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  • easiest way to automate all software installations for new users/computers?

    - by sorrrydoctorforlove
    Basically, for every new user we have about 30 different installers that all need to be run manually after an install of windows which is tedious/time consuming. We can't simply ghost/image the computers as they come because of the wide variety of hardware being used (all laptops). What would you suggest to run through all the installers automatically without requiring me to sit and click 'next'.. 'next'.. 'continue'.. 'no dont install msn toolbar please'?

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  • Creating a MSI patch (.msp) by hand?

    - by Jerry Chong
    Our team has recently been considering pushing out a minor registry fix to users to modify one particular problematic key. Pretty straightforward stuff, just needed to update 1 key/value inside the registry. So at the moment, we are using Wix to build .msi installers for the product. While looking into Wix's support for generating .msp patch files, it seems that the only way to create an .msp is a somewhat overcomplicated multi-step process to: Get a copy of the original MSI, and compile a new copy of the fixed MSI Write a new Wix file that points to both installers Compile the Wix file into a .wixobj with Candle to a .psp Run Torch/Pyro over before/after snapshots of the original installers and the .psp, or alternatively using MsiMsp.exe Now my question is, can't I simply describe the registry change into a Wix file and directly compile it into the .msp, without step 1 and 4 - which is a huge amount of effort for just a simple change?

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  • What's the smallest DirectX installer I can distribute in my Software?

    - by John
    My application uses DirectX 9.0c. There are many installers for the end-user run-times, ranging from 400Kb to 100Mb+ and obviously I don't want to bloat my installer file. However, I believe there are potentially legal restrictions which mean I can't just distribute whichever MS installers I might choose. This is the one I'd ideally like to include, is it the best /correct one?

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  • WebLogic How-to Videos: Install, Upgrade, & Patch

    - by Ruma Sanyal
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Here is another great YouTube video by our product manager Monica Riccelli. She talks about installers now being standardized in Oracle for greater consistency -- no more WebLogic native installers. Also, JDK is no longer a part of the WebLogic install. The various installers she discusses include OUI, ZIP, OEPE, Coherence and more. Monica then takes us through a step by step install process. After the install process is complete the video takes us through the configuration wizard. The ZIP installer is then discussed and its effectiveness, such as it being the smallest downloadable option, easy, and very popular with our customers and limitations (such as for development only and not to be used in production) highlighted. Monica then takes us through the configuration wizard, its usage, and when to use WLST scripts. The video then discusses NodeManager and its usage and discusses how to reconfigure a WebLogic domain on upgrade – through our GUI tools or through command line interface. Lastly, it highlights Opatch – a patch application tool used by our customers and standardized across all Oracle products. Really detailed video. Check it out!  /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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  • Winlibre - An Aptitude-Synaptic for Windows. Would that be useful?

    - by acadavid
    Hi everyone. Last year, in 2009 GSoC, I participated with an organization called Winlibre. The basic idea is having a project similar to Aptitude (or Apt-get) and a GUI like Synaptic but for Windows and just to hold (initially), only open source software. The project was just ok, we finished what we considered was a good starting point but unfortunately, due to different occupations of the developers, the project has been idle almost since GSoC finished. Now, I have some energy, time and interest to try to continue this development. The project was divided in 3 parts: A repository server (which i worked on, and which was going to store and serve packages and files), a package creator for developers, and the main app, which is apt-get and its GUI. I have been thinking about the project, and the first question that came to my mind is.. actually is this project useful for developers and Windows users? Keep in mind that the idea is to solve dependencies problems, and install packages "cleanly". I'm not a Windows developer and just a casual user, so i really don't have a lot of experience on how things are handled there, but as far as I have seen, all installers handle those dependencies. Will windows developers be willing to switch from installers to a packages way of handling installations of Open source Software? Or it's just ok to create packages for already existing installers? The packages concept is basically the same as .deb or .rpm files. I still have some other questions, but basically i would like to make sure that it's useful in someway to users and Windows developers, and if developers would find this project interesting. If you have any questions, feedback, suggestions or criticisms, please don't mind about posting them. Thanks!!

