Daniel Harris

Solved: Windows 8.1 Upgrade Link gives a 403 Forbidden error - Windows RT and Windows Pro

dan@danieltharris.co.uk — Thu, 17 Oct 2013 12:11:00 +0000

If you are clicking the links on the Microsoft website to try and get to the update to 8.1, and you are getting a 403 Forbidden Error, then try hitting the following address in your browser:

ms-windows-store:WindowsUpgrade

Just copy and paste that into your browser address bar, hit enter, and you should be taken to the store to get the update.

This worked on my Surface RT and laptop with Windows 8 Pro.

This is the usual way i've seen apps linked to in the store previously, i'm not sure why it isn't the link Microsoft just put directly into the page.

EDIT: Looks like the link has now been updated on the various Microsoft pages to use the above

Could we see the introduction of a Subscription Model with Visual Studio 2013?

dan@danieltharris.co.uk — Tue, 13 Aug 2013 12:19:00 +0000

This is something I’ve been thinking about ever since I saw there would be a new Visual Studio release in 2013… Is there a chance we could see a subscription model become available later this year?

With the next release being just a year after the previous release, I’ve seen some developers complaining that they are being priced out of using the latest version.

With what looks like the introduction of a yearly release cycle, how are developers expected to afford to keep using the latest version?

In my opinion, a basic subscription model could be just the answer.

What about MSDN Subscriptions?

One existing way you may say, is the purchase of an MSDN Subscription. However, in my opinion the pricing for this is still going to be too high for many independent developers, and smaller companies.

The lowest priced option is Visual Studio Professional, at over £1000. The renewal cost to keep your subscription is currently around £675 per year.

MSDN includes many other benefits and access to other software, but for many developers access to all these extras just isn’t needed, and isn’t always affordable.

There are always the free editions available of course, which offer much of what a hobbyist or independent developer would need at no cost, but this could be great for startups and other small companies that want to keep up to date with the Microsoft stack.

The cost of 5 MSDN subscriptions or just 5 Visual Studio Pro licenses can soon stack up when you are just trying to get started.

Why I think it is likely we will see a subscription model this year

As well as my reasoning above for why an MSDN Subscription isn’t for everybody, there are a number of other reasons I feel we will see this happen:

A yearly release follows the trend at Microsoft for trying to be more agile - With more frequent software releases, there needs to be an affordable way for people to upgrade
We have seen the introduction of Subscriptions for Office with Office 365 over the last few years, in my experience this model is extremely convenient and very affordable
Team Foundation Service, the cloud based TFS is available under this model, as an alternative to purchasing up front
We are seeing a general shift towards subscription models with other companies such as Adobe taking their software towards a subscription only model via Creative Cloud

I am not lucky enough to have any sources, so this all just my opinion and a prediction of my own. I’ve yet to see any rumours or discussion of a Subscription model, but to me it would just be a common sense move from Microsoft.

I was fairly surprised to see a release so soon after 2012, especially with all of the fantastic changes we have had delivered via NuGet and the quarterly updates throughout the past year.

What do you think?

As a developer do you think you would be interested in a subscription model along the lines of Office 365? (Ideally in my opinion at much lower cost than an MSDN subscription, but without all the extras)

What sort of pricing would you like to see?

Have I missed some news somewhere that this has already been announced and I’m just way late to the party with this prediction? Let me know in the comments.

Surface RT - Compression Artifacts (Pixelation) during video playback

dan@danieltharris.co.uk — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 00:40:00 +0000

Thought I would quickly post this to save others the possible headache of figuring out why their Surface RT suddenly starting showing compression artifacts during video playback.

In my case other apps, including some of the more demanding games continued to run fine.

The issue seems to be caused by the May firmware update. To be sure I have refreshed the Surface a number of times, and it's always after that update the problem comes back again.

The problem affects video playback in most apps, including embedded videos in web pages, within the Netflix app, and when playing local video files from the hard drive.

At the moment the answer is to just not install that firmware update after doing a PC refresh.

I'm hoping not installing the firmware update won't prevent me from trying the 8.1 Preview. I just don't want to start using the Preview until I have working video.

