Recovering your Surface with an image recovery

If your Microsoft Surface it's completely locked or crashed, and you cannot get to the usual system tools to recover the system, Microsoft has created a web site where you can download the recovery image so you can get your Surface back on track.

This recovery image applies to:
Surface RT, Surface 2, Surface Pro, Surface Pro 2, Surface Pro 3, Windows 8.1, Windows RT 8.1.

Just to remind that this should be a last stand before using the usual tools.
To get the recovery image, go here:
Microsoft - Download a recovery image for your Surface

MacBook to Surface 3 - Making the Switch

Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 was design and created with a lot of objectives, but one of them was put an end to the Apple's MacBook entry to the enterprises.

Because of the easy way that Surface 3 enter on your network (it's basically a Windows 8.1 notebook/tablet), Microsoft it's heavily committed to make Surface 3 the premium choice.

"Making the switch: MacBook to Surface Pro 3" it's a micro website from Microsoft created to allow MacBook users that switched to Surface, to easily do things like they were used to in a MacBook.

Take a look here:
Making the switch: MacBook to Surface Pro 3

Merry X-MAS Everyone! The Santa's Secret!

Well this post it's just to thanks everyone that follows my blog and to wish you all a Merry Christmas!

By the way...here's the Santa Claus secret to deliver every gift to everyone in the world!

VMware - Getting Your Hosts Up-to-Date with VUM

If you have a large virtual environment, it can be difficult to keep up-to-date with all your hosts. Well...to be true, even in a small-medium environment, vCenter Update Manager (VUM) can really help with and be a time saver.

With VUM you can control all the patches, bugfixes and upgrades from VMware, but it's also possible to get specific updates from your hardware's vendor.

So, in VUM you'll just need to insert a new "Download Source" to get this updates:

HP Depot
http://vibsdepot.hp.com/index.xml

DELL Depot
http://vmwaredepot.dell.com/index.xml


If you need some help to configur VUM in your infrastructure follow this nice guide:
Technologist - Install VMware vCenter Update Manager

Windows 10 - After MKV, FLAC support is coming!

And after some weeks where Microsoft announced that MKV format will be natively supported in the future Windows 10, it's now known that FLAC (free lossless audio codec) will also be available on the future Microsoft's O.S.without the need to install any additional software or codec.

The announcement was made by Gabriel Aul, Microsoft's Engineering General Manager on a tweet:




Another great enhancement for the future O.S.!

VMware - Understanding Versions and Builds

VMware as a strange build and versions naming and sometimes it's difficult to understand for example if your vSphere or vCenter it's on update 1 or update 2 or something else.

Thinking on that and until a better solution, VMware has an up-to-date website/kb the correlates the builds and versions.

Take a look here:
Correlating VMware products build numbers to update levels (1014508)

Windows 10 Build 9879 - What's New

So, here's a new build for Windows 10. Build 9879 continues to improve the future Microsoft operating system. New features, bug fixes and user feedback improvements were implemented again.

Again, Microsoft shows that it's making a real effort to make Windows 10 an operating system that it's made for, but specially made by, users feedback.

Now, some new features made available in build 9879 are:

Task View and Search Buttons

It's now possible to hide this 2 buttons from taskbar.

I


Maximize and Minimize Buttons

The buttons were redesigned for a better use, specially on modern apps.
They're now "hamburguer-style" buttons (with horizontal lines).

OneDrive

Another step on the integration of Microsoft's Cloud Service with the operating system was made with this build.
It's now possible to select which files you want to sync with OneDrive and Windows 10.

There's also new icons to better show which files are available offline and the files that are only available online.

MKV Support

This one was getting a lot of talking over the Internet and it's now made available on this build.
You can now natively play MKV files without the need to install special codecs.

Internet Explorer

The performance was improved, mainly because of the new Edge rendering system.
You now have (probably just during the Tech Preview) a feedback button for use just with IE.





So, it seems this new approach from Microsoft to make a more "user" operating system it's working.
For example the option to remove Task View and Search buttons from the taskbar was one of my feedbacks (amongs probably thousands of other beta users).

Hope Microsoft keep up the good work.

Microsoft launches the Microsoft Band

After some speculation and buzz, Microsoft made public and available not a smartwatch but a smartband instead that works with all the 3 major smartphones operating system (Windows Phone, iOS and Android).

