When Software Attacks!

Miracast with Surface Pro, Windows 8.1 release and Netgear Push2TV

One of the most useful features of Windows 8.1 for me is the native support for Miracast (which is compatible with Intel Widi) for connecting to a wireless projector or display. Being able to wander around with my tablet whilst speaking is really handy. Sadly, whilst this worked for a little while during the preview, everything stopped with no reason. Searching the internet hive mind suggested that a Windows Defender update during the preview release had borked it, but nobody could confirm.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Take care installing firmware updates on your Surface Pro if it’s bitlocker encrypted

A quick tip, this one. I downloaded the latest firmware update to my Surface Pro this evening. It rebooted and promptly requested my bitlocker unlock code. I don’t keep those to hand – they’re stored in our Active Directory. Fortunately I had another laptop with DirectAccess so I could find the key. Be ready with your recovery key if you too have enabled bitlocker and perform firmware updates.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Sunday, October 6, 2013

Being allowed out in public: Forthcoming events

It’s autumn again, and that means event season is upon us once more. In the next few months I’m getting around a bit, so this post is a plug for the events I’m either attending or speaking at. October 1st is VMUG Leeds. I’m registered to attend, but chances are I’ll be spending much of the day helping the Microsoft guys run their hand-on lab. The agenda has some great-sounding sessions and I believe there are still spaces so why not register and come along.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Sunday, September 29, 2013

Building environments for Lab Manager: Why bare metal scripting fails

In the world of DevOps it’s all about the scripts: I’ve seen some great work done by some clever people to create complex environments with multiple VMs all from scratch using PowerShell. That’s great, but unfortunately in the world of Lab Manager it just doesn’t work well at all. We’ve begun the pretty mammoth task of generating a new suite of VMs for our Lab Manager deployment to allow the developers and testers to create multi-machine environments.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Sunday, September 29, 2013

Links from presentation on Server 2012 R2

Thanks to all who attended the ReBuild and TechEd revisited event today. I promised that I would post the links from the final slide to this blog so you can all start evaluating Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2. Download and evaluate the Preview software http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/evaluate/trial-software.aspx Refer to additional Windows Server 2012 R2 resources http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/windows-server/windows-server-2012-r2.aspx Windows Server 2012 R2 on TechNet http://www.Microsoft.com/technet Refer to additional System Center 2012 R2 resources

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Wednesday, September 25, 2013

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Rik is a recipient of the Microsoft MVP Award and a Microsoft Regional Director. He is an organiser of the DDD and DDD North UK community events and a member of the admin team for the Global Azure worldwide community event.

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