I opted to install 8.1 (After taking a USB backup of the old recovery partition) and it didn't fix the issue, neither did any of the recent 8.1 updates.

If you find a better solution than just simply not installing the Firmware update, please post in the comments.

I've uploaded a video to YouTube showing the problem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk9zIkT8Pbo

Hoping to get an answer from Microsoft soon on their forum:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfwinrt-surfupdate/surface-rt-video-playback-issues-after-firmware/472ea1b8-943f-4d8c-8322-12b38f5e744e?page=2&tm=1373408564916#LastReply

Update - 10/07/2013

There is an ongoing forum thread on the Microsoft Answers website, it looks as though we may get an answer here at some point.

Microsoft Community Forum | Surface RT Video Playback Issues After Firmware Update

It also looks as though the Surface Twitter account are aware of a problem. Unfortunately the answer is still to "stay tuned" for a fix.

@danieltharris Thanks for following up. My apologies again for the inconvenience. Please stay tuned!
— Surface (@surface) July 10, 2013

I've also heard that the July Firmware update was supposed to resolve this issue, but word on various blogs is that the firmware update has been pulled for the time being.

No explanation yet as to why but people have said they aren't seeing on either RT 8 or RT 8.1. Personally I can only say i've not yet seen it on 8.1 as I only have the one Surface RT device.

Utilising Office 365 as a Google Reader Replacement

dan@danieltharris.co.uk — Tue, 07 May 2013 19:26:00 +0000

With the demise of Google Reader looming, i've turned to outlook, and Office 365 to replace some of the most basic functionality, and surprisingly it does pretty much everything I need...

I personally didn't make use of many of the social features of Google Reader, which is why I think it's working so well for me.

Outlook has had this functionality for a long time, but with the affordability and convenience of Exchange Online via Office 365 it opens it up to many people, and if you already use Exchange (Not specifically O365) it won't cost you anything extra.

The key features that I needed in a replacement were:

Ability to maintain control over my data, with the ability to export my list of feeds if required
Track which posts I have read
Highlight a post as something to read later
Synchronise all this information in one way or another
Access my feeds from almost any device with an internet connection
Ideally it will have an app available for Windows, Windows Phone, and Mac OS X

For me, Outlook and Office 365 meet all these requirements. Below i've discussed how it meets some of these requirements.

Tracking posts I have and haven't read

This works the same as with emails when accessing my feeds via Outlook, or the Outlook web app.

Viewing a post in the preview pane will make the post as read, and if I want to mark a post as unread I simply right click and click "Mark as Read"

As i'm personally using an Office 365 subscription for my Exchange service the status of read posts is synchronised across the Outlook 2013 desktop app and the Outlook Web App.

Highlighting a post to read later

If there is a post that particularly interests me, but I don't have time to read it at the time, I can, like with an email flag it, and set a reminder, and just like an email this will be added to my task list.

I also use a Windows Phone, and maintain my current todo list in Exchange. This does add flagged posts to this list, which means they also appear on my phone, as well as on the web, on my Windows 8 PC and in Outlook on my Mac.

The Outlook Web App allows access to my feeds from almost any device

This was a key requirement for me, I could always use the Google Reader site via any web browser to quickly access my feeds, and see what's new.

The newest version of the Outlook web app is particularly nice, if you are already running on the 2013 version of Office 365 you should find the app to be a pleasure to use on most devices, including mobile phones and tablets.

It's not the primary way I access my feeds, but it's great as a backup, and requires nothing more than a web browser.

Outlook is available on Windows and Mac OS X

As I have said in previous blog posts, I bought a Macbook Pro w/ Retina Display in 2012, and use Windows on a daily basis, so I want to be able to access my feeds with a 'native' app of some sort from both Operating Systems.

For this I use Outlook 2013 in Windows 8, and Outlook 2011 on my Mac.

Both are available as part of a number of Office 365 subscriptions.

Synchronisation across my devices

I've mentioned a few times that Exchange keeps things synched across all of my devices, this includes my phone, tablet, PC and Mac.

My RSS Subscriptions Folder on Windows Phone and Outlook for Mac

Summary

This approach to managing your RSS Subscriptions won't be for everybody. Especially if you are looking for more social features.