It started to popup today in app stores a new Microsoft application called Microsft Band Sync or Microsoft Health depending of the O.S.






The Microsoft Band it's similar to other fitness bands but will also allow users to view and sync emails, contacts, task, etc.

This again shows Microsoft trying to make a change on the way it looks to the market and getting late to a saturated market.

The smarband it's only available on the U.S. markets right now with a nice price of 199$.






Here's the promotional video of Microsoft Smartband:



Microsoft Smartband Specifications

• Band material: Thermal plastic elastomer with adjustable fit clasp

• Display Size: 11mm x 33mm

• Display Type: Capacitive 1.4" TFT full color display

• Resolution: 320 x 106 pixels

• Battery life: 48 hours of normal use; advanced functionality like GPS use will impact battery performance

• Average charge time: Full charge in less than 1.5 hours

• Battery type: Dual 100mAh rechargeable lithium-ion polymer batteries

• Operating temperature ranges: -10°C to 40°C (14°F to 104°F)

• Maximum operating altitude: Approximately 12,000m

• Sensors:
 o Optical heart rate sensor
 o 3-axis accelerometer/gyro
 o Gyrometer
 o GPS
 o Ambient light sensor
 o Skin temperature sensor
 o UV sensor
 o Capacitive sensor
 o Galvanic skin response
 o Microphone

• Additional technology: Microphone, Haptic vibration motor

• Connectivity:Bluetooth 4.0 (Low Energy)

• Supported mobile devices: Works with Windows Phone 8.1 update with Bluetooth, iOS 7.1 and later: iPhone 4S, 5, 5C, 5S, 6, 6 Plus and Android 4.3-4.4 phones, with Bluetooth.
• Charge cable connector: Magnetically-coupled connector to USB

• Water resistance

• Dust-and-splash resistant

• What's in the box:
 o Microsoft Band
 o USB magnetic connector cable
 o Safety & warranty document
 o Quick Start Guide

Windows 10 - New multi-monitor features support and...learning with Apple

During the opening keynote on Microsoft Teched Europe 2014 in Barcelona, Joe Belfiore showed up among other things, some features of Windows 10.

One of the features showed was the capacity of making windows snapping with multi-monitors.
Basically will be possible to easily snap a window in the middle of the 2 monitors when using extended desktop.
Although this is not a "top of the art" feature, makes me believe Microsoft it's again looking to that small details that all together make a better O.S.

Another small but really nice feature it's one thing that almost all Apple users talk about when working on their Macbook. The capacity their touchpad have to do...everything!

Take a look at the video here:

Microsoft TechEd Europe 2014 - Live Stream

For everyone not able to go to Microsoft TechEd Europe in Barcelona (Spain), Microsoft is livestreaming the event through their Channel 9 website so you don't loose any bit of it.

Channel 9 - TechEd Europe 2014 - Live Stream

MDT - Error Code 193 on Deployment Summary

For some time I was getting a strange return code when deploying a specific image with a specific application.
In this case, I was a warning with the return code 193.

After some search, I've found that it was as simple as changing the install parameters for that application like in this example:

Previous command line:
application.msi /qr /norestart ALLUSERS=2

Correct command line:
msiexec.exe /i application.msi /qr /norestart ALLUSERS=2

Well...and no more warning on the Deployment Summary.
As simples as that!

Windows Phone - Getting a little taste of Cortana

Well...if you're like me and live outside U.S. and don't want to mess with your region or locale on your Windows Phone, well...I think we have a lot of time to wait for...

But...If you want to have a taste of Cortana's feature and like Cortana's voice, redditor clang-ley have created and made available on it's OneDrive a bunch of MP3 files with Cortana's voice that you can use to customize your ringtone and notifications.

It's not Cortana but you'll have a little taste of it:
Clang-Ley OneDrive - Cortana Voice Files

Microsoft UserVoices - Other Products

Following the last post, Microsoft also has available another "UserVoices" for other products.
Here's the list:

• Lumia Apps Betas
• Cortana
• Xbox
• Xbox Music
• Xbox Video
• Remote Desktop
• Visual Studio
• WPDev
• Windows Phone Facebook App
• Windows Phone

Windows 10 - Help shape Windows!

Do you have ideas for the future Windows 10?
There's a key feature that you'd like to see implemented on it?

There's something that would work better in a different way?
Now you can make your voice/ideas heard on the relatively new website that Microsoft created.

