Category: microsoft

Microsoft Edge Developer Preview

I have been using Microsoft Edge Developer for a short time now. The day they released it they sent me an email asking to try it out. So far so good. Far and away better than Edge. In fact, it looks and acts just like Chrome. Obviously, it is based on chromium but wow is it similar!

You can sign into the browser with your Microsoft account for sync purposes. I have only signed in and have not tested the syncing. When I first opened Edge it did ask to import my info from Chromium. Everything ported over which I honestly didn’t want. It’s good to keep some things separate for testing purposes.

Right now with out any extensions it feels faster than Chrome. That will be nice when it comes time to support the new Edge. I don’t have any plans to switch away from Chrome but am excited that others, who “click on the big blue E” will have better experiences.

Mapping NFS Drive on Windows 2008R2

I have had some trouble mapping an NFS Drive on Windows 2008R2.  It appears my issues relate to simple syntax.  I was using Amazon Workspaces and that runs on Windows 2008R2 Datacenter.  My NFS drive is running on on EC2 in Ubuntu on the same VPC.  I chose NFS over Samba hoping that it will make file transfers a bit quicker.

The command I used to map was \\localip\shared-folder E:

Where E: is the drive letter.  This is how it would look: mount \\172.16.1.1\shared Z:

The other stumbling block I had was not seeing the drive in Windows Explorer.  By not seeing the drive in there I had a program that also couldn’t see the drive.  The answer to this situation was to run the mount command with a regular command prompt and not an elevated command prompt.

Live and Learn.

Why is it so hard for Microsoft to tell me what licenses I need in order to use Azure?

Why is it so hard for Microsoft to tell me what licenses I need in order to use Azure?  I’ve been looking for an this answer for 2 hours online and I can’t seem to get a black and white answer.  I called Microsoft but they said I called the on-premise licensing department and then they transferred me to Azure.  From there the lady said everyone was on the phone and she would send me an email to “get the dialog started.”

This is what I want to know:  I want to have 5 simultaneous remote desktop sessions on windows azure.  Each session requires the use of Office (word and excel).  What licenses do I need?

Is this really that difficult?  I don’t even understand this software assurance stuff.  Not only that I see a varying degree of costs for what looks like the exact same licenses.

What I really think is that Microsoft likes to keep things complicated in order for companies to buy licensing that they really don’t need.  I’m not saying they are the only ones who do this but why complicate matters?  The perfect example is Microsoft Office.  “Microsoft Office is not licensed to work in a virtual machine.”  Got that?  I hope so because one needs to use volume licensing to use Microsoft office in a virtual machine or something like that.   Again, I think this is crazy.

 

Updated on 8/25  I got my email response back about licensing!  Want to hear how clear it is?

 

Every Azure VM created will come with two simultaneous session access. If you need more, you will have to purchase an RDSH license from a Microsoft reseller. Any application you use on the VM, the appropriate license should be obtained.

I am so happy that I STILL don’t have an answer!!!!