Posts by Trevor_Pott

Re: Nothing to contribute-Will the winner please take a bow?

If you ask me, you're all a little bit aft.

Re: Hamcheeseandonion is actually wrong

MSDN Platforms is not included in Microsoft's buy now site. The cheapest on that site is MSN Operating Systems which starts at $700.

MSDN platforms is available only via Enterprise subscription, Select, Select Plus, Open value and Educational solutions, starts in around the $750 mark (If you hunt for a deal) and still doesn't include Office.

Official information on MSDN Platforms is functionally non-existent and thus not only can any MS professional be excused for not knowing about it's existence, but most of what is known is inference or speculation based on information exposed by partners. (Unless Microsoft has very recently finally posted an official page on the damned thing.)

MSDN Platforms is not only more than double the price of TechNet it isn't a direct substitute for what TechNet contained. Not Good Enough. Not by a long shot.

Also: you are sort of right in that MSDN platforms does not include Visual Studio but does include Team Foundation Server (?!?) as per this document"and MSDN Platforms subscriptions include a server license and one Client Access License for Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012. "

It also separately says "Visual Studio Ultimate with MSDN, Visual Studio Premium with MSDN, Visual Studio Professional with MSDN, Visual Studio Test Professional with MSDN, and MSDN Platforms subscribers can download and deploy one instance of Team Foundation Server 2012. These same MSDN subscribers are granted a Team Foundation Server 2012 CAL to be used within their organization (it is not valid for use of Team Foundation Server acquired by a different organization)."

The entire idea of TFS being in it but not VS gives me the question marks.

Re: TechNet Moaning

I've built an entire career on Microsoft. Deployed their technologies in almost all client locations. Trained on them, memorized the structure, syntax, layout and operation of their technologies and I still currently make over 80% of my income either supporting clients that use Microsoft technologies in the wild or writing about Microsoft technologies for The Register. Microsoft has recently flown me down to Redmond to show me Server 2012 R2 in all it's glory; just a few days ago they hooked me up with an MSDN account so that I could continue to build my test lab.

To suggest that I have "axes to grind" with Microsoft that would cause me to make false accusations in public is not only insulting it is patently ridiculous. I have every incentive on Earth to shove my nose so far up Microsoft's ass that when they speak it is with my voice. Without Microsoft I would be unable to pay my mortgage and I would have no career.

To speak out against Microsoft's practices - from shutting down Technet to pointing out that VDI licensing is holding back entire industries - is risky bordering on suicidal for me. Microsoft does not treat its critics well; look at how long Mary Jo Foley was banned for doing what reporters are supposed to do during the Microsoft monopoly trial. Every time I speak up I run the very real risk of being blackballed and having my entire livelihood collapse.

So no, I don't have "axes to grind" with Microsoft. Quite the opposite; I want a strong, healthy, vibrant Microsoft so I can continue to make money off of them until I retire. VMware doesn't spend nearly so lavishly and I don't have the network of contacts inside any of the other titans of technology to stand a snowball's chance in a neutron star of turning them into my cash cow should Microsoft start drawing down.

I have nothing to gain and everything to lose by speaking out. If you honestly believe that I would make shit up just poke Microsoft in the eye then you are a fucking idiot. You are even more of an idiot if you believe that the person who writes about trust, trustworthy computing and the importance of legal risk mitigation is going to post confidential customer information on the internet because some butt-snorkling coward is too goddamend lazy to pick up the phone and start calling systems administrators and partners around the world to see exactly how widespread Microsoft's dispersal of this message was.

Unlike some who call themselves "journalists" - especially those who report on Microsoft - I not only have legitimate (and ongoing) experience in the field I am reporting on, I go out of my way to cultivate contacts amongst systems administrators, CIOs, VARs, MSPs, and so forth to better understand the industry I occupy at all levels of the stack. My experience as regards Microsoft's messaging is not unique. Christ man, the comments section of this article alone should be enough to demonstrate that to anyone capable of even the most basic intellectual honesty.

If you want to malign me or impugn my trustworthiness you feel free to do so. As an SME sysadmin with a crippling weight problem, too much personal debt, an underwater mortgage, a lack of post secondary credentials that means my mommy will never respect me and the traditional self-confidence and personal image issues born of a lifetime of social ostraciseation as a nerd I don't have a fucking ego to offend. You cannot think less of me than I do of myself.

What you should probably bear in mind, however, is that my readers know me. They know my tics and my foibles. They know that I am honest to a fault. (I am such a terrible liar that it has gotten me into trouble on more than one occasion because calling things like you see them means you say things people don't want to hear.)