On Windows Feature Suggestion Box we can suggest Microsoft  what we would like to see on it's future OS.

This is another initiative that Microsoft creates in a new way to communicate to final consumers and IT professionals.

Take a look:
Windows UserVoice

Windows 10 - Command line console improvements

Aside of the new Task View, Virtual Desktop and of course, the revamp of Start Menu, Microsoft didn't forget about those who uses for most of it's work time the command line console.

Simple things like...stretching the console window or copy+paste it's now available!

For a complete list of command line console improvements, read this article!
Windows Blogs - Command Line Console Improvements

Windows 10 - New Keyboard shortcuts

Microsoft has posted on it's http://blogs.windows.com blog a new set of shortcuts available on Microsoft Windows 10 Technical Preview:

• Snapping window: WIN + Left or Right (You can use it with Up and Down to get them into quadrants)
• Switch to recent window: ALT+ TAB (holding shows up the new Task View)
• Task view: WIN + TAB
• New Virtual Desktop: WIN + CTRL + D
• Close Virtual Desktop: WIN + CTRL + F4
• Switch Virtual Desktop: WIN + CTRL + LEFT or RIGHT

There's also a complete list of hotkeys for the new Command Prompt, posted by Microsoft's Scott Hanselman here:

Scott Hanselman - Windows 10 Command Prompt Hotkeys

Windows 10 - Presenting "Continuum" mode for hybrid tablet-notebook

Joe Belfiore showed this of on a press conference about Windows 10.
The idea of an operating system that automatically adapts to the device where it's running its one of the major goals with Windows 10.
This feature, that for now has been codenamed "Continuum" brings this idea a little further.
With "Continuum" depending of the device "state" the OS automatically adapts to it.

For example, if you're using Microsoft Surface has a tablet (without a cover) the OS will be presented and adapted to give the user a tablet experience. If the cover it's connects, the user will automatically receive an alert asking if it wants to change to a "desktop experience".
All this on-the-fly.

Take a look on this demo here:

Windows Phone 8.1 - "Resuming" screen after live lock screen beta uninstall

I've bought my new Nokia Lumia 925 last week.
Of course I had a big list of things to download from Windows Store that I was anxious to test since I was a lot of time with my Nokia Lumia 800 (which was not upgradable to Windows Phone 8).

So...after a lot of downloading, testing...uninstalling, I was time to test "Live Screen Lock BETA" from Microsoft.

Well, didn't liked that much, so I've uninstalled it. Since than I found out that I had a side-effect.
Now, every time I locked my phone, when pushing the button to wake up the phone, a nice "Resuming...."  showed up for a couple of seconds.

Solution:
Go to Settings > Lock Screen and set the "Background" to something else. Lock screen, unlock the phone and choose again your "Background".

And you're done!

VMware View - Mouse Disappearing with Internet Explorer 8 and PCoIP

Well, after a "nice" morning trying to troubleshoot an issue with a colleague of mine, finally the answer!

First things first...

The symptoms:
Some users complaining that when navigating on some websites the mouse simply disappeared.


Analysis:
First thing we've noticed was that using RDP protocol instead of PCoIP "solved" the issue.
Using a different browser like Google Chrome also "solved" the issue.

Changing pool settings like Flash Optimization, 3D Renderer, didn't do any effect.


Solution:
Then, after a lot of searching my colleague found this article:
Mouse cursor disappears when using Internet Explorer 8 after upgrading to VMware View Agent 5.2 or 5.3 (2063083)

:) exactly the issue we had!

So, we've download VMware View Agent 5.3.2 from MyVMware, tested it and voilá! Problem solved!


Additional Info:
VMware Horizon View Agent 5.3.2


Hope this helps some people to loose less time that we did! ;)

Windows 10 - Press Event Video

Although there was no live stream for Windows 10 presentation, Microsoft posted the press event video on Windows YouTube Channel.
It's a almost 40 minutes video where Terry Myerson and Joe Belfiore demoed some of the new features of Windows 10.

Take a look:

Introducing Windows 10 - Quick Joe Belfiore Demo

After the official Microsoft Windows 10 Technical Preview presentation to the world, here's a very quick demo from Microsoft's VP Joe Belfiore.

