Get Ready for Microsoft Build 2013!

Reblogged from the pluralsight blog:

Microsoft has announced that they will be holding the next Build conference on June 26th-28th in San Francisco's Moscone center.  Sure to be on tap is news on Windows "Blue", the next iteration of Windows 8 as well as Windows Phone 8, Azure, Visual Studio.  While I'm sure it won't be the same without the waterlogged treks across campus, this event looks to be as exciting as the last.

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Where is Yammer for Windows 8?

Yammer is now my favorite iPad app. I use it more than any other app on my iPad. I also use it heavily on my Android phone.  On Windows 7 and Mac OS, I use the browser version (web based app).  But lately, I’ve been spending much of my free time experimenting with Windows 8, but I haven’t made the transition yet to using as my primary OS.  Lately I have been visiting the Cambridge Micro Center to play with an Asus ARM based tablet called the Asus Vivo Tab RT TF600T that is the same size and weight as an iPad, and a heck of a lot lighter than the Surface RT, but since it is not an Intel based device, it won’t run Windows 8 desktop apps other than PowerPoint, Excel, and Microsoft Word which are OEM bundled on the device.  Here is a comparison on Forbes of the Microsoft Surfact RT versus the Asus VivoTab RT.

Yammer, for those who haven’t used it, is a Facebook like community that allows professionals to discuss topics (think Facebook for business).  Its value comes from the groups that you are members of, so by itself it is a dessert. I luckily am members of two awesome groups: SPYam (The SharePoint Yammer Community founded by Joel Oleson) and the Microsoft Northeast SharePoint Community (founded by Chris Bortlik).

So the other day when I was looking for a Windows RT (Windows Store) version of Yammer, I was shocked to find that it doesn’t exist!  Wait, didn’t Microsoft buy Yammer for 1.2 billion dollars just six months ago in June of 2012? Well since I was on Windows 8 running on my MacBook Air 11″ via Parallels 8, I could search for a desktop version of Yammer. Found it, an Adobe Air desktop app that runs on Mac and Windows. So I downloaded it and started using it on my Windows 8 image.

But what happens if I buy that Asus tablet I’ve been eyeing? Guess I’m stuck with the browser version.  But wait, isn’t the value of a tablet to have rich device apps right there with local cache that can access content when you don’t have a WiFi signal? I’m a Microsoft MVP and alumni, so I don’t like criticising Microsoft, but hopefully this is constructive criticism that my former employer will take to light. Build a Window RT app for Yammer now! Don’t wait. Eat your own dogfood. The one thing that Windows 8 sorely lacks today in comparison with Android and iOS is a store full of high quality apps. Please, Microsoft, if you have 1.2 billion dollars to spend on Yammer, just spend a tiny itsy bitsy fraction of that, $120,000 for example can easily launch a first release. That is one percent of one percent.

I used to say that Windows 8 will enter mainstream when Angry Birds makes it into the Windows 8 Store. Now that we have Angry Birds, let’s continue to prove that Windows 8 is the right place to market apps starting with Microsoft acquisitions like Yammer.

Missing Start Menu – Programs Menu quick fix for Windows 8 Developer Preview

One of the things that frustrated me about Windows 8, when I started trying to use it was the lack of the “Start -> Programs” Menu. Every time you get to the desktop and click the Windows Icon in the bottom right it brings you to the tiles screen. After installing Microsoft Office, Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview, and Visual Studio 2010, there were a few tiles, but not all the ones I needed (for example I had no way to launch Visual Studio 2010). Plus there were extra tiles I didn’t need. This is an “alpha” release of Windows, so I don’t expect it to work perfectly, but I wanted to see if I can be functional with the Windows 8 preview and use it for presentations and such. So my first attempt was to add items to the task bar, but that only works if they are on the tile screen, so I got some access. Then I tried adding icons to the desktop, and realized that would be way too time consuming. Finally, I resorted to adding a toolbar to the task bar and it works brilliantly. So here are the steps to get your programs menu back.

Step #1: Right click the task bar and choose “Toolbars” -> “New Toolbar…”

Step #2: Paste in the path “C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs” and then “Select Folder” button.

Alternatively you can also use the parent directory “C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\” if you want your menu to include items at the root of the start menu.

Step #3: now drag it to the left side of the task bar and with a little adjustments (you have to grab the toolbars on the left to readjust them) you can move your “Start Menu” or “Programs” menu to the far left and resize it so it is as small as possible.

Now you will notice a little “>>” button. Use that to bring up your new “Start Menu”

Welcome to Windows 8

I’m very excited about the talk I’m giving at Microsoft Cambridge at the Boston Tech Meetup called “Welcome to Windows 8” on Monday, January 16, 2012, where I’ll be talking about installing the pre-beta developer preview. I’ll also be talking about developing Metro style Windows 8 apps and customizing the developer preview. This is a “preview” release so many things can change. The beta should be released this quarter, so we will learn a ton more when that is released. I will show you a few tricks that will hopefully save you some time if you plan on setting it up as a power user to evaluate Windows 8 for your company or as a development environment if you want to start developing those Windows 8 apps now so you can be in the store first to take advantage of the widespread use and exposure. Or if you simply just want to be ahead of the curve and you don’t want to slog through all the Build Confernece videos.