Trying to paint my article, my comments - and by extension those of all the others who have raised their voices alongside mine - as the works of a liar bent on sticking one to Microsoft simply reveals your own prejudices and intentions. I'd say you've done my work for me in this thread, sir. You've called yourself out in a far more efficient manner than I ever could.

I will leave it at that and let the reader decide. Good day.

Re: Peoples simply have a mistaken definition of testing

have to agree with hamcheeseandoninon: the word directly from Microsoft - from their employees, product managers and licensing specialists - as well as from their VARs was that I was not only allowed to build a lab for testing patches and new software versions from my TechNet licences, I was strongly encouraged to do so.

On more than one occasion Microsoft has furnished me personally with a TechNet licence for the express purpose of building a testlab. I remember getting one with an MCP exam I took for exactly that purpose. I was given one for attending a conference and another as part of my post-secondary education. I am pretty sure I've gotten at least one for blogging stuff. This year marks the very first time ever that Microsoft has provided me an MSDN subscription for that same purpose. It's the first year I have ever even had someone suggest MSDN as being useful for me as a systems administrator who does not do development on or for Windows in any way shape or form.

MSDN was always described as for developers who wanted to stand up environments to test builds of their software against. I have never once been told by Microsoft before 2013 that MSDN was the subscription level required for building a testlab. I had even asked that question several times - probably more than a dozen - to be absolutely sure during the last audit I participated in.

This was to ensure I understood the differentiation between Action Pack and TechNet licences. I very specifically asked if I could use a TechNet licence to stand up a testing VM for a third party application so that I could test if Microsoft patches would affect it. I was crystal clear on this and was told quite explicitly "that is what TechNet is for."

Microsoft has changed their positioning on this only very recently and is now retconning as hard as they possibly can.

Just because Microsoft's wetware tells you that something is so and has always been so does not make it the truth. Here's a little shocker for you: Microsoft distorts the truth, plays lose with the facts and outright lies to achieve their aims. Critical thinking, it's an important skill especially when combined with actual experience in the subject matter you're so prodigiously butt-snorkling about.

Re: TechNet Moaning

What I am basing my article off of is quite simply a career's worth of answers from Microsoft employees about how to interpret the terms of use agreements for TechNet. You are correct that they are centred around testing and Microsoft's own people say that this testing includes things such as testing patches and the suitability of Microsoft's software in various environments. That includes building long term test labs for this purpose; the whole point of the permanent licences included with the TechNet service.

That Microsoft wants desperately to change the story on "what TechNet was for" doesn't alter the guidance they themselves gave to partners, cert holders and end users when asked direct questions on the matter.

As to comparing to other vendors like Oracle, you are absolutely right Oracle does not offer a simliar package. Oracle also doesn't give a rat's ass about SMEs and I do seem to recall making the compairaison rather directly between Microsoft and Oracle in my article.

Microsoft has abandoned the low margin SMEs, power users hobbyhorses and enthusiasts. Trying to argue that Microsoft are morally and ethically correct in doing so because "everyone else has done it" is weak at best and completely misses the point.

Either Microsoft's own representatives have been lying to millions of us in the guidance they provided for roughly a decade or Microsoft are fucking SMEs, power users hobbyhorses and enthusiasts over right now. There are no other alternatives.

Just because you can interpret a document in a manner that suits Microsoft's current business priorities does not retroactively make that how it was was interpreted by Microsoft or retroactively alter the guidance their people provided when asked direct questions. No matter how badly Microsoft or the attendant sycophant brigade want it to be so.

Re: TechNet Moaning

A) timebomed evaluation copes are inadequate.

B) MSDN, volume licensing and software assurance are too expensive for most businesses.

It must be nice to believe that the entire world can be served by the narrow cone of your own experience; reality be damned, just stump up the dollars that aren't there, son, or do without. You didn't really need security, patches, or any other aspect of a business, did you? If you did, well, surely you can afford enterprise margins or cloud subscriptions!

Don't forget to pay your lawyer that little extra to deal with the fact that assholes with more money than human compassion have delegated you to be the legal canary in the coalmine.

It's easy to simply write off millions when you're seated atop a comfortable horse.

A) I was referring to systems administrators who work for companies too poor or too cheap to pay for things like technet, training and so forth. There are millions of them around the world and this is a knife in their belly. Those men and women are my brethren and sistren. Until only just recently I was one of them; no consulting company of my own, no budget beyond asking myself "do I buy a steak or put a few more dollars into the pot for the tools I need to do my job."

