not available yet, grrrrrrr. This is exactly the sort of thing we would all like to hook up to the large LCD, but as far as I can see this is essentially a "mock up" of what is possible to deliver using MS’s IPTV *NOT* what is available - and more is the pity?

SoC for STB’s has triple processors

Apr. 15, 2008
Sigma Designs has introduced a pair of set-top box SoC’s (System on Chip) that run Windows CE and Microsoft’s Mediaroom IPTV software stack. Powered by three MIPS cores apiece, the SMP8654 and SMP8655 boast accelerated graphics and compliance with HDMI (high-defintion multimedia interface) 1.3, says Sigma.
The SMP8654 and SMP8655, differing only in the latter’s omission of Macrovision, are designed to replace the company’s "industry leading" SMP8634. And indeed, they appear to be a significant advance on it. Where the older SMP8634 had a 300MHz MIPS CPU and a 200MHz security CPU, the SMP865x chips boast triple MIPS processors, for a claimed fifty percent speed boast, according to Sigma claims:

• A 500MHz processor runs the operating system and applications
• A 333MHz processor manages interrupts and part of the network stack
• A 333MHz security CPU, deliberately inaccessible by external interfaces, manages authentication, key generation, and content access functions

Sigma’s 865x SoC sports three processors
(Click to enlarge)

The SMP865x chips offer high definition video decoding, including H.264 (MPEG-4 part 10), WMV, VC-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4 (part 2). They also support China’s home-market AVS (audio video standard). HDMI 1.3 support offers bandwidth to 340MHz, while adding support for the Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD formats used by Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.
Other touted features for the SMP865x chips include:

• On-chip flash memory (24K for 500MHz processor, 4K for interrupt/stack processor)
• DRM (digital rights management) engines
• 2D graphics processor including scaling, JPEG and OpenType acceleration
• Dual gigabit Ethernet controllers
• Dual USB 2.0 controllers
• DDR2 controller supporting memory up to 666Mbps
• NAND flash controller
• SATA controller
• Audio I/O
• Simultaneous HD and SD video outputs

Sigma did not cite pin compatibility with its previous SoCs, but said the SMP865x chips are software-compatible with them.

SoC for STBs has triple processors

written by dcaddick

Well tell us something we don’t know?

Seriously, I have recently started using a new HP 2710p laptop and I’m shocked to find that my normal RAM load is something around 1 - 1.1Gb just doing routine tasks…  how crazy is that? When I get time I do want to rebuild it with the XP image because this is a joke - and the supposedly fancy UI is not that good really.

What I did find interesting in this missive from Gartner is the comments at the bottom that are suggestions to Microsoft?

Their advice to Microsoft took several forms, but one road they urged the software giant to take was virtualization. "We envision a very modular and virtualized world," said the researchers, who spelled out a future where virtualization — specifically a hypervisor — is standard on client as well as server versions of Windows.

"An OS, in this case Windows, will ride atop the hypervisor, but it will be much thinner, smaller and modular than it is today. Even the Win32 API set should be a module that can be deployed to maintain support for traditional Windows applications on some devices, but other[s] may not have that module installed."

The reason I find this so intriguing is that this almost follows what Ron Oglesby was suggesting way back in 2006?
Where is all this virtualization going?

Windows is ‘collapsing,’ Gartner analysts warn

The researchers damn Windows in current form, urge radical changes

By Gregg Keizer

April 10, 2008 (Computerworld) Calling the situation "untenable" and describing Windows as "collapsing," a pair of Gartner analysts yesterday said Microsoft Corp. must make radical changes to its operating system or risk becoming a has-been.

In a presentation at a Gartner-sponsored conference in Las Vegas, analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald said Microsoft has not responded to the market, is overburdened by nearly two decades of legacy code and decisions, and faces serious competition on a whole host of fronts that will make Windows moot unless the software developer acts.

"For Microsoft, its ecosystem and its customers, the situation is untenable," said Silver and MacDonald in their prepared presentation, titled "Windows Is Collapsing: How What Comes Next Will Improve."

Among Microsoft’s problems, the pair said, is Windows’ rapidly-expanding code base, which makes it virtually impossible to quickly craft a new version with meaningful changes. That was proved by Vista, they said, when Microsoft — frustrated by lack of progress during the five-year development effort on the new operating — hit the "reset" button and dropped back to the more stable code of Windows Server 2003 as the foundation of Vista.

"This is a large part of the reason [why] Windows Vista delivered primarily incremental improvements," they said. In turn, that became one of the reasons why businesses pushed back Vista deployment plans. "Most users do not understand the benefits of Windows Vista or do not see Vista as being better enough than Windows XP to make incurring the cost and pain of migration worthwhile."