For me it fulfils the basic requirements I personally have, and since I already have an Office 365 subscription and Outlook on my various computers, it just makes sense to take advantage of this.

If I want to export my data at any time I can do so via Outlook, this is exported into an 'OPML' XML file, similar to the file generated using Google Takeout.

Outlook may not seem like the most obvious way to manage your feeds, and it's a feature i've not used until recently. If you haven't tried it yet then give it a shot.

You can sign up to a free trial of Office 365 and see if it's for you.

If you've tried it let me know in the comments below, also if you have any tips or alternatives you think are better i'd love to hear from you.

How to access Exchange admin pages for the new (2013) Office 365 Small Business and Office 365 Small Business Premium Plans

dan@danieltharris.co.uk — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:32:00 +0000

I recently signed up for a trial of the new 2013 version of Office 365. I signed up for the Small Business Premium Plan to decide whether I should migrate my personal content over and cancel my existing plan.

Since trying it, I have decided that I will just wait for my existing service to be fully upgraded.

Whilst using the trial I found the admin section to be lacking slightly compared to the ‘classic’ Office 365 admin pages I have in my P1 and E plans. I found myself asking the question… How do you access the Exchange admin section in the new Office 365 Small Business Plans.

As far as I can tell there is no easy link to direct you straight to it, but you can follow the simple steps below to gain access to the Exchange Admin Center:

Login to your service at https://portal.microsoftonline.com
Open Outlook web access by clicking the link in the top bar
Once the Outlook web app has loaded, modify the URL and substitute owa with ecp

The new url should look similar to the below:

https://pod9090.outlook.com/ecp/?realm=yourname.onmicrosoft.com&….

You will then be able to gain access to useful settings and tools such as Email Migration, Shared Mailboxes, Auditing and Retention policies amongst others.

If anybody knows a way to access this from a simple link within the new admin area please let me know in the comments, as of now this is the only way i’ve been able to access it, which seems peculiar considering it was a clear option in the older Office 365 admin area, even in P1 plans.

I’m not sure why it appears to be hidden as tools such as Email Migration are essential in my opinion.

Fix - Creating Workflows in SharePoint Designer has stopped working for SharePoint Online (Office 365) Sites

dan@danieltharris.co.uk — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:05:04 +0000

Over the past few days I have been pulling my hair out trying to figure out why SharePoint Designer suddenly stopped working for creating workflows.

This issue started occurring on both my own SharePoint site (P1 Plan) and all clients (Ranging between E1, E2, and E3).

When creating a new list workflow, reusable workflow, or site workflow I would see the dialog box and give the workflow a name, but after clicking OK the dialog closed and nothing happened.

The Problem

You can’t create workflows using SharePoint Designer on your SharePoint Online / Office 365 SharePoint site.

When you attempt to create a workflow, you complete the dialog for Name and Description, then it closes.

No workflow is created, and you are not presented with the workflow design interface.

Why it started happening

The issue started happening due to the recent upgrades to SharePoint Online. Microsoft have been busy upgrading the back end of SharePoint online in preparation for the new Office 365 Plans such as Offic3 365 Small Business, which launched in the last day or two.

Existing using of the ‘Classic’ P and E plans have started to be upgraded, in terms of the backend, but not everybody can fully upgrade to the new SharePoint 2013 front end (To check if you can upgrade yet try visiting: https://yoursitename.sharepoint.com/_layouts/siteupgrade.aspx).

I believe you should be notified when the option to upgrade is available, but it could be worth checking back every once in a while just in case it becomes available to you.

With this backend change you should switch to using SharePoint Designer 2013 (Download here) to manage your site correctly.

Microsoft recommend you uninstall SharePoint Designer 2010 first, but you can technically install them both side by side.

How to check if your backend has been upgraded, indicating you should update to SharePoint Designer 2013

To check is simple, connect your site in SharePoint designer, in the information panel to the right you will see various information such as the name of the site, description, web address, and SharePoint version.

