Online Webinar: December 7th: Migrate to Windows 8

Just a quick post today. Come join us for an online webinar on how to Migrate your enterprise desktop environment to Windows 8.  Webcast: Key Application Compatibility Considerations for Migrating to Windows 8 December 7th  2:00 p.m. EST  You’re preparing for your company’s migration to Windows 8. Do you have application compatibility covered? On December 7 at 2:00 p.m.,  join Dell and Microsoft application compatibility expert Chris Jackson as they discuss the power and promise of Windows 8. Then, they’ll show you some of the compatibility issues you need to recognize – and how to avoid them. Topics include: The hazards of taking a wait-and-see approach when migrating from XP to Windows 8  The major application compatibility challenges you should expect with Windows 8 Painlessly migrating from Windows 7 to Windows 8 …and much more Ensure your Windows 8 migration is smooth, secure and successful. Attend this one-hour webcast. Get More Details »

Installation Pain in the News

I saw this article this afternoon and have been thinking about it for a while, so I decided to post a short blog entry on it; A Gentle Rant about Development and Software Installers

I was surprised to see something like this in slashdot for a number of reasons;

     - I was told that the "installation and packaging industry" was tiny (and nobody really cared)

     - I have been doing packaging and installation work since Windows 3.1 (yes, that's a long time)

     - I still can't quite believe that we have not sorted this out yet…

     - Wasn't the web\internet supposed to eliminate application installations?

Finally, I thought, as I was reading the article on my iPad, surely this insanity must end. At some point,  we have so many devices, with so many platforms that application installations as we know them must fade out or die for the following reasons;

     1) More applications are getting simpler - yes, they may have more features, our maturing OSes of the world (Windows 7 and Windows 8 are providing more of the development lifting e.g. .NET runtimes

     2) More application logic is run remotely on a server somewhere on the web 

     3) Applications are getting smaller: this follows from points 1 and 2 - I just checked, the last 5 applications in my download folder were less than 10 meg

     4) Applications have more updates: Check-out Spotify with it's auto-upate "just close me to update" feature. It's the future.

I made it my business to get applications to install, configure, update and install for the past dozen or so years. And, you may laugh, but almost every-year someone would tell me that that with the next platform (Windows 95, 98, 2000, XP, Windows 7 and now Windows 8) that application installation issues would be a thing of the past. 

Have a read of the article - it's pretty much what I have been experiencing for years. And, yes, I have tried to get both SAP and Oracle packaged for enterprise deployments for thousands of desktops… 

BTW: if you are looking for a real challenge: try getting 2 versions of Oracle working on the same machine - with an automated installation package.

References:

A Gentle Rant about Development and Software Installers

http://slashdot.org/topic/bi/a-gentle-rant-about-software-development-and-installers/

Quest\DELL\ChangeBASE Webinar Updates

Here is a quick update on the upcoming webcasts and online sessions that Quest\DELL and ChangeBASE will be offering over the next little while.

Key Application Compatibility Considerations for Migrating to Windows 8

You’re preparing for your company’s migration to Windows 8. In addition to the planning, budgeting and minding all the moving parts, have you taken a close look at the key application compatibility issues? On December 7 at 2:00 p.m. EST, join Dell and Microsoft application compatibility expert Chris Jackson as they discuss the power and promise of Windows 8. Then, they’ll show you some of the compatibility issues you need to recognize – and how to avoid them.

Topics include:

• The hazards of taking a wait-and-see approach when migrating from XP to Windows 8
• The major application compatibility challenges you should expect with Windows 8
• Painlessly migrating from Windows 7 to Windows 8
• Automating application compatibility with Hyper-V, App-V and Windows Server 2012 included in Windows 8 

Registration date and time information:

Friday, December 07, 2012

Ensure your Windows 8 migration is smooth, secure and successful. Attend this one-hour webcast.

http://www.quest.com/webcast/webcast-key-application-compatibility-considerations-for-migrating-to-818803.aspx

ZeroIMPACT Migration Day 

Learn How to Ensure Successful Migrations 

Thursday December 6, 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. ET 

Join us for the next ZeroIMPACT Migration Day, a FREE virtual event where you’ll get unlimited access to the industry's top migration experts. You'll also have access to useful resources to help you plan and manage all phases of your move. This unique virtual event will take place on Thursday, December 6th from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM Eastern Time.

Don't miss Migration Day on December 6th …Register Today!