Other analysts, including those at Gartner rival Forrester Research Inc., have highlighted the slow move toward Vista. Last month, Forrester said that by the end of 2007 only 6.3% of 50,000 enterprise computer users it surveyed were working with Vista. What gains Vista made during its first year, added Forrester, appeared to be at the expense of Windows 2000; Windows XP’s share hardly budged.

The monolithic nature of Windows — although Microsoft talks about Vista’s modularity, Silver and MacDonald said it doesn’t go nearly far enough — not only makes it tough to deliver a worthwhile upgrade, but threatens Microsoft in the mid- and long-term.

Users want a smaller Windows that can run on low-priced — and low-powered — hardware. And increasingly, users work with "OS-agnostic applications," the two analysts said in their presentation. It takes too long for Microsoft to build the next version, the company is being beaten by others in the innovation arena, and in the future — perhaps as soon as the next three years — it’s going to have trouble competing with Web applications and small, specialized devices.

"Apple introduced its iPhone running OS X, but Microsoft requires a different product on handhelds because Windows Vista is too large, which makes application development, support and the user experience all more difficult," according to Silver and MacDonald.

"Windows as we know it must be replaced," they said in their presentation.

Their advice to Microsoft took several forms, but one road they urged the software giant to take was virtualization. "We envision a very modular and virtualized world," said the researchers, who spelled out a future where virtualization — specifically a hypervisor — is standard on client as well as server versions of Windows.

"An OS, in this case Windows, will ride atop the hypervisor, but it will be much thinner, smaller and modular than it is today. Even the Win32 API set should be a module that can be deployed to maintain support for traditional Windows applications on some devices, but other[s] may not have that module installed."

Windows is ‘collapsing,’ Gartner analysts warn

written by dcaddick

So from a note on Jason Langridge’s blog about Mobile 2.0 I started looking deeper at some of the recent developments in the mobile world.

Of particular note is the presentation embedded below from Rudy De Waele of m-trends.org and I would encourage anyone who is remotely interested in where things are heading with regards to mobile usage, Internet and information services to review this.

| View | Upload your own

Rudy definitely appears to have a finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the rapidly changing landscape of mobile technology?

Understanding Mobile 2.0

On the eve of Le Web 3 in Paris - and one month after the Web 2.0 Summit concluded - it seems like an appropriate time to explore the world of the mobile Web, a.k.a. mobile 2.0. There has been a lot of discussion lately on this topic, a good deal of it inspired by the mobile 2.0 event - a one-day event held on 6 November 2006, organized by Daniel Appelquist and Mike Rowehl.

Carriers and Mobile Operators are taking notice…

In the closing session about carriers and operators at the Under The Radar: Mobility Conference on 16 November 2006, I heard an Executive Director from Verizon Wireless using the term "Mobile 2.0". Also Orange (France Telecom) is sponsoring one of the biggest web 2.0 related conferences in Europe, Le Web 3 in Paris. The fact that carriers/operators are now linking their brand name to web 2.0/mobile 2.0 related content and conferences, shows that progress is being made. Web 2.0 inspired projects going mobile and/or mobile 2.0 projects have been considered as things to avoid for carriers/operators up till now, since they are disruptive to their current business models.

So does this mean, with the carriers/operators entering the space now, that mobile 2.0 is finally taking off?

…..

What is Mobile 2.0?

It’s absolutely necessary that more connections are made between the players in the web 2.0 sphere (a.k.a. next generation web apps & services) and what some Mobilists are calling mobile 2.0. What we mean by ‘mobile 2.0′ is another (r)evolution, already started, that will dramatically change the web and the mobility landscape that we currently know. The idea is that the mobile web will become the dominant access method in many countries of the world, with devices that become more hybrid and networks that become more powerful - everywhere in the next decade to come.

…….

Well Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, put it very well in a Financial Times article in May this year (subscription only):

"Mobile phones are cheaper than PCs, there are three times more of them, growing at twice the speed, and they increasingly have Internet access. What is more, the World Bank estimates that more than two-thirds of the world’s population lives within range of a mobile phone network. Mobile is going to be the next big Internet phenomenon. It holds the key to greater access for everyone - with all the benefits that entails."

…..

Mobilist blogger Enrique C. Ortiz sees another hindrance (and I think he’s right): the lack of open standards and tools to build your own mobile 2.0 applications. He says:

"Web 2.0 is based on user intelligence instead of technologies, i.e. by giving users smart tools that enable them to apply human semantics to information provided, you get a more intelligent web. This can only be done in a massive (thus useful) way with open standards and protocols that are inclusive and inviting to everyone. Now, as I see it, this ‘open-source’ story is an aspect seriously lacking from mobile platforms."

Carriers/operators need to cover their investments and so they want to be compensated by any 3rd party using their network. This is fair enough, but the fact is that operators are losing more and more control over mobile devices - because these devices can communicate with other devices over Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Wimax, NFC, etc. That is, more options are becoming available for mobile users to access the web over networks other than the closed networks of the operators.

…..

Mobile Startups

There’s definitely a lot of movement around on the mobile start-up front. Besides Yahoo with Flickr and Google with YouTube going mobile, there are some very interesting start-up companies resolutely going mobile. Many of them are building easy-to-use mobile web apps and services. Here’s a starter for ten to check out (too many to link to, but just google them!):

• BluePulse
• ComVu
• Funambol
• Gizmo
• Loopt
• JuiceCaster
• Mobo
• Mystrands
• Plazes
• Plusmo
• Sharpcast
• SlingMedia
• Shozu
• SoonR
• TalkPlus
• Widsets
• Winksite
• … and many others. 

In fact please add your name/project to the list here in the comments, so someone can start categorizing them

…..

Conclusion

To conclude, check this nice mobile 2.0 definition from Daniel Appelquist:

"Mobile 2.0 is not "the Future." it is services that already exist all around us. These services are maturing at an amazing rate and what they are doing is effectively knitting together Web 2.0 with the mobile platform to create something new: a new class of services that leverage mobility but are as easy to use and ubiquitous as the Web is today. These services point the way forward for the mobile data industry."

It took the internet a couple of years after 1994 to reach its maturity on the technology side, not to forget the business side of things. I believe the time has come for another exciting period, the Mobile Web. Some carriers/operators are finally starting to act - how about you?

Written for Read/WriteWeb by Rudy De Waele of m-trends.org.

Understanding Mobile 2.0 - ReadWriteWeb

written by dcaddick

Justin Zarb has a blog linked below that comes up with some very useful bits of info relating to SoftGrid, these Visio Stencils just happen to represent the "eye candy" ;-)  , there is loads more and this is an extremely usefully resource if you’re quite involved in SoftGrid Sequencing?

SoftGrid Visio Stencils

It must have been at least 3/4 months ago I came across these stencils and I said than I would blog about them….. well as you can tell I never did!

ubba cool stencils for visio when your designing all your pretty high level design for application virtualization.

The World Simplified is a Virtual World : SoftGrid Visio Stencils

written by dcaddick

Talk about the cat among the pigeons? I was certainly aware that MS’s 2008 was to have Hyper-V included at a minimal cost of USD$28 but that is not due for another 5 months or so, and it was always expected that the pricepoint would come down to meet MS but this is quite early I would have thought?

As Alessandro points out - this will cause some serious pain in the Sales Channel, this is where Citrix had a big jump on VMware and as far as I am aware VMware was getting very serious about trying to ramp this up ASAP - but it would now appear that one of those benefits or sales models that was being offered to the partners will now be disappearing?

So I wonder what this will do to Citrix’s Xen pricing, I can only imagine that they are going to join VMware and MS and will want to be in there competing on price as well?

So the best guess at the moment is that most of Ron Oglesby’s crystal ball gazing of a couple of years back is now coming to fruition and the Hypervisor is already a commodity - so let’s move on to management of the Virtual World?

Dell to give VMware ESX Server 3i for free?

Saturday, March 15, 2008   |   4 Comments

Not only Dell is going to sell virtualization-ready solutions (hardware + VMware ESX Server 3i) in one click, but it seems that the OEM vendor is going to give ESX Server 3i for free.

As last article of the week The Inquirer reports the words of Martin Niemer, Senior Product Marketing Manager at VMware, which says that Dell will not charge anything for the hypervisor.

If confirmed this decision will have a serious impact on the sales channel.

On one side other OEMs that have a distribution agreement with VMware (HP, IBM, Fujitsu and other) will be almost obliged to do the same to not give Dell any competitive advantage.

On the other side the VMware distributors and resellers will see their chances to sell ESX Server in the SMB market fall down near to zero.

virtualization.info: Dell to give VMware ESX Server 3i for free?

written by dcaddick

So while I don’t condone this, it is easy to see why people get annoyed trying to keep on top of all this when all they want to do is get the thing going and crack on with what they intended in the first place?

It all most makes me wonder if Microsoft is taking the stance that they have closed *most* of the obvious flaws but won’t get too carried away while Vista is struggling to gain widespread acceptance?

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes
My post on the Vista SP1 activation hack has generated a lot of feedback (especially in the form of questions) from both individuals and other media outlets.  I’ve put together this post in order to answer some of these questions.