Apologists can condescend them all you want, or suggest that their employers should pay but reality doesn't comply whit the fantasies of those who set licensing policies. This is a direct attack on people like me; it is Microsoft saying that those who have spent their careers and lives doing what I have done are irrelevant, inconvenient, and above all guilty unless proven innocent.

I'll not stand idly by whilst one of the only groups of people in this world I can readily identify with is maligned, marginalized and shamed.

B) For your information, this article was written during the only weekend off I've taken in a year. It was the only weekend I've had to see my wife in two months. She's on location on an acting job and I won't get to see her for at least another two months. So I was on vacation. Some things are more important than my own personal amusement.

C) I don't have an MS addiction. I've been using Red Hat since late 1994 and have had periods of only a few months since 1995 when I wasn't running a network somewhere consisting of Red Hat, Apple and Microsoft.

Technology is technology, regardless of the purveyor. I disconnect my feelings regarding business practices from my respect for the technology produced. Microsoft makes good tech. They make shitty people.

Your understanding of the situation - and why so many are upset here - is at best incomplete at worst flat out wrong. What's more, hiding behind legalities like "consumer protection laws" as a means of trivializing the challenges this move has introduced into the lives of so many is simply offensive. It's easy to blithely demand people pay more, change the world around them to be more like you desire or simply write them off when they lack the power, authority or money to make others choose differently.

It is a different thing entirely to live in that world for decades. Perhaps you should. You might learn a thing or two about compassion and why the intersection of business and ethics needs be a primary concern not something we can allow to be overshadowed by the trumpets and drums of quarterly profits.

There is nobody in this industry you can trust. If sycophants of any flavour are your desire then bang on the desk until Eadon is given a forth-covered Pengiunskin soapbox and go read Ed Bott for a dose of truly singular Redmondian butt snorkling.

Me, I'll be as objective as I can and I"ll review any technology that crosses my path or interests me. My focus however, will always be on the SME. Someone has to, because our entire industry is focused on "being on message" where "being on message" means "captivating the enterprise buyer."

So try to understand my full meaning when I say that SME sysadmins are my fucking tribe and I will defend them to the bitter end. Even if all I can do in their defence is loose words upon the ether.

Re: TechNet Moaning

TESTING PATCHES IS NOT FUCKING DEVELOPMENT. IT IS A BASIC ELEMENT OF SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATION.

There is a fuck of a lot of difference between developing and systems administration. You can't do patch testing on the free versions for the reasons stated in the article. Microsoft has explicitly stated on more than one occasion that this is exactly what Technet is for. Only now has the story changed to reinterpret the licence so that they can retcon it's purpose and blame the victims for it's disappearance.

Anyone who does that is in my books a douchecanoe of the umpteenth order. Anyone who supports such a move is someone I will never have the vaguest shred of respect for.

"Most Technet sales would be to businesses wouldn't they? "

You'd be wrong. Which is sort of why everyone is so up in arms.

Re: @SelLuser

I'd also like to inject some additional rage in a second comment. You not only make huge assumptions about others, but you know there are whole classes of individuals with accessibility/disability requirements that basically you are writing off as irrelevant. Just throw 'em under a bus, eh? Who cares about people who aren't part of the master race! *hiss*

Re: Freeride @Trevor_Pott

...but my testlab environment is Synology + Samba 4 + CentOS + VMware + a picture of Ballmer with a penis drawn on his face.

They can deem the structure of my testlab environment anything they want. What they can't do is a goddamned thing about it. After all, you don't need to test MS software if 80% of your remaining sysadmin work is "getting MS the fuck out of the SME". The other 20%, well...they know the risks. If they want to Oracle themselves on the great sandbar of Microsoft, let 'em. I give no fucks so long as I get my bag of silver.

Re: @SelLuser

@AC 16:07

I use right-click context menus you ignorant cuntweasel. Not all of us have the gift of steady, pain free hands. For some of us it hurts to type. For others, we don't have properly designed workspaces. For still others we often work so many remote-whatever support sessions deep that keyboard shortcuts don't always translate.

Think about workflows other than your own. You are not the ubermensh; all men are not striving to be you. I'm a highly mouse-driven user and damned happy with it. I can fly around the screen with my trackball mouse and get things done just as quickly as any keyboard-shortcut addict.

Well, I could...until Microsoft decided that only the middle of the bell curve mattered. Bastards.

"Register Ribbon"

Yes. The staff would be in ribbons by the time I was done with them, were that to be introduced...