Windows Phone Lumias Gets Static IP Feature

It seems the lastest firmware update for Lumia phones got a nice feature.
It's now possible to define a static ip address, subnet and gateway. It's not used massively nowadays but in some environments may be needed.

For what I know at leat Lumia 625, 925 and 525 are receiving this update.

Disk Cleanup Wizard addon lets users delete outdated Windows updates

Here's a nice tip from a colleague of mine (Nuno Silva).

Microsoft launched an update package that installs a plugin to the Disk Cleanup Wizard which allows users to cleanup outdated Windows Updates.

This update package it's only available for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 2008 R2 SP1.

To find more info and download the update package, go to:
Disk Cleanup Wizard addon lets users delete outdated Windows updates on Windows 7 SP1 or Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

Windows 9 - Notification Center Appears on Video

In an huge leaked video shot this week from WinFuture, here's a new one about the notification center.
Notification Center that it's also available on Windows Phone 8.1 it's a nice to have feature that appears on the right side of the desktop with the latest messages and notifications about your system, emails, and a lot of other stuff.

Windows 9 - Alleged Start Menu Video Leaked

The future Microsoft's operating system keeps getting rumors over the internet.
One of the most talked topics it's the possibility of the return of the start menu to the desktop.

There's a big chance of that to happened and a video showing the features available on this new start menu make it even more credible.
The video it's of an alleged early build of the new OS code named "Threshold" shows up some features like the possibility to quickly change the logged user and it seems to be divided on 2 parts. The left side, similar to a Windows 7 or early versions and a right side with a kind of Metro style finish.

Another thing that this video shows it's the possibility to launch metro style apps in window mode instead of fullscreen.

WDS and VMware Paravirtual SCSI Drivers

On a VMware VDI environment VMware Paravirtual SCSI driver it's recommended as the SCSI controller for your virtual machines.

In my environment the main template it's created using WDS (which also serves the physical machines).
By default the boot.wim (used to boot machines into WDS and deploy reference images) doesn't have the drivers necessary (or up-to-date) for a VMware environment. For example boot.wim doesn't come with the necessary network drivers for VMware VMXNET3 so this example will serve both for network or scsi drivers.

So, to boot up to WDS and be able to deploy successfully a reference image to a VMware virtual machine which is configured with a VMware Paravirtual SCSI controller, follow this steps:

Getting and injecting the drivers

• First of all, get a working virtual machine that already has a paravirtual controller installed and be sure that you have the latest VMware Tools installed
  
• Login to that vm and go to "C:\Program Files\Common Files\VMware\VMware Tools\"
  
• Copy "pvscsi" folder to your WDS server
  
• Now you just need to open your WDS console and inject the drivers like shown in the video bellow

• And your done.

You can now boot a VM with VMware paravirtual scsi controler.

Just keep in mind that if needed, you'll have to get the drivers from a x86 and a x64 machine.

Steve Jobs Speech it's an Easter Egg on Mac

Steve Jobs was one of the most notable thinkers of our times.
It's fingerprint not only on Apple but in everything's technology was incredible in our present and probably on our future.

One of his most iconic speeches was held at the University of Stanford and Apple decided to transcript the all speech as an Easter egg on the operating system.

 

To read the full speech, follow these steps:

• Press Command + Shift + G at Finder
• Open Go To Folder
• Write down //Applications/Pages.app/Contents/Resources/
• Open the file Apple.txt

And there you go.

A simple but nice tribute to one of the brightest minds of our times.

Windows 9 Preview in September?

Microsoft as invited the press for an event in the next 30th September.
There's a lot of speculation about it, and a lot of people says this could be the first official presentation of Microsoft Windows 9.

Windows 9 should be launched in the next year but the event should show the press a preview of what's coming.
Codenamed "Threshold", the future Microsoft OS can bring back a mini-start menu, allow the installation of Cortana and a lot more new and redesigned features.

Windows Phone 8.1 - Live Lock Screen BETA Available

After last week's VenetaSoft Dynamic Lockscreen Preview, Microsoft has finally launched Live Lock Screen BETA.

Presented at the last BUILD Conference, Live Lock Screen BETA get's a more interesting and functional lock screen. You can select which information you want to see.
There are 6 models at the moment, from the more minimalistic to the more complex ones. The clock will always be present and what changes it's the information that you receive from email or social networks for example.