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  • Windows 8 asks DotNet 3.5 to install DotNet 3.5

    - by William.Ebe
    While trying to install some tools in Windows 8, it showed me a nice message saying it requires DotNet framework. Well, it's fine. But the bad part is I have offline installers for v2.0 and v3.5. While I'm trying to install those installers it shows me the same message as it shows above. I can't consider the web installer, because I don't want to download around 100MB. The file I have works fine for other versions like Windows 7 or XP. Any fixes?

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  • Does it actually matter whether you have open applications when installing new software?

    - by Dan
    It seems the norm these days is for installers/setup programs to request that you close all open applications before initiating the install process for a piece of new software. I used to obediently follow these directions without fail, even though it could sometimes be frustrating having to close open documents and stop working on things just to get a new, seemingly unrelated application installed. Then at some point I simply stopped bothering. Nowadays if I have a lot of stuff going on I might even run multiple installers at the same time; I can't even recall a time it has ever posed a problem. Why do setup programs even make this request in the first place, then, when it appears to be unnecessary? Is this just to simplify troubleshooting for companies' support people? Has anyone else ever run into problems as a result of trying to install an app while other apps were open?

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  • Installing a bundled set of multiple apps automatically and silently

    - by Reckage
    Hi all, When I install Windows, I like to deploy a set of the same apps (for example, Firefox, Chrome, Trillian, 7-Zip, etc.). I'd prefer to have a way of doing it all in one sitting, and I seem to remember there being a way of bundling all the installers. I was able to find two, though neither of them (Almeza MultiSet, WPIW) look like what I was thinking of. Can anyone recommend other ways of running a whole set of installers at once? Thanks! (Will add links when I get enough points)

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  • LAMP Stack Versioning -- Is there a website or version tracker source to help suggest the right versions of each part of a platform stack?

    - by Chris Adragna
    Taken singly, it's easy to research versions and compatibility. Version information is readily available on each single part of a platform stack, such as MySQL. You can find out the latest version, stable version, and sometimes even the percentage of people adopting it by version (personally, I like seeing numbers on adoption rates). However, when trying to find the best possible mix of versions, I have a harder time. For example, "if you're using MySQL 5.5, you'll need PHP version XX or higher." It gets even more difficult to mitigate when you throw higher level platforms into the mix such as Drupal, Joomla, etc. I do consider "wizard" like installers to be beneficial, such as the Bitnami installers. However, I always wonder if those solutions cater more to the least common denominator -- be all to many -- and as such, I think I'd be better to install things on my own. Such solutions do seem kind of slow to adopt new versions, slower than necessary, I suspect. Is there a website or tool that consolidates versioning data in order to help a webmaster choose which versions to deploy or which upgrades to install, in consideration of all the other parts of the stack?

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  • Using Definition of Done to Drive Agile Maturity

