Windows 10 Technical Preview – Step-By-Step Install

This blog post will give you a step-by-step look into the installation of Windows 10. This installation I have used the Windows 10 Technical Preview release. At the time of this blog post, v10049 is the latest build version available.

Step 1 – Select Language and other preferences.

Step 2 – Accept license terms

Step 3 – Select installation type

From the screen above, I selected Custom: Install Windows only (advanced) option.

Step 4 – Select where to install Windows

Step 5 – Windows now starts installation

Step 6 – Customise settings

From the screenshot above, I simply selected Use express settings

Step 7 – Windows checks connections and other settings

Step 8 – Setup the first logon account

Step 9 – Setup the first logon account

From the screenshot above I decided I didn’t want to use my Microsoft Account (formally known as a Windows Live account) . Therefore I clicked Sign up (don’t worry about signing up, I have a process to pass the sign up stage on the next screen).

Step 10 – Create a Microsoft account

From the screenshot above, I didn’t create a new account, therefore you can click the text at the bottom Connect my account later.

Step 11 – Create an account for this PC

Since I didn’t use a Microsoft Account, I will need to create a local account on the Windows 10 installation. I filled in the required details on the screenshot above and clicked Next.

Step 11 – Windows is completing the install ..

From the screenshot above, windows installation is underway.

Step 12 – Windows install is completed!

Finished! – That was easy right?

More about Windows 10 can be found here:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-nz/windows-10/about?ocid=WIN10_0_WOL_Hero_Home_Windows-10_Null_01

Greg Olsen
YellowDuckGuy

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM – Create an OpenSSL Self-signed SSL Certificate for your CRM 2013 Dev Environment

The first step in configuring a CRM 2013 environment to be enabled for claims-based authentication and Internet Facing Deployment (IFD) is to have a SSL Certificate available for setup. This blog post will simply outline how to quickly generate and use an OpenSSL certificate to be used with your setup of CRM for claims-based authentication and Internet Facing Deployment.

Before I move on, I do want to emphasize that you should purchase a secure SSL certificate for production environments. I would recommend purchasing them from sites such as godaddy.com, entrust.net, verisign.com, thawte.com etc

 

What is a SSL Certificate?

 

Firstly, the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol ensures secure transactions between web servers and browsers i.e. traffic between you sitting at your PC and the server your interacting with.

Secondly, the protocol uses a third party, a Certificate Authority (CA), to identify one end or both ends of the transactions. SSL certificates are files that connect the security key to an organisation’s details. When the SSL certificate is installed on a web server, it activates the little padlock symbol and the https protocol (which is over port 443) and allows secure connections from a web server to your browser.

 

Creating a OpenSSL Self-Signed SSL Certificate?

 

When you start out with SSL certificates you probably quietly say to yourself “how the hell do I create a local one and not buy one?”. Keep reading as I have an answer for you. But remember, you need to buy one for production environments!

Let’s head to Open SSL website first and get the file(s) you need. To read about OpenSSL, go to http://slproweb.com/products/Win32OpenSSL.html

 

Install the software to create the OpenSSL Certificates:

 

• For all downloads, see: http://slproweb.com/products/Win32OpenSSL.html
• For x86 or 32bit machines, download: Win32 OpenSSL v1.0.1e Light
• For x64 or 64bit machines, download: Win64 OpenSSL v1.0.1e Light

Note:

make sure you install the dll’s in the bin directory when it asks you to in the installer. I found this to be easier.

 

Create the OpenSSL Certificate

 

You will create the OpenSSL Cerificate by using the Command Prompt – yea sorry, no UI in these instructions.

Open a Run Command Prompt with administrator priviledges and then execute the following commands one at a time. Note: change C:\OpenSSL-Win32\bin\ below to match your location of your installation and remember to change Win32 to Win64 if your using the 64bit installation. Also, change itsgrego to a name for your SSL Certificate.

During the process, you will be asked to input a certificate password and a few other organisation details. Don’t worry if you get it wrong on the first occasion as you can do the process again.

set RANDFILE=C:\OpenSSL-Win32\bin\.rnd 
openssl genrsa -out privatekey.pem 1024
openssl req -new -x509 -key privatekey.pem -out publickey.cer -days 1825
openssl pkcs12 -export -out itsgrego.pfx -inkey privatekey.pem -in publickey.cer

During the process, you will be asked to input a certificate password and a few other organisation details. Don’t worry if you get it wrong on the first occasion as you can do the process again. I recommend creating a wildcard certificate with a Common Name (CA) of *.yourdomain , example: *.itsgrego.