Download Microsoft live Lock Screen Beta here:

Google Chrome - Searching with Bing

It may seem a little "unnatural" but for those who like to use Google Chrome as their default browser but believe that Microsoft's Bing it's really making a lot of good improvements to compete with the undisputed champion of internet searching, it's now possible to use both.

To use Microsoft Bing as the default search engine on Google Chrome, follow this steps:

• Go to Chrome settings, or simply write down chrome://settings/ on the Omnibar
• On the settings search write "search" and click on "Manage search engine..."
• Now simply click on "Bing" and "Make default" button and it's all done

Now Microsoft Bing it's your default search engine on Google Chrome, even when you open a new tab.

One Windows to Rule Them All!

This is not new but now it's more or less official.
Like other players in the operating systems market, Microsoft is converging all their operating systems on a single "NT core" platform.

During a conference of Microsoft's third quarter results report, Satya confrmed that Microsoft will converge Windows Phone, Windows and Windows RT in a single operating system platform when launching Windows 9.
Like Apple for example, the main objective is to have a single base code for the OS, similar aspect, a unique app store and cloud services for all devices (PCs, smartphones, tablets and consoles).
This also means that should be only one single team to develop Windows.

I believe this will finally be a "next step move" to make Microsoft reach it's competitors.

LDAP Queries - Filtering Computer Accounts Service Pack Level

When managing a large environment, it can be sometimes difficult to get all your machines up-to-date.
If you don't have the right tools to get the job done, due to financial restrictions for example you may use some quick and easy ways to get some information you need about how's your environment.

In this case, I'll show how to get the a Microsoft Windows operating system service pack level.
Besides the importance of being up-to-date, if you have some kind of Microsoft Enterprise/Premier support, it's really important to level up your service pack to a supported level.
For example, Microsoft Windows 7 RTM (without any SP) support ended on April 9, 2013.

To get the information, there's a really simple way to do it if the target machines are domain joined.

So, here are the steps:

1. Open the "Active Directory Users and Computers" mmc
2. Then, go to "View" -> "Filter Options"
3. Select "Create custom filter:" and click on "Customize"
4. Click the "Advanced" tab
5. Copy and paste one of the queries below depending on what your looking for and click "OK"
6. Now your mmc will only show computer account that match your query

Queries

Windows XP without any service pack installed
(&(operatingSystem=Windows XP Professional)(!operatingSystemServicePack=*)))
 
Windows XP with service pack 1 installed
(&(operatingSystem=Windows XP*l)(operatingSystemServicePack=Service Pack 1)))

Windows XP with service pack 2 installed
(&(objectCategory=computer)(operatingSystem=Windows XP Professional)(operatingSystemServicePack=Service Pack 2))


Windows 7 without any service pack installed
(&(objectCategory=computer)(operatingSystem=Windows 7*)(!operatingSystemServicePack=Service Pack 1))

Windows 7 with service pack 1 installed
(&(objectCategory=computer)(operatingSystem=Windows 7*)(operatingSystemServicePack=Service Pack 1))

Windows New Start Menu Images Emerging Again

After last week appearance of the future Windows Start Menu, today the website Myce it's showing a new image.

The image above shows a kind of mixed Start Menu with "classic" applications and some apps Modern UI style.

The website also shows a new image of an Modern UI app running directly on the desktop. This is another promise from Microsoft.
In this case, it's the Windows Store App running:


Although this images are displaying Windows 8 logo, there's still a lot of doubts if this will be an update to Windows 8 or if the new Start Menu will only be available on the future Windows 9.

Windows Phone 8.1 - Dynamic Lockscreen Preview Available

So, like promised by Joe Belfiore (corporate vice president and manager for Windows Phone Program Management) last week, Windows Phone users can now test the new dynamic lockscreen app. It's not yet a final version but we can have a look and feel of what's coming.

Called "Animated LockScreen Preview" and was made available by a publisher called Venetasoft. This is only a preview since the final developer APIs are not yet publicly available (what should be happening next days).

The preview has 4 lock screens that are basically restyled versions of the lock screens demoed at Microsoft's BUILD conference.
This 4 lock screens are called:
.: Tokyo
.: Diagonal
.: Stripes
.: Zoom

According to the information available on the Windows Store this app should also run on Windows Phone 8.0 devices with at least 512MB but the final version should be limited to a minimum of 1GB of RAM.

Here's a video showing up this app:



To download Animated LockScreen Preview just go here: