Desktop as a service, the future of Windows
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@mott555 also, even if it were in violation you will never get caught doing what you are doing so it doesn't matter. When you start to plan for a big footprint you are putting a big target on your back for an audit. I couldn't be doing anything that would fail an audit by MS. When it is a onesie-twosie basis even if it "wrong" you can operate in the dark gray.
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@mott555 said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@Polygeekery said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
Microsoft licensing is super complex.
QFT. We have an old Windows Server 2003 box we want to upgrade. It's just a file server these days. And apparently the newer versions of Windows Server require an expensive CAL for each and every user who wants to access the file shares. Chances are I'll replace it with Linux.
Yeah, that part has always pissed me off. It is nothing but a cash grab. You can buy the license but if you want to actually use the server then you need more licenses.
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@mott555 said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@Polygeekery said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
Microsoft changed their EULA to prohibit people from accessing Windows 7 machines where the license was owned by someone else
So it's against the EULA for me to RDP/VNC into a family member's PC to uninstall a virus, or into a customer machine to assist with an install?
In addition, for a while it was a violation of EULA to access a work machine from your home PC. So during that period of time I am fairly certain it would have been a violation. For a period of time it was technically against EULA for a person to remote in to a server from their home machine. If you did so from a company owned laptop (with a company owned license) you would have been fine. But if you did it from your own machine that did not have a company owned license on it that would technically have been a violation of EULA.
I think they sorted that one out, mostly because it was entirely unenforceable and also because no one really gave a damn about it nor even knew it was a thing. But for a period of time there was no legal by EULA way to access a machine remotely unless both licenses were owned by the same organization.
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@Polygeekery said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@mott555 said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@Polygeekery said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
Microsoft changed their EULA to prohibit people from accessing Windows 7 machines where the license was owned by someone else
So it's against the EULA for me to RDP/VNC into a family member's PC to uninstall a virus, or into a customer machine to assist with an install?
In addition, for a while it was a violation of EULA to access a work machine from your home PC. So during that period of time I am fairly certain it would have been a violation. For a period of time it was technically against EULA for a person to remote in to a server from their home machine. If you did so from a company owned laptop (with a company owned license) you would have been fine. But if you did it from your own machine that did not have a company owned license on it that would technically have been a violation of EULA.
I think they sorted that one out, mostly because it was entirely unenforceable and also because no one really gave a damn about it nor even knew it was a thing. But for a period of time there was no legal by EULA way to access a machine remotely unless both licenses were owned by the same organization.
Yeah, the edge cases on this can be really out there. For example, before I finally got a company-owned laptop, I had VirtualBox on my personal laptop. Inside that was a VM licensed to the company (because I'm not letting their Group Policy/VPN/
antivirus stuff touch my personal machine) which I then used to VPN to the office and RDP into my work machine.
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@mott555 said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
Chances are I'll replace it with Linux.
You would be surprised by the performance gain
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@mott555 IIRC, when that was a thing it was only if the RDP session crossed a WAN connection. So you could RDP in to a machine from inside the building and be fine. If you took the same exact machine home and RDP'd to the exact same machine it was a violation. It was all an effort to sell more RDS licenses.
Microsoft licensing is completely insane. I bet there is not a single company in the USA that is 100% in compliance. It is impossible to be in compliance unless you buy one of every single license for every single user in the company. Even then you would probably still be doing things they do not want you to.
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@TimeBandit said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@mott555 said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
Chances are I'll replace it with Linux.
You would be surprised by the performance gain
Performance hardly matters on this server. Linux has its downsides here, too, but that's just corporate IT politics. They require us to purchase annual RHEL subscriptions, even though we could just use CentOS which is literally the same OS with a different logo and no price tag.
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@TheCPUWizard said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@HardwareGeek said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
At 22:26, my laptop was locked in a drawer, presumably asleep, and I was at home playing Skyrim. I was certainly not giving a presentation.
Are the machines both associated in any way with the same Microsoft [or AD or AAD] account????
I'm almost certain they're not. I don't think I've ever logged into any MS account from my home machine, and certainly not with the credentials I use at work. I'd probably be fired if I tried, because it's not IT-approved for connection to the secure work network.
This is not the first time I've seen evidence of the laptop doing things when it's supposed to be asleep. A few days ago, I wanted to figure out what time I had gotten to work that morning, i.e., what time I pulled the laptop out of the drawer and woke it up, so I opened up Event Viewer, and there was an error around 22–23:00 because some Windows service couldn't connect to a server. Duh, you're locked in a metal cabinet with no network and supposed to be asleep.
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@topspin said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
I heard they massively overhauled the UI in some not-actually-too-recent version, and it's supposedly much better.