Once you are successful creating the OpenSSL Certificate, navigate to your installation directly and obtain OpenSSL Certificate, which will have an extension of .pfx. It will be located in a directly similar to C:\OpenSSL-Win32\bin\ or C:\OpenSSL-Win64\bin\ or depending on where you chose to install the OpenSSL software.

Now that you have your OpenSSL Certificate, you can add it to the Personal and Trusted Root Certificate locations to start using it.

Greg Olsen
YellowDuckGuy

Microsoft Convergence 2013–Blog 3–Opening Keynote

Today, Tuesday 19th March 2013, we were greeted with the Opening Keynote. This is the must attend session to kick of Convergence 2013. After taking in a good breakfast at the hotel we all headed over to get our reserved seats at the Keynote – right up the front!

Yep you read it right. 11,500 attendees to Microsoft Convergence 2013. Great turnout Microsoft. Also means 3,000+ partners in attendance.

What I will do for this blog post is post the photos in the order I took them and you can then consume the information from them. A picture is worth a thousand words .. right?

Walking into the Keynote area

Wow! that is a heap of seats. Thanks to those who had to set them all up. You deserve a beer or three.

Keynote Music

The team representing New Zealand start to fill up there reserved seats – that includes me!

Large attendance for Convergence 2013 Keynote

Speaker list for the Keynote, which included the customers sharing their experiences with the Dynamics products.

Officially announced today. Microsoft has acquired social monitoring analytics vendor Netbreeze to integrate with the Dynamics CRM platform. NAV 2013 and GP 2013 will be available in Windows Azure from June 2013.

5 Billion GBs of data is collected in 10 minutes!

Microsoft’s View: Devices and Services

Chobani share their experiences to the attendees

Weightwatchers share their experience to the attendees

Revlon share their experiences with the attendees

Now we start to see the demo information (via photos in this blog post)

Multi-tasking apps in Windows 8. Skype call goes out to Reuben in this demo.

The CRM UI flow process

Yammer integration with CRM. “Liked by Hamish Hill” – nice one!

Taking the power Netbreeze. The new product coming to the CRM platform

Analytics in motion!

Social experience inside Microsoft Dynamics CRM

That concludes blog posting number 3. Hopefully the photos were helpful, especially if you couldn’t make Convergence this year.

Greg Olsen
YellowDuckGuy

Windows Server 2012 – How to Add Desktop Experience Feature

If you are stumbling around trying to find the Desktop Experience Feature within the Server Manager of Windows Server 2012, then look no further!

Desktop Experience enables a few handy tools like:

• Windows Media Player
• Desktop themes
• Video for Windows (AVI support)
• Windows SideShow
• Windows Defender
• Disk Cleanup
• Sync Center
• Sound Recorder
• Character Map
• Snipping Tool

Steps to enable the Desktop Experience on Windows Server 2012 (Note: A restart will be required to complete install):

1. Launch Server Manager
2. Select Add roles and features
3. Within the Add Roles and Features Wizard, select Features from the left hand menu
4. Within the Add Roles and Features Wizard,  expand the option  User Interfaces and Infrastructure (Installed)
5. Select Desktop Experience
6. Click Add Features (on the next dialog window)
7. Click Next
8. Click Install
9. Click Close (When complete) Note: A restart will be required to complete install

Below are the screenshots displayed during this process.

Hope that helps!

Greg Olsen
YellowDuckGuy

Windows Azure – Dev Training 5th-6th Dec 2012

Microsoft hosted two days of Windows Azure Training to allow developers and IT pros to get hands on with the presentations and lab content relating to Windows Azure. I attended the Auckland session and during this blog post I have made the material available for my reference later, so feel free to take a look and explore further.

 

Presentations

• Windows Azure Overview [Day 1 Presentation: .pptx, 17MB]
• Windows Azure Cloud Services [Day 1 Presentation: .pptx, 900kb]
• Windows Azure Data [Day 2 Presentation: .pptx, 3.3MB]
• Service Bus, Identity [Day2 Presentation: .pptx, 7.8MB]

Hands on Labs

To obtain the Hands on Labs, further code examples and presentations, check out the following:

• Windows Azure Training Kit (Windows Azure Training Kit – November 2012) [356.6MB]

Note: If you do not already have a Windows Azure subscription (MSDN subscribers will automatically get one) you will need to create one. A free 90 day trial can be obtained at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/free-trial/

Enjoy!

Greg Olsen
YellowDuckGuy

Microsoft Surface – Surface with Windows 8 Pro

If you are digging around on the internet for specs on the Microsoft Surface with Windows 8 Pro, then look no further. Below is the specifications from Microsoft with a link to download the PDF file.