If the SharePoint version is 15 then you should switch to SharePoint Designer 2013. At last check mine read: SharePoint Version: 4 (15.0.0.4454)

If after switching to SharePoint Designer 2013 you still can’t create workflows…

If the problem is still occurring it is likely that the site has previously been edited using SharePoint Designer 2010. Follow these steps to resolve the problem and gain the ability to create workflows again:

Close any open instances of SharePoint Designer
Navigate to C:\users\yourusername\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WebsiteCache
Delete the folders that relate to the site you are having the issue with, they will be named as “yoursitenamesharepointcom”
Navigate to C:\users\yourusername\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\SharePoint Designer\ProxyAssemblyCache
Delete any folders in this location

This solved my issue, after completing the above I was able to run up SharePoint Designer 2013 and creation of workflows is now working again.

This is covered in the following Microsoft KB Article, but it was difficult to find, despite seeing others online having the same issues.

I’ve seen responses online suggesting creating a whole new site in the Site Collection, for me this was not an option. This is much more convenient and worked right off the bat for me.

Hope this post helps somebody find the answer they are looking for as I wasted at least two evenings trying to track down the issue.

Restore Jump List options for Outlook 2013

dan@danieltharris.co.uk — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 00:12:51 +0000

Recently the handy jump list actions seemed to disappear from my install of Office 2013, specifically Outlook.

Over the years i’ve came to use these extensively – If you need to restore them you simply need to:

Unpin Outlook from the taskbar
Exit Outlook if it is currently running
Delete the following registry key and all subkeys:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Setup

I’m not sure if the problem will return but this has solved the issue at least for now.

At some point I will see if a similar fix can be applied to other Office 2013 applications such as Lync.

Pinning Remote Desktop Connections to the Windows 8 Start Screen

dan@danieltharris.co.uk — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 17:41:00 +0000

Today I was trying to pin some commonly used servers to my Windows 8 start screen, and I noticed the option wasn't available when I right clicked on the various saved .RDP files.

I did try right clicking the connections and choosing "Create Shortcut", but I still did not get the option when right clicking the shortcut, adding the shortcut manually to the following location didn't work either:

C:\Users\MyUsername\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

To get around the problem I navigated to the above folder, right clicked and chose "New > Shortcut"

In the box asking you to type the location of the item, enter the following, substituting for your server name/IP where I've entered 127.0.0.1

C:\Windows\System32\mstsc.exe /v:"127.0.0.1"

Now I have all my servers available on the start screen as intended.

Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac 8.0.18305 Impressions

dan@danieltharris.co.uk — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 16:12:00 +0000

Today I got an alert from Parallels that the latest update was available. I always like to be notified rather than downloading it automatically so I can see what new features have been introduced.

The latest update has a focus on Windows 8 as you would expect. The ones i’m most interested in i’ve listed below:

Support for one finger gestures to show charms and running applications
Full speed support for USB 3.0 devices
Windows 8 system notifications are displayed as Mountain Lion notifications
New, more intuitive design to optimise Windows for working on Retina Displays

Some other updates i'm personally less interested in, but still noteworthy are:

Support for Windows Server 2012
Ability to assign up to 16GB RAM to a single VM (I'll be sticking with 8GB on my MBPr)

In case you are considering upgrading but not quite sure yet i've covered some of the changes below.

One finger gesture support for opening Charms etc

This makes the gestures available on touch screens work on trackpads. To activate them you need to swipe from off the trackpad from either the left, right, or top/bottom.

Swipe in from the left to see all your running applications
Swipe in from the right to bring up the charms menu
Swipe in from the top/bottom to bring up the context menus (Same as right click)

It works really well and shows the OS can be just as intuitive with a trackpad as with a touchscreen. I tend to use keyboard shortcuts myself, but for those out there who don't like remembering key combinations this should be a welcome addition.

New UI for Retina Display Options

I actually think this is a step backwards, but it ultimately gives you the same options as before. Previously you had two check boxes; One to enable the use of the full resolution, and another to Optimise the display.

Optimising the display basically just sets Windows DPI setting to 199%.

You now get 3 options, i've listed below how these map to the old check boxes.

Scaled = Both boxes unticked
Best for Retina = Both boxes ticked
More space = Only "Enable full resolution" ticked

My personal preference is to choose "More Space" and set my DPI setting manually to 178%, this still allows more tiles on the start screen, without things becoming too small.

The parallels "Best for Retina" setting forces it to 199% which means tiles on the home screen become larger, meaning you fit the same number of tiles as you would on a screen running at 1440x900.

Windows 8 System Notifications displayed as Mountain Lion notifications

I was disappointed to find that this doesn't appear to work if you run your VM in full screen or windowed. I tried installing an application from the Windows store, sent an email to my account in Office 2013, and also turned on my Xbox 360. All should trigger a notification, and they did in Windows, but none of them appeared in Mountain Lion.

It looks like this only works in Coherence mode...Which makes sense for it to work here, but I think you should be able to get alerts in ML no matter how you like to run your VM. An example where this would be useful is if you have Windows 8 in full screen on Desktop 2, but you're working on Desktop 1 in Mac OS X.

I hope Parallels will add support for this in full screen/windowed mode in a future update.

UPDATE: I think my machine just needed a reboot after enabling this setting as it has been working great for a while now. Good to know when something happens in Windows if i'm using OS X at the time.

General Impression of the Update

Any update is always welcome, and it's great Parallels are releasing new features on a regular basis lately. Parallels is still the most valuable piece of software i've had, and my personal favourite for desktop virtualisation. It still feels so much faster than VM Ware player/ Workstation on Windows which I also use on a daily basis.

Most importantly of all the update has not broken anything. This is a problem some people have had in the past with new versions of PD8. I can say that for me nothing has gone wrong. I am running a Retina MBP and Windows 8 RTM from August.

From my personal experience you can update to the latest version without fear of issues cropping up.

You can read the full KB article that discusses all the changes in the update here: Parallels KB article for PD8 8.0.18305

If you've updated please post your impressions in the comments.

Switching from a Windows Laptop to a Macbook Pro - Initial Impressions of a .NET Developer

dan@danieltharris.co.uk — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 20:54:00 +0000

Early August I took delivery of a Macbook Pro with Retina display, with a slightly bumped up spec over the base.

This is the first Mac i’ve owned, and the first chance i’ve had to really try the OS.

I’ve always had Windows Laptops before, and the reason I bought the Macbook wasn’t because there is anything wrong with Windows, simply that the spec of the Macbook hardware is what I was after, plain and simple.

The Hardware

It’s very light for it’s size and more than powerful enough for my development activities. There seemed to be a distinct lack of notebooks and ultrabooks I could buy with a 16GB memory configuration.

Having 16GB of RAM means I am more than able to run Windows virtualised, rather than having to boot into it via Boot Camp.

I’ve used VM’s for development in work plenty of times before running in VMWare Workstation, and at times it has been a flaky experience.

Running Windows

At the end of the day, i’m a huge Windows fan, and I spend most of my working week in Visual Studio, so I will always want to run Windows.

As I said above, with the spec of the machine I opted for virtualising Windows rather than doing a dual boot…

I chose Parallels Desktop for Mac on the advice of a friend and haven’t looked back since.

Windows 7 (and now Windows 8) run silky smooth and when in full screen it feels like i’m running it on bare metal rather than virtualised.

I tried Coherence mode which i’d heard a lot about. And although it works much better than Unity mode in VMWare Workstation, I still like to feel as though i’m running Windows fully rather than just using Windows app from within Mac OS X.

Once i’d tweaked the settings in Parallels I found I was running Windows 8 and forgetting completely that it was a VM, or that I was even using a Mac.

I’ve been using the machine for around a month now and it’s been a very pleasant experience and I find that I now switch between Windows and Mac seamlessly as part of my workflow.

I’m going to cover in another post how I have Parallels setup to get (what I believe to be) the optimal experience. The way it works and integrates Mac OS and Windows out of the box is really impressive!

Mac OS X

Overall I have to admit, I do like Apple’s desktop operating system. Visually I think it looks good, albeit slightly more dated looking than Windows 7 and 8.

The thing that really makes the OS a joy to use though are the multi-touch gestures. I have never been a fan of trackpads, but I find that the gestures are implemented so well that I can’t imagine using a Mac without them.

It may seem like a small thing, but once you get used to them they really speed up your use of the system, and it’s nice to see Microsoft implementing gestures in Windows 8.