I’ll be raffling off an Annual Plus subscription to Pluralsight’s 200+ course library worth $499.00 courtacy of Pluralsight. I’ll also be handing out some other goodies. Hope to see you there.

Register today!

What happened to Silverlight?

Now that BUILD2011 is wrapping up, I’m reviewing the talks and watching some of them online via Channel 9.  Unfortunately, I was not able to attend in person.  One big question that has been on my mind, and many other people’s minds too, is what was going to happen to Silverlight.  I have been largely ignoring the rumors that Microsoft was killing Silverlight and it is a dead-end technology, and sat tight waiting in anticipation for the Microsoft BUILD 2011 conference.  So I’m going through the schedule and out of the 236 sessions, not one mentions Silverlight in the title.

At this point, my concern that some of the statements that Silverlight is dead may be true… But on further analysis I find that 15 talks have XAML in their title:

Date	Session Info	Speaker
9/14/2011	Metro style apps using XAML: what you need to know	Joe Stegman
9/14/2011	Metro style apps using XAML: Make your app shine	Marco Matos
9/14/2011	Stand out with styling and animation in your XAML app	John Papa
9/14/2011	Build polished collection and list apps using XAML	Hamid Mahmood
9/15/2011	Make great touch apps using XAML	Alnur Ismail
9/15/2011	Reach all your customer’s devices with one beautiful XAML user interface	Tim Heuer
9/15/2011	Build data-driven collection and list apps using XAML	Laurence Moroney
9/15/2011	A deep dive into Visual Studio 11 Express for designing Metro style apps using XAML	Joanna Mason
9/15/2011	Build accessible Metro style apps using XAML	Alnur Ismail
9/15/2011	Integrating stunning media experiences in XAML	Marco Matos
9/15/2011	The lifetime of XAML text: from input to display through printing	Chipalo Street
9/16/2011	Windows Phone XAML apps	Jesse Liberty
9/16/2011	Tips and tricks for developing Metro style apps using XAML	Tim Heuer
9/16/2011	Unit testing your metro style apps built using XAML	Peter Provost
9/16/2011	Build world-ready Metro style apps using XAML	Tim Heuer

XAML is the foundation of Silverlight and the key to building user interfaces.  Microsoft started working on XAML over a decade ago and first released it to the public as an alpha component of the Longhorn operating system code named Avalon at the 2003 PDC.  In fact Avalon was one of the three cornerstones of the new OS (Avalon = user interface, Indigo = communication, WinFS = file system).  Well, as you may already know, Avalon evolved into XAML and Windows Presentation Framework (WPF).  Later WPF/E (E for Everywhere) evolved into Silverlight.  Indigo became Windows Communication Framework (WCF). And WinFS, the database-like file system, was dropped.  Eventually Longhorn was released after a false start as Vista on the client computers and Windows Server 2008 on the back end.

So for those of you worried about the future of Silverlight and/or WPF, the Metro SDK looks like the evolution of Silverlight.  Metro runs on Windows 8 desktops and laptops plus on the new ARM tablets.  I’m not sure how much of the code will port to Metro, only time will tell, but the skills invested in teams building Silverlight and/or WFP applications will definitely still be required for building in the new Windows interface.

Truth about MinWin

At the heart of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 is something called MinWin.  No, it is not a new operating system.  It is just a layer of dependencies for the tens of millions of lines of code we call Windows (think the network layer stack like OSI).

 

Here is a great article describes it in more detail: The Truth About MinWin

 

MinWin could be just what I’m dreaming of…

Recently I was in the speakers’ room at the MSDN Dev Confernece complaining to my friends who work for Microsoft that the OS is way too bloated.  Windows 7 is an improvement over Vista, but its not enough.  I would like a total rebuild from the ground up with significantly less code.  One rebuttle is that Microsoft’s promise to its customers of backward compatabilitty makes it difficult.  Apple managed to do it with OSX (mind you it took them over a decade after they brough Jobs back and used the NextStep OS base to rebuild Mac OS.)  Anyway….

 

It looks like the answer to my dreams may not be far off.  Check this article out about MinWin.  Windows with "no dependencies, bootable, application-ready, and altogether about 25MB," according to this article on CrunchGear! 

Windows Server 2008 R2 Core

Wow, just finished 2 weeks of conferences, last week was PDC and this week P&P Summit at Microsoft’s Redmond campus building 33.  I have a ton to blog about, now just need the time!

 

One thing I wanted to get out before I forgot, when at the "Ask the Experts" last week at the PDC, I sat down with the Windows Core guys and found out that they are putting portions of the .NET Framework on Windows Server Core 2008 R2.  This has a couple of interesting results.  First of all, we will finally be able to run PowerShell on Core.  This means that if you are running remote PowerShell core programs you can get remote access to a ton more PowerShell objects and not just WMI calls.  Another thing is that IIS and SQL Server and other server products that depend on the .NET Framework could also be potentially hosted on server core.  Windows Server Core 2008 R2 should be released around Windows 7 timeframe. 

 

Learn more at:

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/r2core