Re: Now is the time? [@ Trevor_Pott

@Stevie: we set up preferences we liked (those that were the most Outlook-like) and simply pushed them out with Puppet and/or logon scripts to set up customer systems. Works a treat!

Re: Grr...

I review technology, regardless of source. For all Microsoft's many - many, many, many (many!) - sins...they make some of the best technology on the planet. I get uppity because they used to be the preferred vendor for "my people" (the SMEs) and they now have kicked us to the curb for the prettier customers (hyperscale).

Loathing Microsoft's business practices will not stop me from reviewing the technology on offer and reviewing it as objectively as I can. My job is to provide information. In a lot of cases it is information on stuff that I won't be using personally.

In addition to reviewing Microsoft's latest greatest, I'll also be reviewing non-Microsoft technologies from other companies. It's just sort of what I do.

Re: Now is the time?

Yep; I used to think that way. Then I realised someone made Thunderbird stock sucking. As soon as I grokked that addons worked the same as Firefox I was set. Is it "as good in all ways" as Outlook? No. Is it "good enough" not that Microsoft is hellbent on getting rid of shared calendars and public folders as Outlook items? Yes.

Re: Allow me to reciprocate

I CONSUME THE LETTER R! ROAR!

Re: Freeride

Technet never allowed you to use those products in production environments. That was never a debated item. The debate is about the definition of evaluation environments and whether or not SMEs and individual sysadmins can be realistically be expected to shell out thousands - or even tens of thousands - of dollars in order to ensure that Microsoft's patches work as advertised.

Microsoft says "you have $20K worth of MS software in production? We want you to pay at least $6K (to get the base usable version of MSDN) per year to test our patches before deploying them, rent on a cloud for about the same or buy a whole other $20K." They had been telling us "that's what Technet's for" for around a decade.

Now apparently what they had told us wasn't accurate - and remember, the burden isn't on Microsoft to provide you accurate information, it is on you to know what it accurate and what's not! - so we're all of us guilty of financial terrorism thus making Microsoftion Techneticide entirely justified and not a dick move at all. Get it? Got it? Good.

Re: Peoples simply have a mistaken definition of testing

"Testing the suitability of their products" is what most of us used it for. The problem you have is that you can't seem to extend that to include things like "patches" and "service packs" in that definition. The point of the project was to ensure that you could deploy Microsoft software - including their ongoing support items - reliably. Or rather, that's what they told us. Now we get a different story; they need to kill it and with the least PR damage possible. So it's far easier to blame the users of the service than to say straight up "we want more money."

Cowards.

Re: Grr...

He was talking about the cost of the version with Office. Not the cheapest version. As to "prepared to pay for it as a business cost": fuck you, sir. With a gorilla. In the face. Sideways.

Let's lay some statistics down on you here; this time from Canada.

In December 2011 (the last point of published stats) we had 2,383,796 small or “indeterminate” (or government’s way of saying “too small to register properly”) businesses in our nation. A “small” business is less than 100 seats. There were 18,999 businesses between 100 and 499 seats and 2,528 businesses with 500 or more seats.

That makes 2,528 “enterprises” in my nation versus 2,402,795 SMEs.

A significant chunk of those SMEs - which are by far the majority of the companies in my nation - simply can't afford MSDN. Many of my clients have trouble finding 30-40k for hardware + software every 4 years. To say nothing of individual systems administrators seeking to build home labs to learn. In most cases in the SME world - and thus in most cases int he world, period, administrators don't get Technet or MSDN from work. They have to buy that shit themselves, just like certifications.

Your arrogance is astounding, as is how unbelievably out of touch you are with the people at the coalface just trying to make a living here. You are engaging in a game of "blame the victim" here. No matter how you try to rewrite history, the overwhelming majority of people using Technet were not pirates. They were coalface administrators trying to build a working and experimental environment from the only option realistically fiscally available to them.

Microsoft - and you, frankly - is engaged is nothing more than retroactively criminalizing, sentencing and punishing the very people who have devoted their careers to Microsoft's products.

Let's see what that nets them, shall we?

Re: SBS

Jesus, you don't quit do you? The "Server 2012 Essentials" argument was dismantled here already. Do try to keep up.

ENDPOINTS is the measure that matters, not "desktops." Desktops are now facing real competition from smartphones and tablets for end user timeshare. No longer merely in consumption, productivity has begun to move as well.

As for server share: prove it.

Re: Now is the time?

Question - and a serious one - that I think needs answering: what exactly does Office 2013 offer me that LibreOffice doesn't? I mean, besides FUD?