How to Provision 100 Virtual Machines in Under 10 Minutes

Date: Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Time: 2:00 p.m. ET / 11:00 a.m. PT

Presenting: Ken Davidson

Register for the webcast

Reminder:  vWorkspace Weekly LIVE demos  Held weekly on Wednesdays at 11am PT.  The 30-minute sessions will focus on the following areas:  ·         Hyper-V Support for Lowest Cost Desktop Virtualization o   Take full advantage of Hyper-V functions such as Dynamic Memory and RemoteFX o   Seamless use of local storage (DAS) and eliminating the need for expensive SAN storage ·         Hyper-V Catalyst Components That Deliver Huge Scalability and Speed Improvements for Virtual Desktops o   Breakthrough scalability improvements for virtual desktops hosted on Hyper-V o   Use of HyperCache and HyperDeploy to dramatically improve the density of Hyper-V o   Provision a fully functional virtual desktop every four seconds on commodity hardware, right out of the box ·         Desktop Clouds to Provide Power and Simplicity for SMBs and Enterprises o   Desktop Clouds deliver the best possible performance of virtual desktops with advanced load balancing schemes o   Add capacity in seconds for unparalleled elasticity o   Update hundreds or thousands of desktops in minutes

Microsoft Patch Tuesday: November 2012

With this November Microsoft Patch Tuesday update, we see a set of 6 updates; 4 of which are marked as "Critical", 1 rated "Important" and 1 being a "Moderate" vulnerability.

The Patch Tuesday Security Update analysis was performed by the Quest ChangeBASE Patch Impact team and identified a small percentage of applications from the thousands of applications included in testing for this release which showed an Amber issue.

Of the six patches, 3 "require a restart to load correctly", and 3 "may require a restart", so it is probably best to assume all require a restart to be installed correctly

Here is a sample of the results for one package against the patch Tuesday updates:


MS12-071 - Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (2761451)

Quest\ChangeBASE RAG Status Report Summary

Security Update Detailed Summary

MS12-071	Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (2761451)
Description	This security update resolves three privately reported vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer. The vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted webpage using Internet Explorer. An attacker who successfully exploited these vulnerabilities could gain the same user rights as the current user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.
Payload	Urlmon.dll, Iexplore.exe, Inetcpl.cpl, Jsproxy.dll, Wininet.dll, Wininetplugin.dll, Iedvtool.dll, Msfeeds.dll, Msfeeds.mof, Mshtmled.dll, Mshtmled.dll, Mshtml.dll, Mshtml.tlb, Ieproxy.dll, Ieshims.dll, Ieunatt.exe, Jsdbgui.dll, Iertutil.dll, Sqmapi.dll, Mshtmled.dll, Mshtml.dll, Mshtml.tlb, Ieproxy.dll, Ieshims.dll, Url.dll, Ieui.dll, Ieframe.dll, Jscript.dll, Jscript9.dll, Vbscript.dll
Impact	Critical - Remote Code Execution

MS12-072	Vulnerabilities in Windows Shell Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2727528)
Description	This security update resolves two privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows. The vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user browses to a specially crafted briefcase in Windows Explorer. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run arbitrary code as the current user. If the current user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker could take complete control of the affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.
Payload	Synceng.dll, Wsynceng.dll
Impact	Critical - Remote Code Execution

MS12-073	Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) Could Allow Information Disclosure (2733829)
Description	This security update resolves one publicly disclosed vulnerability and one privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS). The more severe vulnerability could allow information disclosure if an attacker sends specially crafted FTP commands to the server.
Payload	Ftpconfigext.dll, Ftpctrlps.dll, Ftpmib.dll, Ftpres.dll, Ftpsvc.dll, Ftpsvc.mof
Impact	Moderate - Information Disclosure

MS12-074	Vulnerabilities in .NET Framework Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2745030)
Description	This security update resolves five privately reported vulnerabilities in the .NET Framework. The most severe of these vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if an attacker convinces the user of a target system to use a malicious proxy auto configuration file and then injects code into the currently running application.
Payload	No Specific File Information
Impact	Critical - Remote Code Execution

MS12-075	Vulnerabilities in Windows Kernel-Mode Drivers Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2761226)
Description	This security update resolves three privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows. The most severe of these vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted document or visits a malicious webpage that embeds TrueType font files. An attacker would have to convince users to visit the website, typically by getting them to click a link in an email message that takes them to the attacker's website.
Payload	Win32k.sys
Impact	Critical - Remote Code Execution

MS12-076	Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Excel Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2720184)
Description	This security update resolves four privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office. The vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted Excel file with an affected version of Microsoft Excel. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerabilities could gain the same user rights as the current user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.
Payload	Excel.Exe
Impact	Important - Remote Code Execution

*All results are based on an AOK Application Compatibility Lab’s test portfolio of over 1,000 applications. 

Big Data: Big changes

I was fortunate enough to attend a briefing session on Microsoft's latest update to the Windows Azure Platform yesterday. While I found the technical update interesting, I found the potential changes to ISV's (that's application developer's to you and I) future business plans the most compelling.