Note: There is no option for a 3G SIM slot with the Microsoft Surface with Windows 8 Pro. So the best option here is to enable internet tethering with your smartphone and connect the Surface via this option.

 

Download: Microsoft Surface with Windows 8 Pro Specifications [PDF: 193kb]

 

 

Enjoy!

Greg Olsen
YellowDuckGuy

Windows 8 – Fix: Enable Feature .NET 3.5 Error 0x800F0906

Within Windows 8 you can add the following Windows Feature – .NET Framework 3.5 (includes .NET 2.0 and 3.0) as shown below.

To enable this feature simply tick the checkbox and click OK.

When the wizard ran through it’s process I was faced with the following error:

Windows couldn’t complete the requested changes.

Windows couldn’t connect to the Internet to download necessary files. Make sure you are connected to the Internet, and press “Retry” to try again.

Error code: 0x800F0906

Using the wizard I was unable to fix this error. Therefore to fix this issue, follow the steps listed below.

Fix:

1. Open Windows Explorer (Windows + E)
2. Mount the Windows 8 installation ISO you used to install your operating system.  You can do this by right clicking on it and selecting the option Mount. UPDATE: If you have the Windows 8 Installation Disc in your optical drive, then use this instead. However, make sure you change the commands mentioned later to match your optical drive.
3. Use the RUN command in administrator elevated mode. You can do this by navigating to the location c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe and right-clicking on the cmd.exe application and selecting Run as administrator.
4. Once the command windows has loaded, then type the following command (Note: Match the drive letter to your appropriate drive letter for the ISO or DVD):

dism /online /Enable-Feature /FeatureName:NetFX3 /All /Source:E:\Sources\SxS /LimitAccess

Hit enter once you have completed the command.

Below is a screenshot of what this will look like when you hit enter.

Now your Windows Feature of .NET Framework 3.5 (includes .NET 2.0 and 3.0) is enabled.  To verify this, open the Window Features again to see the option is now enabled.

Success! You have the Windows Feature enabled.

Extra Information

This blog post will also support users that wish to install Windows Essentials 2012 because the installer requires the .NET Framework 3.5 (includes .NET 2.0 and 3.0) feature to be enabled. Make sure you carry out the steps mentioned earlier to install Windows Essentials 2012 on Windows 8 operating system. I use Windows Live Writer, which is a part of the Windows Essentials 2012 installer and for me to complete the installation, I had to complete the steps mentioned earlier first before running the installer.

Hope this helps!

Greg Olsen
YellowDuckGuy

Microsoft Windows 8 – Add My Computer to Desktop

Follow the steps below to add the My Computer icon (with it’s functionality) to a Windows 8 desktop.

1. Right-click on the desktop
2. Select Personalize
3. Click on Change Desktop Icons
4. Select Computer under Desktops Icons
5. Click OK to finish. Now you should see the icon on your Windows 8 desktop.

Hope that helps!

Greg Olsen
YellowDuckGuy

Windows 8 – When can I get my copy?

As mentioned earlier on this blog post, Windows 8 has been released to RTM as of 1st August 2012. But you might be asking, when can I get my copy?

Below is a list of the key dates (extracted from here):

• August 15th 2012: Developers will be able to download the final version of Windows 8 via your MSDN subscriptions.
• August 15th 2012: IT professionals testing Windows 8 in organizations will be able to access the final version of Windows 8 through your TechNet subscriptions.
• August 16th 2012: Customers with existing Microsoft Software Assurance for Windows will be able to download Windows 8 Enterprise edition through the Volume License Service Center (VLSC), allowing you to test, pilot and begin adopting Windows 8 Enterprise within your organisation.
• August 16th 2012: Microsoft Partner Network members will have access to Windows 8.
• August 20th 2012: Microsoft Action Pack Providers (MAPS) receive access to Windows 8.
• September 1st 2012: Volume License customers without Software Assurance will be able to purchase Windows 8 through Microsoft Volume License Resellers.

General Availability for Windows 8 will be on October 26^th 2012 either by upgrading for $39.99 or on a new PC or device. And if you buy an eligible Windows 7 PC today, you will be able to purchase an upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for $14.99 (U.S.) through the Windows Upgrade Offer.

Greg Olsen
Yellow Duck Guy

Windows 8 – Released to Manufacturing (RTM)

1st August 2012 – Microsoft has announced that Windows 8 has been Released to Manufacturing (RTM). This basically means the final code for Windows 8 is complete.

Make sure you head to the Windows 8 Blog to read more about this announcement.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/08/01/releasing-windows-8-august-1-2012.aspx

Greg Olsen
Yellow Duck Guy