That was 10+ years ago. I remember being unhappy at the time, because I had just figured out how to use the old UI, and suddenly they moved all the cheeses. I can't honestly compare them, because I don't remember anything about the old one.
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@gąska said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@pie_flavor said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@blakeyrat said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@pie_flavor said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
I've never had any GIMP usability issues.
There is no way that is true.
And yet it is.
It's actually quite funny how he insists that it's impossible to NOT have issues with almost-universally-hated GIMP, while also insisting that it's impossible to HAVE issues with almost-universally-hated Office 2007.
You forgot, he also insists
is great.
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@blakeyrat said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
And the quote I've made before, which might be the one Gaska was looking for yesterday but he's an idiot, is something like: "if people can't easily figure out how to use the feature, the program doesn't have the feature".
If I were looking for a quote where you talk about features, I'd post a quote about features, not bugs. Idiot.
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@TimeBandit said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@mott555 said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
Chances are I'll replace it with Linux.
You would be surprised by the performance gain
Only if he's expecting there to be one
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@dcon said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@gąska said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@pie_flavor said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@blakeyrat said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@pie_flavor said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
I've never had any GIMP usability issues.
There is no way that is true.
And yet it is.
It's actually quite funny how he insists that it's impossible to NOT have issues with almost-universally-hated GIMP, while also insisting that it's impossible to HAVE issues with almost-universally-hated Office 2007.
You forgot, he also insists
is great.You got the he-s wrong.
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@HardwareGeek said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
the laptop doing things when it's supposed to be asleep
Updating?
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There are still some "interesting" edge-cases out there [not necessarily related to Microsoft]. One project I was working on got killed (and would have made some significant income).
The EULA for the packages in question were free to "download, install, AND use". However the language made it so if person A downloaded, then person B installed, or person C used - it was a violation. All three elements had to be done by the SAME person.
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@HardwareGeek said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
I pulled the laptop out of the drawer and woke it up, so I opened up Event Viewer, and there was an error around 22–23:00 because some Windows service couldn't connect to a server. Duh, you're locked in a metal cabinet with no network and supposed to be asleep.
The more I think about it, the more I think Windows 10 is a child. You have to tell it the rules again and again, it pretends to understand, then does whatever it likes anyways.
(Please don't take that analogy too far. Locking your kid in a metal cabinet is probably illegal.)
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@Zerosquare said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
Please don't take that analogy too far. Locking your kid in a metal cabinet is probably
illegalnext to impossible.)FTFM. My kids are in their 20s, and my son, at least, is bigger than I am. Although I've never tried, I rather suspect that locking him in a metal cabinet he didn't want to be in would be quite difficult.
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@HardwareGeek Where's your
old age and treachery?
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@HardwareGeek This is now a ten-inch-long, black, rubber turkey baster and inflatable hot dog cart thread.
Toying Around
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@HardwareGeek said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
the laptop doing things when it's supposed to be asleep
That is how they are designed. "sleep" is not "dead", nor is it "hibernate". The OS (and applications) are still running. Some self suspend (if they handle the notifications) but others (usually services) are quite active.
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@Polygeekery said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
Microsoft licensing is completely insane.
QFT.
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@TheCPUWizard said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
The EULA for the packages in question were free to "download, install, AND use". However the language made it so if person A downloaded, then person B installed, or person C used - it was a violation. All three elements had to be done by the SAME person.
VMware does that. I think it's an interesting way to force companies that are over a certain size to buy the paid version.
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@TheCPUWizard And Windows again hid the option to hibernate. It's now the default action for closing the lid... Until Windows Update disables it again.
It's not like sleeping instead of hibernating is a bad thing, per se — my battery isn't dieing overnight, like a previous laptop — but if I enable hibernation, don't mess with my settings!
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@Gąska said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@pie_flavor said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@blakeyrat said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@pie_flavor said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
I've never had any GIMP usability issues.
There is no way that is true.
And yet it is.
It's actually quite funny how he insists that it's impossible to NOT have issues with almost-universally-hated GIMP, while also insisting that it's impossible to HAVE issues with almost-universally-hated Office 2007.
I liked Office 2007
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@pie_flavor well, you also like Discourse.
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@jmp said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@pie_flavor said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@jmp Bloatware is not mandatory. It can be uninstalled at a user level, and removed from an image at the OEM level.