While listening to the session, I started to wonder about the following questions?

• Do you create a new cloud application or migrate your legacy code to the cloud?
• Will you be able to charge the same for the cloud option as your on-premise application?
• Will your cloud-application cannibalise sales of your local applications?
• Will monthly recurring revenues feed into existing sales plans? Do we have to have two sales teams?

After a little bit of reading on the topic, it became apparent, that I am not the only person asking these questions. There is a great white-paper written by David Chappel (who wrote a lot of the current Windows Azure website documentation) on the changes to developers business models as a result of the move to the Cloud. 

You can find his paper here: http://www.davidchappell.com/writing/white_papers/How_SaaS_Changes_an_ISVs_Business--Chappell_v1.0.pdf

In David's paper, there are a few graphs that demonstrate the differences between the standard (or legacy) model of on-premise applications and cloud based recurring monthly revenue models as outlined in the following image;

Some of the key features of the SAAS model include; larger initial investment, smoother growth and a potential for greater long term revenue. I have a couple of (potentially naive) challenges to this model. 

First, I thought that the cloud as development and deployment platform was supposed to be cheaper - and, so why do we require longer initial investment? Second, better longer term growth is good, but it's still early days for the Cloud, and so how do we really know that a cloud based application will generate longer term in growth?

This paper and the venture capitalists group Bessemer' 10 Law's of Cloud Computing and SAAS are well worth a read. You can find out more in the references section in the bottom of this post.

Also, I did not know that Microsoft now supports a version of Hadoop through their Azure "Big Data" Insight HD Server. You can find out more on how Microsoft plans to offer data-mining and large-data set analyse here: http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/solutions-technologies/business-intelligence/big-data.aspx

References:

Read more about Hadoop here: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Hadoop 

Microsoft's Azure Overview Poster

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=35473

Bessemer’s Top 10 Laws of Cloud Computing and SaaS 

http://www.bvp.com/sites/default/files/bvps_10_laws_of_cloud_saas_winter_2010_release.pdf

HOW SAAS CHANGES AN ISV’S BUSINESS - A GUIDE FOR ISV LEADERS

http://www.davidchappell.com/writing/white_papers/How_SaaS_Changes_an_ISVs_Business--Chappell_v1.0.pdf

Quest\DELL\ChangeBASE November Update

Hi - Back from holidays and wanted to post an update on our scheduled DELL\Quest\ChangeBASE webinars and online documentation...

Webinars

Adding User Environment Management When You’ve Already Got Desktop Inventory; Thursday, November 15^th at 2:00 PM ET

In this stadium webcast, learn what you should add to your systems inventory and management to truly provide your users what they need.

Zero-Impact Webinar Migration Series – ChangeBASE

The 6^th and final webcast of the Zero Impact Migration webinar series for partners is now available. The first 5 webcasts were for our Windows BU products, however the last webinar featured ChangeBASE. The  On-demand Partner Webcast –Accelerate Migration by Automating Readiness with ChangeBASE is now available here

Updated Documentation and Tools

  

Windows XP End of Support Countdown Gadget

521 days to until Windows XP is End-of-Life! Downloaded the handy WindowsXP End of Support Countdown Gadget from Microsoft Download center. It sits right on your desktop and it’s a great ChangeBASE conversation starter for customers still stuck on XP.

Windows 8 ChangeBASE Tools Update

Be sure to refresh your ChangeBASE tools. New editions of ChangeBASE data sheets,and web documents have all been updated to include support for the new Windows 8 platform.

Why keeping Windows XP is a Bad Idea

IDC has recently released a pretty good white paper on the perils and pitfalls of sticking with Windows XP (and therefore not migrating to Windows 7 

IDC has outlined a number of concerns with not migrating to later operating systems including the following;

• New PC capabilities that are not exploited by Windows XP.
• The approaching end of Windows XP SP3 extended support on April 8, 2014.
• Lower operational costs
• Soft benefits (i.e. Consumerization of IT - and the limited support under Windows XP)
• Compliance issues (No patches after Windows XP support terminates)

Here is a great diagram referenced form the IDC white-paper which outlines the increasing cost for keeping Windows XP.

What we can see from this graph is that the costs for maintaining an operating system gradually increases. This kind of makes sense as we all have felt the gradual decline in speed/performance from our machines as they age and with the added detritus of legacy applications 

If I was a salesman, I would be toting the above diagram on the back of my business card. Some pretty incredible improvements here. That said, after a closer look, Windows 7 take apparently ZERO time to re-image... Not quite sure of that one...

You can read more about this white paper in the following link to Microsoft website which is currently hosting the IDC white-paper.

Mitigating Risk: Why Sticking with Windows XP is a Bad Idea (IDC White Paper)

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29883