First off, the hack.  The hack in question is another OEM BIOS hack but packaged under the name of Vista Loader.  This hack is similar to the Paradox OEM BIOS.  The Paradox hack was the most commonly used Vista activation hack (which is why Microsoft pulled the plug on it) but this one seems to have been quite popular, so I’m not sure why Microsoft didn’t pull the plug on this one too.  Since other outlets have now named this hack as working on Vista SP1 I don’t have any problem with naming it here.

As you can see from the video above (or the gallery - I’ve put up a separate gallery because the video is rather small), this hack can take a non-genuine Vista SP1 installation and turn it into one that appears genuine to the OS.

After the reboot you can see a product key being entered - this is one of many OEM product keys shipped with the hack.  Unless the hack is correctly applied these key is considered invalid by the OS.  With the hack the addition of the product key makes the OS appears like a genuine OEM install.

It seems to me that Microsoft has been rather half-heated about blocking OEM BIOS activation hack.  However, just because this hack works today, that doesn’t mean that Microsoft won’t change tweak WGA at a later date in order to close it off.  Given how this hack works I’d say that it would be a trivial matter for Microsoft to add a detection routine for it. 

SP1 was supposed to seek out and uncover activation hacks so that life was harder for pirates and that customers were reassured that their install of Vista was legit - it hasn’t.  What I’ve shown here is that it’s easy to fool SP1 into thinking that a non-genuine copy is genuine.

More information on the Vista SP1 activation hack | Hardware 2.0 | ZDNet.com

written by dcaddick

Now somewhile back I produced the following post regarding any other alternatives to RDP and ICA and at the time I might have been somewhat flippant about NComputing’s model based on Windows XP SP2, and since then there have been a number of other companies like Miniframe jump on the same bandwagon where they are effectively using a desktop based OS to provide concurrent multi-user sessions and I always thought this did somewhat fly in the face of the EULA?

At the time I was sort of suspecting that MS might have actually been turning something of a blind eye to this in some parts of the world, but now it seems that MS has finally decided to get off the fence (or at least the Lawyers have now made a decision? and produced this document to clarify things.

So I’d like to clarify here that this is not that I don’t think NComputing can add value, but in doing any due diligence anyone who seriously wants to consider either NComputing, Miniframe or any other method of using XP SP2 in a multi-user model should seriously check this document from MS before going too far down this path?

If I was contemplating, or indeed already using this scenario I would be asking the Vendor to review this document from MS and provide some sort of legal indemnification?

Licensing Windows Client Operating System in Multiuser Scenarios

This posting is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights. The opinions expressed within are my own and should not be attributed to any other Individual or Company or the one I work for.

SPICE might be an alternative to ICA and RDP?

Now this is very interesting news because with all the interest around VDI there is still no real alternative to ICA other than RDP (or VNC…?) and in this I’m not even going to consider Ncomputing’s WoIP, as from a techies point of view this would appear to simply be a rehash of RDP, although I’m prepared to be convinced otherwise?

But it might be exciting to see that there is a real possible alternative to the ICA/RDP stranglehold and this might have the makings of some interesting changes to how things might be approached in the VDI space?

******UPDATE******
As a consequence of this post I have been contacted by Ncomputing and it would appear that their WoIP is actually what they term a combination of UTMA and UXP and does indeed make the connection/transition/session at a lower level in the stack. However, you will not find much detail on the inner workings of this as it’s proprietary, and I’m still trying to understand how this all plays out with regards to the Microsoft Licensing side of things as detailed here in a post on their Forum
http://ncomputing.com/ncomputing/wbb2/thread.php?threadid=963&hilightuser=1087

If/when I find out more I’ll update either here, or as a separate post on my new blog at www.techagility.info
******UPDATE******

SPICE might be an alternative to ICA and RDP?

written by dcaddick

So as I’m going to be attempting this in the next few weeks it is interesting to note that this would appear to still be an issue with the RTM of 2008 as the Hyper-V is still in beta.

Another note mentioned that you don’t actually reinstall:

You don’t really need to reinstall anything. You only have to reset System & Default User regional settings to original (default EN-US) settings and then reboot the server.
Ciao,
Alessandro

Still, worth keeping mind if you are after the Hyper-V service?

Please refer to Ben Armstrong’s post here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2007/12/13/hyper-v-beta-now-available-for-download.aspx

1. You need to install using ‘English (United States)’.  If you install with any other language (or flavor of English) Hyper-V will not work.  However - you can change the local / keyboard preferences for your user after installation without any problems.

Hyper-V on Win2008 RTM - VMM service fails to start?

written by dcaddick