    - by Dylan Smith
    I’ve been an Agile Coach at a lot of different clients over the years, and I want to share an approach I use to help them adopt and mature over time. It’s important to realize that “Agile” is not a black/white yes/no thing. Teams can be varying degrees of agile. I think of this as their agile maturity level. When I coach teams I want them to start out being a little agile, and get more agile as they mature. The approach I teach them is to use the definition of done as a technique to continuously improve their agile maturity over time. We’re probably all familiar with the concept of “Done Done” that represents what *actually* being done a feature means. Not just when a developer says he’s done right after he writes that last line of code that makes the feature kind-of work. Done Done means the coding is done, it’s been tested, installers and deployment packages have been created, user manuals have been updated, architecture docs have been updated, etc. To enable teams to internalize the concept of “Done Done”, they usually get together and come up with their Definition of Done (DoD) that defines all the activities that need to be completed before a feature is considered Done Done. The Done Done technique typically is applied only to features (aka User Stories). What I do is extend this to apply to several concepts such as User Stories, Sprints, Releases (and sometimes Check-Ins). During project kick-off I’ll usually sit down with the team and go through an exercise of creating DoD’s for each of these concepts (Stories/Sprints/Releases). We’ll usually start by just brainstorming a bunch of activities that could end up in these various DoD’s. Here’s some examples: Code Reviews StyleCop FxCop User Manuals Updated Architecture Docs Updated Tested by QA Tested by UAT Installers Created Support Knowledge Base Updated Deployment Instructions (for Ops) written Automated Unit Tests Run Automated Integration Tests Run Then we start by arranging these activities into the place they occur today (e.g. Do you do UAT testing only once per release? every sprint? every feature?). If the team was previously Waterfall most of these activities probably end up in the Release DoD. An extremely mature agile team would probably have most of these activities in the DoD for the User Stories (because an extremely mature agile team will probably do continuous deployment and release every story). So what we need to do as a team, is work to move these activities from their current home (Release DoD) down into the Sprint DoD and eventually into the User Story DoD (and maybe into the lower-level Check-In DoD if we decide to use that). We don’t have to move them all down to User Story immediately, but as a team we figure out what we think we’re capable of moving down to the Sprint cycle, and Story cycle immediately, and that becomes our starting DoD’s. Over time the team makes an effort to continue moving activities down from Release->Sprint->Story as they become more agile and more mature. I try to encourage them to envision a world in which they deploy to production as each User Story is completed. They would need to be updating User Manuals, creating installers, doing UAT testing (typical Release cycle activities) on every single User Story. They may never actually reach that point, but they should envision that, and strive to keep driving the activities down closer to the User Story cycle s they mature. This is a great technique to give a team an easy-to-follow roadmap to mature their agile practices over time. Sure there’s other aspects to maturity outside of this, but it’s a great technique, that’s easy to visualize, to drive agility into the team. Just keep moving those activities (aka “gates”) down the board from Release->Sprint->Story. I’ll try to give an example of what a recent client of mine had for their DoD’s (this is from memory, so probably not 100% accurate): Release Create/Update deployment Instructions For Ops Instructional Videos Updated Run manual regression test suite UAT Testing In this case that meant deploying to an environment shared across the enterprise that mirrored production and asking other business groups to test their own apps to ensure we didn’t break anything outside our system Sprint Deploy to UAT Environment But not necessarily actually request UAT testing occur User Guides updated Sprint Features Video Created In this case we decided to create a video each sprint showing off the progress (video version of Sprint Demo) User Story Manual Test scripts developed and run Tested by BA Deployed in shared QA environment Using automated deployment process Peer Code Review Code Check-In Compiled (warning-free) Passes StyleCop Passes FxCop Create installer packages Run Automated Tests Run Automated Integration Tests PS – One of my clients had a great question when we went through this activity. They said that if a Sprint is by definition done when the end-date rolls around (time-boxed), isn’t a DoD on a sprint meaningless – it’s done on the end-date regardless of whether those other activities are complete or not? My answer is that while that statement is true – the sprint is done regardless when the end date rolls around – if the DoD activities haven’t been completed I would consider the Sprint a failure (similar to not completing what was committed/planned – failure may be too strong a word but you get the idea). In the Retrospective that will become an agenda item to discuss and understand why we weren’t able to complete the activities we agreed would need to be completed each Sprint.

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  • FireLog: proper installation...

    - by kent
    I have installed the firewiresdk26 on my dev mac... and in the Tools/ directory is FireLog. I have run the FireLog 2.0.0.pkg installer on my dev mac, but the payload it deploys is installed in my /System/Library tree, as opposed to my /Developer/SDKs tree. so when I try to include the header iokit/firewire/FireLog.h it does not get found. am I missing something? or doing something wrong? or is this an error in the installer (either FW26 or FireLog installers?) I realize that the FireLog installer is intended to be run on the machine to be debugged remotely and thus it makes sense that the framework is placed in the /System/Library path, however none of the installers gets it into my developer path... I guess I just have to move it over there by hand, but before I do that I wanted to see if I'm just overlooking something silly and need to read the docs with more concentration or something... anyone run into this before? [thx]

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  • Merging 3 apps - 2.msi and 1.exe

    - by Netguy
    EXACT duplicate of Combining three MSI into a single installer Hi Guys , I am having 3 files - Alky for Applications.msi ( which make Vista Apps work on XP) 2. Windows VIsta sidebar.exe ( Which make that VIsta sidebar work on XP) *3.Gadget Extractor.ms*i ( A part of number 2) Now , the problem is that all the 3 applications are installers and I want to merge them to 1 installer . So please tell me what should I do and I also want to remove some content( normal files) from 2. Note: I do NOT want to bind the files , so that 3 installers start at the same time. I want to make them into one The Person who is able to help me gets a VPS with cPanel with RL/TF allowed :D

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  • How to detect VC++ 2008 redistributable?

    - by RobH
    Is there a Registry setting that I can look for to determine whether or not the Visual C++ redistributable is installed, whether standalone or as part of Visual Studio 2008? I know that I could launch the VC++ 2008 redistributable installer and let it handle the detection, but it would look cleaner if I can check for it and not bother launching the installer if the redistributable is already on the system. It's no biggie if there is no setting to search for, as this is just for the preliminary installers that we have for the new version of our software. We won't need it for the new Windows Installer-based installers that we are working on that will replace the old tech ones and will use the merge modules.

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  • Tips on how to deploy C++ code to work every where

    - by User1
    I'm not talking about making portable code. This is more a question of distribution. I have a medium-sized project. It has several dependencies on common libraries (eg openssl, zlib, etc). It compiles fine on my machine and now it's time to give it to the world. Essentially build engineering at its finest. I want to make installers for Windows, Linux, MacOSX, etc. I want to make a downloadable tar ball that will make the code work with a ./configure and a make (probably via autoconf). It would be icing on the cake to have a make option that would build the installers..maybe even cross-compile so a Windows installer could be built in Linux. What is the best strategy? Where can I expect to spend the most time? Should the prime focus be autoconf or are there other tools that can help?

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  • Combining 2xMSI and 1xEXE into a single installer

    - by Netguy
    Hi Guys , I have 3 files - Alky for Applications.msi ( which make Vista Apps work on XP) Windows Vista sidebar.exe ( Which make that VIsta sidebar work on XP) Gadget Extractor.msi (A part of number 2) Now, the problem is that all the 3 applications are installers and I want to merge them to 1 installer. So please tell me what should I do and I also want to remove some content (normal files) from 2. Note: I do NOT want to bind the files, so that 3 installers start at the same time. I want to make them into one The Person who is able to help me gets a VPS with cPanel with RL/TF allowed :D

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  • Packaging multiple rpms in one file

    - by Rajorshi
    Hi, Is it possible to paqckage multiple rpms into one file. I have got two bundles one of which requires that the other be installed. I would like to create a single installable out of them in such a way that this installer will first invoke pkg 1 and then install pkg 2. Is this possible? What about deb packages? Sorry if it a basic question. I have not worked with installers on Linux before. I have created Windows installers. There you can create two merge modules (.msm) and package them into a standalone installer (.msi) and specify the order of execution. I am looking for similar functionality on Linux.

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  • How I install drRacket?

    - by aseed
    i install drRacket in ubuntu. downloaded the source file from http://pre.racket-lang.org/installers/ and typed sudo ./racket-5.2.1-bin-i386-linux-ubuntu-karmic.sh after making it exe file so the file is in the usr/racket/bin/drracket and i want to run it from command line without going to its directory i cant make the drracket to run the .rkt files by the "open with" how can i make this two things ???

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  • IPS Package Groups

    - by Alan_Solaris_RE
    IPS group packages consist solely of dependencies on other packages that make up a logical grouping of software. These are similar to, but not the equivalent of, Solaris 10 metaclusters. The main difference is that metaclusters are nested subsets ranging from a minimal install to nearly all packages on the media. Group packages have no such hierarchy. They can overlap other groups, or be completely disjoint sets. A group dependency is set this way in an IPS package manifest file: depend fmri=full/pkg/name type=group Current Solaris Groups Solaris currently has 4 system groups defined. These are used for different types of installation, and are included in the xml manifest files used by the various Solaris installers: Package Name Summary Description Default Installation For:  group/system/solaris-desktop Oracle Solaris Desktop Provides an Oracle Solaris desktop environment Live Media  group/system/solaris-large-server Oracle Solaris Large Server Provides an Oracle Solaris large server environment Text Installer  group/system/solaris-small-server Oracle Solaris Small Server Provides a useful command-line Oracle Solaris environment  Zones  group/system/solaris-auto-install  Oracle Solaris Automated Installer Client  Provides an Oracle Solaris Automated Installer client  Automated Installer There are also several "feature" groups such as AMP and GNU Developer Tools. These are provided for convenience, but are not used directly by any installers. Retrieving Group Package Information A listing of all current groups can be found with the command: pkg info -r group/* A listing of all the packages in a group can be obtained with: pkg contents -o fmri -H -rt depend -a type=group groupname An example: $ pkg contents -o fmri -H -rt depend -a type=group solaris-desktop archiver/gnu-tar audio/audio-utilities codec/flac codec/libtheora codec/ogg-vorbis codec/speex communication/im/pidgin etc. You can determine which package group is currently installed on your system: $ pkg list group/system/\* Output would look like: NAME (PUBLISHER) VERSION IFO group/system/solaris-desktop 0.5.11-0.175.0.0.0.0.0 i-- Note that there are not version numbers associated with a group package dependency. The package version that best fits the system will be used, based on other dependencies such as what is listed in incorporation files. Installing a Group To Install a group, simple use the group package name as you would any other package: $ pkg install solaris-small-server  If you want to exclude a package from installing, you can use the --reject flag: $ pkg install --reject audio/audio-utilities solaris-desktop Creating Your Own Group To create your own group package, you can follow the pkg(5) documentation on how to create a package, and use this action for each package that is part of your group:   depend fmri=full/pkg/name type=group

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  • Installing FIREFOX with extensions/addons manually? (not really auto install)

    - by BrownChiLD
    I've been reading around with regards to creating firefox installers, bundling it w/ addons, using scripts, and CLI lines and a whole bunch of stuffs ... but it seems that going through this route is just too complicated and time consuming.. Since i don't mind a bit of manually copying files and stuff, I was planning to do the following: on my test machine, 1) install firefox on a machine AND configure it the way i want it 2) install addons AND set the configurations for it 3) set advanced configurations for firefox (about:config) Then once i'm all set, I just simply copy the contents of the firefox/profiles folder (for this particular tests it's ....\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\6m0mef0s.default for deployment, all i have to do is: 1) Install the same version (offline installer) of the Firefox i used.. 2) overwrite the contents of the new profiles folder (randomly named by Firefox installer as usual) .. This should set all my configs and addons right? or what other folders do i have to backup and copy manually into the new profiles folder? I don't think i need to tinker w/ any registries right? anyway, if this works, though it's a bit manual, it's a whole lot simplier, and straight forward than fiddling w/ Installers and Packages etc.. PS I do this a lot w/ other simple (and some complex) software that i use and they seem to work fine for years.. i'm just not sure with firefox and how it's structured..

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  • LAMP Stack Version Help -- Is there a website or version tracker source to help suggest the right versions of each part of a platform stack?

    - by Chris Adragna
    Taken singly, it's easy to research versions and compatibility. Version information is readily available on each single part of a platform stack, such as MySQL. You can find out the latest version, stable version, and sometimes even the percentage of people adopting it by version (personally, I like seeing numbers on adoption rates). However, when trying to find the best possible mix of versions, I have a harder time. For example, "if you're using MySQL 5.5, you'll need PHP version XX or higher." It gets even more difficult to mitigate when you throw higher level platforms into the mix such as Drupal, Joomla, etc. I do consider "wizard" like installers to be beneficial, such as the Bitnami installers. However, I always wonder if those solutions cater more to the least common denominator -- be all to many -- and as such, I think I'd be better to install things on my own. Such solutions do seem kind of slow to adopt new versions, slower than necessary, I suspect. Is there a website or tool that consolidates versioning data in order to help a webmaster choose which versions to deploy or which upgrades to install, in consideration of all the other parts of the stack?

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  • 8 Reasons Why Even Microsoft Agrees the Windows Desktop is a Nightmare

    - by Chris Hoffman
    Let’s be honest: The Windows desktop is a mess. Sure, it’s extremely powerful and has a huge software library, but it’s not a good experience for average people. It’s not even a good experience for geeks, although we tolerate it. Even Microsoft agrees about this. Microsoft’s Surface tablets with Windows RT don’t support any third-party desktop apps. They consider this a feature — users can’t install malware and other desktop junk, so the system will always be speedy and secure. Malware is Still Common Malware may not affect geeks, but it certainly continues to affect average people. Securing Windows, keeping it secure, and avoiding unsafe programs is a complex process. There are over 50 different file extensions that can contain harmful code to keep track of. It’s easy to have theoretical discussions about how malware could infect Mac computers, Android devices, and other systems. But Mac malware is extremely rare, and has  generally been caused by problem with the terrible Java plug-in. Macs are configured to only run executables from identified developers by default, whereas Windows will run everything. Android malware is talked about a lot, but Android malware is rare in the real world and is generally confined to users who disable security protections and install pirated apps. Google has also taken action, rolling out built-in antivirus-like app checking to all Android devices, even old ones running Android 2.3, via Play Services. Whatever the reason, Windows malware is still common while malware for other systems isn’t. We all know it — anyone who does tech support for average users has dealt with infected Windows computers. Even users who can avoid malware are stuck dealing with complex and nagging antivirus programs, especially since it’s now so difficult to trust Microsoft’s antivirus products. Manufacturer-Installed Bloatware is Terrible Sit down with a new Mac, Chromebook, iPad, Android tablet, Linux laptop, or even a Surface running Windows RT and you can enjoy using your new device. The system is a clean slate for you to start exploring and installing your new software. Sit down with a new Windows PC and the system is a mess. Rather than be delighted, you’re stuck reinstalling Windows and then installing the necessary drivers or you’re forced to start uninstalling useless bloatware programs one-by-one, trying to figure out which ones are actually useful. After uninstalling the useless programs, you may end up with a system tray full of icons for ten different hardware utilities anyway. The first experience of using a new Windows PC is frustration, not delight. Yes, bloatware is still a problem on Windows 8 PCs. Manufacturers can customize the Refresh image, preventing bloatware rom easily being removed. Finding a Desktop Program is Dangerous Want to install a Windows desktop program? Well, you’ll have to head to your web browser and start searching. It’s up to you, the user, to know which programs are safe and which are dangerous. Even if you find a website for a reputable program, the advertisements on that page will often try to trick you into downloading fake installers full of adware. While it’s great to have the ability to leave the app store and get software that the platform’s owner hasn’t approved — as on Android — this is no excuse for not providing a good, secure software installation experience for typical users installing typical programs. Even Reputable Desktop Programs Try to Install Junk Even if you do find an entirely reputable program, you’ll have to keep your eyes open while installing it. It will likely try to install adware, add browse toolbars, change your default search engine, or change your web browser’s home page. Even Microsoft’s own programs do this — when you install Skype for Windows desktop, it will attempt to modify your browser settings t ouse Bing, even if you’re specially chosen another search engine and home page. With Microsoft setting such an example, it’s no surprise so many other software developers have followed suit. Geeks know how to avoid this stuff, but there’s a reason program installers continue to do this. It works and tricks many users, who end up with junk installed and settings changed. The Update Process is Confusing On iOS, Android, and Windows RT, software updates come from a single place — the app store. On Linux, software updates come from the package manager. On Mac OS X, typical users’ software updates likely come from the Mac App Store. On the Windows desktop, software updates come from… well, every program has to create its own update mechanism. Users have to keep track of all these updaters and make sure their software is up-to-date. Most programs now have their act together and automatically update by default, but users who have old versions of Flash and Adobe Reader installed are vulnerable until they realize their software isn’t automatically updating. Even if every program updates properly, the sheer mess of updaters is clunky, slow, and confusing in comparison to a centralized update process. Browser Plugins Open Security Holes It’s no surprise that other modern platforms like iOS, Android, Chrome OS, Windows RT, and Windows Phone don’t allow traditional browser plugins, or only allow Flash and build it into the system. Browser plugins provide a wealth of different ways for malicious web pages to exploit the browser and open the system to attack. Browser plugins are one of the most popular attack vectors because of how many users have out-of-date plugins and how many plugins, especially Java, seem to be designed without taking security seriously. Oracle’s Java plugin even tries to install the terrible Ask toolbar when installing security updates. That’s right — the security update process is also used to cram additional adware into users’ machines so unscrupulous companies like Oracle can make a quick buck. It’s no wonder that most Windows PCs have an out-of-date, vulnerable version of Java installed. Battery Life is Terrible Windows PCs have bad battery life compared to Macs, IOS devices, and Android tablets, all of which Windows now competes with. Even Microsoft’s own Surface Pro 2 has bad battery life. Apple’s 11-inch MacBook Air, which has very similar hardware to the Surface Pro 2, offers double its battery life when web browsing. Microsoft has been fond of blaming third-party hardware manufacturers for their poorly optimized drivers in the past, but there’s no longer any room to hide. The problem is clearly Windows. Why is this? No one really knows for sure. Perhaps Microsoft has kept on piling Windows component on top of Windows component and many older Windows components were never properly optimized. Windows Users Become Stuck on Old Windows Versions Apple’s new OS X 10.9 Mavericks upgrade is completely free to all Mac users and supports Macs going back to 2007. Apple has also announced their intention that all new releases of Mac OS X will be free. In 2007, Microsoft had just shipped Windows Vista. Macs from the Windows Vista era are being upgraded to the latest version of the Mac operating system for free, while Windows PCs from the same era are probably still using Windows Vista. There’s no easy upgrade path for these people. They’re stuck using Windows Vista and maybe even the outdated Internet Explorer 9 if they haven’t installed a third-party web browser. Microsoft’s upgrade path is for these people to pay $120 for a full copy of Windows 8.1 and go through a complicated process that’s actaully a clean install. Even users of Windows 8 devices will probably have to pay money to upgrade to Windows 9, while updates for other operating systems are completely free. If you’re a PC geek, a PC gamer, or someone who just requires specialized software that only runs on Windows, you probably use the Windows desktop and don’t want to switch. That’s fine, but it doesn’t mean the Windows desktop is actually a good experience. Much of the burden falls on average users, who have to struggle with malware, bloatware, adware bundled in installers, complex software installation processes, and out-of-date software. In return, all they get is the ability to use a web browser and some basic Office apps that they could use on almost any other platform without all the hassle. Microsoft would agree with this, touting Windows RT and their new “Windows 8-style” app platform as the solution. Why else would Microsoft, a “devices and services” company, position the Surface — a device without traditional Windows desktop programs — as their mass-market device recommended for average people? This isn’t necessarily an endorsement of Windows RT. If you’re tech support for your family members and it comes time for them to upgrade, you may want to get them off the Windows desktop and tell them to get a Mac or something else that’s simple. Better yet, if they get a Mac, you can tell them to visit the Apple Store for help instead of calling you. That’s another thing Windows PCs don’t offer — good manufacturer support. Image Credit: Blanca Stella Mejia on Flickr, Collin Andserson on Flickr, Luca Conti on Flickr     

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  • New Release Overview Part 2

    - by brian.harrison
    To continue our discussion of the next release of WCI, lets take a look at a few other new features that have been developed and tested. Password Management With customer implementations starting to go more external, we were finding that these customers wanted to use the native users within the portal because the customer did not want to provide an LDAP server that is externally facing. However, the portal does not provide anything close to the same level of password policy that a standard LDAP environment would provide. With that being the case, we made the decision to provide the same kind of password policies directly within WCI that a standard LDAP environment would have. Password Expiration - In how many days will a password expire which will force the user to change their password? Also, in how many days prior to expiration with the user be notified that their password is about the expire? Password Rotation - How many of your previous passwords will you not be able to use when changing your password? Password Policies - What are the requirements for the password that is being created by the user? Number of Characters Numbers Required Symbols Required Capitalization Required Easily Configurable - Configuration is handled through the Portal Settings utility within Administration. All options are available on the main page of the utility. In addition to the configuration options that were mention above, there has also been a complete rewrite of the Change Password screen to provide better information to the user when they are changing their password. The Change Password will now provide a red light/green light listing of all the policies the user must meet for the changed password to be successful. As the user is typing the password, the red lights will change to green lights as the policies as met. In addition, text will show next to the password text box stating what policy has not been met yet. NOTE: The password policy functionality is not held within the User Editor page within Administration. We did not want to remove the option for Administrators to change a user's password on the fly in the case of a password reset situation. Miscellaneous Features In addition to the Password Management feature, there are a few other features that are related to WCI that should be mentioned. Consolidated Installer - Instead of having up to 12 or 13 different installers, one for each of the main products and separate services, we are going to only provide two installers. One that will be used for Collaboration and its respective images. The second will contain WCI and all of the relevant services required for a WCI architecture as well as the IDK, .NET App Accelerator, SharePoint Console as well as all Content Web Services and Identity Services. Updated Documentation - Most of us are aware that the documentation hasn't been properly kept up to date with the last couple of releases. We are doing everything that we can to remedy this with the next release by consolidating and reviewing everything that is available. We are making sure to fill in the gaps that are already there, add in all documentation for the functionality as well as clearing anything that is no longer valid based on the newly released version. I hope that you enjoyed reading through this new release information. Next time we will start to talk about the new functionality that will be available within the next release of Collaboration. If there is anything in particular that you would like to get more detail about, then please don't hesitate to send me a comment.

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  • ASP MVC.Net 3 RC2 bug ?

    - by Jarek Waliszko
    Hello, so far I've been using ASP.Net 3 BETA. Everything was working fine till the update to RC2 version. Of course I've read ScottGu's article about RC2. My problem is following. Basically I have 2 controllers: public class DynamicPageController : Controller { public ActionResult Redirect(string resource, int? pageNumber, int? id) { } } public class SystemController : Controller { public ActionResult Index() { } } In the Globals.asax I have routes like this: public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes) { routes.MapRoute( "SystemRoute", "System/{action}", new { controller = "System", action = "Index" } ); routes.MapRoute( "PageRoute", "{resource}/{id}/{pageNumber}", new { controller = "DynamicPage", action = "Redirect", resource = UrlParameter.Optional, pageNumber = UrlParameter.Optional, id = UrlParameter.Optional } ); } In the code, I have simple link creation: System.Web.Mvc.UrlHelper u = new System.Web.Mvc.UrlHelper(context); string url = u.Action("Index", "System"); and the url is "/my_app/System" in both versions (BETA and RC2) But the code below (the syntax is the same as above, only controller and action names are different): string url = u.Action("Redirect", "DynamicPage", new RouteValueDictionary(new { resource = "Home" })); gives url which is null in RC2. It should be (and in fact in BETA was) "/my_app/Home" Why ? Is it a bug ? How can I create url for my "DynamicPage" controller ? Regards BTW: From where can I now download ASP.Mvc BETA version along with ASP.Net Web Pages 1.0 installers ? Since RC2 announcement I have problems finding mentioned 2 installers. Normally I would upgrade my code but this issue described above makes me stay with BETA for a while, since I have no time for migration and testing everything now.

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