Here's a short list of preinstalled microsoft apps on this win10 computer that grey out the uninstall button and that I don't want:
- Films & TV
- Groove Music
- Mail and Calendar
- Maps
- Messaging
- Microsoft Edge
- Microsoft Store
- Mixed Reality Viewer
- Paint 3D
- People
- Sticky Notes
- Xbox
- Xbox Game Speech Window
- Xbox Gaming Overlay
Powershell:
Uninstall 3D Builder:
Get-AppxPackage 3dbuilder | Remove-AppxPackageUninstall Alarms and Clock:
Get-AppxPackage windowsalarms | Remove-AppxPackageUninstall Calculator:
Get-AppxPackage windowscalculator | Remove-AppxPackageUninstall Calendar and Mail:
Get-AppxPackage windowscommunicationsapps | Remove-AppxPackageUninstall Camera:
Get-AppxPackage windowscamera | Remove-AppxPackageUninstall Contact Support: This app can't be removed.
Uninstall Cortana: This app can't be removed.
Uninstall Get Office:
Get-AppxPackage officehub | Remove-AppxPackageUninstall Get Skype:
Get-AppxPackage skypeapp | Remove-AppxPackageUninstall Get Started:
Get-AppxPackage getstarted | Remove-AppxPackageUninstall Groove Music:
Get-AppxPackage zunemusic | Remove-AppxPackageUninstall Maps:
Get-AppxPackage windowsmaps | Remove-AppxPackageUninstall Microsoft Edge: This app can't be removed.
Uninstall Microsoft Solitaire Collection:
Get-AppxPackage solitairecollection | Remove-AppxPackageUninstall Money:
Get-AppxPackage bingfinance | Remove-AppxPackageUninstall Movies & TV:
Get-AppxPackage zunevideo | Remove-AppxPackageUninstall News:
Get-AppxPackage bingnews | Remove-AppxPackageUninstall OneNote:
Get-AppxPackage onenote | Remove-AppxPackageUninstall People:
Get-AppxPackage people | Remove-AppxPackageUninstall Phone Companion:
Get-AppxPackage windowsphone | Remove-AppxPackageUninstall Photos:
Get-AppxPackage photos | Remove-AppxPackageUninstall Store:
Get-AppxPackage windowsstore | Remove-AppxPackageUninstall Sports:
Get-AppxPackage bingsports | Remove-AppxPackageUninstall Voice Recorder:
Get-AppxPackage soundrecorder | Remove-AppxPackageUninstall Weather:
Get-AppxPackage bingweather | Remove-AppxPackageUninstall Windows Feedback: This app can't be removed.
Uninstall Xbox:
Get-AppxPackage xboxapp | Remove-AppxPackage
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Get-AppxPackage | Remove-AppxPackage
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@loopback0 Ah yes, the modern version of:
C:\> del *.* /r /s /q
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@HardwareGeek said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@TheCPUWizard And Windows again hid the option to hibernate. It's now the default action for closing the lid... Until Windows Update disables it again.
It's not like sleeping instead of hibernating is a bad thing, per se — my battery isn't dieing overnight, like a previous laptop — but if I enable hibernation, don't mess with my settings!
I am not sure how something that is documented can be considered "hidden".
Hibernate has always had (and IMHO with current architectures - always will) have certain issues and considerations that are beyond the comprehensive of the mean (or median, take your pick) average user.
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@TheCPUWizard said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
I am not sure how something that is documented can be considered "hidden".
Hibernate is, by default, not an option given to the user on the Start power menu. To enable it, you have to go to Power Settings, to Additional Power Settings (in the old skool settings window), on which it is displayed "below the fold" and grayed-out. You have to find the "Change settings that are currently unavailable" (or something like that) link, which requires admin privilege. Then and only then can you enable the ability to hibernate from the Start menu. That seems pretty hidden to me.
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@HardwareGeek not as hidden as "use registry to disable compatibility assistant".
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@Gąska Very valid point.
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@Gąska said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@pie_flavor well, you also like Discourse.
and?
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@pie_flavor nothing, just a cheap joke. Though I wonder if they really fixed all the problems we used to have over here (most notably the poor performance when you have million likes in the single topic, and Unicode usernames).
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@Gąska said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@pie_flavor nothing, just a cheap joke. Though I wonder if they really fixed all the problems we used to have over here (most notably the poor performance when you have million likes in the single topic, and Unicode usernames).
Hmm... If only someone had a bot that could do the first, and a potential username to try on Meta.derp....
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@Tsaukpaetra bots on Discourse? Impossibru!
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@TheCPUWizard said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
I am not sure how something that is documented can be considered "hidden".
When the documentation is “in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’” (a.k.a., it's somewhere on one of MS's sites but they keep changing the URL) it's pretty much considered hidden by any reasonable person.
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@G?ska said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
Unicode usernames
That isn't a bug. Unicode should die a painful death.
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@dcon said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@blakeyrat said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
There are people who still use Office 2003, TO THIS DAY, because they're still pissed that Office 2007 vastly improved the UI.
That's not why I still use it. It's because it still does what I need so there's no reason to spend more money to upgrade. Besides, I have Office2010 on my other machine. None of the newer versions of Office have any new feature that I use/need.
Longtime unregistered reader that signed up just to up-vote this and add my 2¢. I still run Office 97 on my home PC because "It just works". People that claim older versions can't run or that newer versions have a better UI are blowing smoke. I run a 25mb home budget spreadsheet out of Excel 97 every day with ZERO bugs, ZERO lag, and ZERO bloat with every function I need exactly where I need it.
New != Better... more often than not... New = Less Stable + More expensive + Harder to Use
I used Office 365 at my last job before early retirement (worked as a Statistical Data Analyst) and a lot of my Spreadsheets (data tracking and analysis for millions of daily data points over years) that ran fine under earlier versions would crash in 365 just trying to open them. I ended up having to run some of my more complex sheets on a second PC running nothing else for several hours while I did work on my main PC... only to find that many times the program would crash trying to run my data and having to start it over again. This would happen 2 or 3 times a week.
All Office versions after 2003 are just plain garbage designed for force people to work the way MS wants them to work... not the way that works best for them. But what do I know... I was just an expert in the field of data analysis.
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@loopback0 said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@HardwareGeek said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
the laptop doing things when it's supposed to be asleep
Updating?
No, something about trying to apply Group Policy. I don't know a lot about Group Policy, but my policy is for the computer to be asleep at that time of night (and I should be, too, but almost never am).
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@dkf said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@TheCPUWizard said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
I am not sure how something that is documented can be considered "hidden".
When the documentation is “in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’” (a.k.a., it's somewhere on one of MS's sites but they keep changing the URL) it's pretty much considered hidden by any reasonable person.
Bah! Everyone knows the only way to read MS documentation is to google for it first.
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@RobertaME Welcome to the forums!
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@ｓｏｃｋｐｕｐｐｅｔ７ said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@G?ska said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
Unicode usernames
That isn't a bug. Unicode should die a painful death.
Why's that?
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@loopback0 said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
Get-AppxPackage | Remove-AppxPackageYes. But, you need Microsoft's official internal name for the app you're uninstalling, which isn't always immediately obvious. For example, the "Movies & TV" app is called "zunevideo".
Zune
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@El_Heffe The command I posted removes them all, that's why the app name is missing.
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@El_Heffe Why wouldn't it be? It's a direct descendant of the original Zune software. (And since that was used to prototype "Windows Store Apps", it's also the oldest and first one of those.)
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@blakeyrat said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@El_Heffe Why wouldn't it be? It's a direct descendant of the original Zune software. (And since that was used to prototype "Windows Store Apps", it's also the oldest and first one of those.)
You and maybe three other people are the only ones who know that.
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@El_Heffe said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
You and maybe three other people are the only ones who know that.
And yet I don't have a Ferrari. TANJ.
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@mott555
Although, the way I understand Server CAL licensing is that it's really kind of a "let users or devices access any Windows Server services in an Active Directory Domain, regardless of the number of servers they're connecting to". So, once you have the AD Domain Controller, all the other servers you set up (file server, DHCP, etc) are "free" from a CAL perspective.Of course, I probably know even less about MS Licensing than @Polygeekery, so take his disclaimer and increase by 2 orders of magnitude for my statement.
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@izzion said in Desktop as a service, the future of Windows:
@mott555
Although, the way I understand Server CAL licensing is that it's really kind of a "let users or devices access any Windows Server services in an Active Directory Domain, regardless of the number of servers they're connecting to". So, once you have the AD Domain Controller, all the other servers you set up (file server, DHCP, etc) are "free" from a CAL perspective.Of course, I probably know even less about MS Licensing than @Polygeekery, so take his disclaimer and increase by 2 orders of magnitude for my statement.
Yeah, I spent literally hours on the phone arguing with a sales rep about this. Server CAL just licenses the server to operate. It doesn't come with a user CAL except in an administrative capacity. Each and every device that touches (digitally, implicitly) requires a device or user CAL, whether or not said device is yours or the company's or whatever. This includes printers, routers, switches, phone's, computers, laptops, IoT, and management technologies. There is a special "web license" (I don't remember the exact name) that allows you to circumvent this ludicrous requirement, but only if the access is performed against an Internet Information Services server (ie if the device is on the network and a DHCP discover packet breathes through the interface of a Microsoft server, and you don't have a CAL for that device, you're in violation).
It's all hullabaloo and nonsense, and a CAL (to my knowledge, at this point) is merely a piece of paper saying yes, indeed, you spent money for this certificate that says you have a CAL.