They say everyone only uses 20 features of Office, but everyone uses a different 20 features. I cannot believe for a moment that LibreOffice has all of the features of Office, but I am willing to bet that it has the "20 features" that 80% of the productivity-suite using people of this world want.

LibreOffice doesn't have to be better than Office 2013. It doesn't even have to be "as good." It just has to be "good enough."

Re: Now is the time?

Hey, Anonymous Coward, um...

...yeah, I'm okay with a vastly inferior solution. Let me try to put this bluntly: I can run my business of Windows XP and Office 2003. I sure as shit can run it off Linux.

Is Microsoft's software superior in many respects to what Open Source has to offer? Yes. Does that matter any more? No. I don't need to be able to build a fucking hosted Azure solution to run a business. I'm fine with stuff that's 5-10 years behind the curve.

You know when we hit 2005 and CPU speed just stopped mattering? Well guess what: we've hit that with OSes and productivity suites too. The Enterprise world can careen ahead needing to be up-to-date simply because everyone else is up-to-date.

I'm fucking done with it. Seems like more than a few'll join me.

Re: Allow me to reciprocate

Sir, if I may, I am working on a series of articles about exactly that: replacing Microsoft in the SME. Give me a few weeks and you should have some of the answers you seek.

Except the license doesn't prohibit using it for a testing environment. It can be interpreted that way, however every single Microsoft employee, sales representative, VAR MS licensing specialist and even MS product managers I have spoken to in the past 3 years have assured me that "building a test lab" is exactly the intended purpose. It is the whole reason TechNet was included in the Action Packs.

So you can sling your bullshit somewhere else. The rationale that "TechNet was never for testing" (which I started to see pop up even before I had finished typing the article) flies in the face of everything Microsoft has said about TechNet since the beforetime.

I'm bitching because Microsoft are killing a great service whilst simultaneously getting the drone army to attempt to retcon the purpose of that service in order to change their plea in the court of public opinion from "guilty of murder" to "self defense." What is truly insulting, appalling and downright insane is that a learned Register commenter would be front and center amidst the mob trying to rewrite history to serve the next quarter's bonus targets.

Here I mistakenly thought Register readers were capable of spotting blatant attempts to disconnect message from missive. I am saddened to be wrong.

Re: Informative article

I don't know. I doubt it. Any evidence to back this up with other directory systems? I've heard nothing similar about any of the others so far. I'd be interested, if true!

Re: A couple of notes...

60 according to all the official documentation I've read AND their technet articles about the VDCs AND the linked blogs in the piece I wrote.

Re: Clones?

Now that I think about it, I was rocking that Norton Ghost 9 CD for a long, long time...

Also: have to go down to Cowgary in a couple days. Going to be a mess, methinks...

Re: SMB

Brussels Sprouts: a little bit of margarine, some nutmeg and some chopped almonds. Delicious.

But what to replace the XP with?

http://www.linuxmint.com/

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/coolship-an-android-desktop-computer-that-looks-like-a-keyboard?browse_v=old_no_dropdown

http://www.apple.com/ca/mac/

Re: NT 4

My personal log system is an old Sanyo 386 notebook with the screen sheared off (I am using a 10" orange IBM external monitor instead) with 1GB of RAM running DOS, WP 5.1 and Lotus 123. I use it every single day. There is a working TRS 80 in my basement used to monitor the Lizard's cage via a sensor suite.

"Old" doesn't mean "useless."

Re: SMB

What's wrong with 3389 forwarding? Port 18354 --> 3389 on a target. There has been exactly one RDP bug in the past decade that could allow a user to spoof the protocol and log in. They patched it ASAP. RDP is reasonably secure, especially if local administrator-level and domain-controller level users have been denied access. I know there are security paranoids out there that would prefer I use RDP inside an SSH tunnel inside a VPN through TOR, but this isn't the DoD. It's a guy wanting convenience to get to his data. Ease of use, you know, that thing about which no fucks are given by asbergers types?

I'm getting a certain sense of "I like Windows 8, so anyone who doesn't needs to be secretly condescended to because my preferences really should apply universally. If you don't like the same things I like, there is quite obviously something wrong with you, you short-bus loser." It's rarely a conscious thing, but when people have preferences we don't understand we all do it. To some extent at least. Computer nerds are the worst. You'd think they'd be beyond these sorts of petty ostracisation, but they enjoy finding reasons to isolate and belittle more than any group I've encountered. (VIM! EMACS! FIGHT!)

SMB3 versus SMB2: SMB3 goes faster in almost every scenario. Does it go fast enough to justify having to switch to Windows 8? Fuck no.