I see that I’ve used the phrase “open mouth, change feet” a number of times in the life of this blog to describe the continuing ability of Microsoft to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Today I came across yet another example.

I had noticed some reports that people weren’t able to get their navigation software to interface with the GPS sensor built in to some Windows 8 tablets.

Now the thing is that until very recently, PCs did not have GPS hardware built into them. Instead, external devices such as GPS Data Loggers were used to provide GPS data, and interfaced to Windows software applications via Windows COM (communications) ports. In the old days, these were physical RS232 ports. These days, they are “virtual” ports set up over a Bluetooth or USB connection.

In the development of Windows 8, support for a variety of sensors, including GPS, was built into the operating system, and exposed by a new set of APIs. The point being that this means that there is a new set of interfaces for developers to use, and they are different from the traditional COM port interfaces.

So, as you might expect, traditional Windows navigation software, which has been written expecting to find GPS data coming in via traditional COM port interfaces, won’t see the new generation of GPS receivers being built directly into PC hardware running Windows 8.

And so it is. Here for example is the very latest version of Microsoft’s AutoRoute 2013. I downloaded a trial version and installed it on my Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2, which has a Broadcom GNSS Gelocation Sensor in it. As you can see, AutoRoute 2013 expects to find GPS data arriving via a COM port, and complains that it can’t find the GPS receiver:

What I find truly ironic about this is that Microsoft trumpets the fact that AutoRoute 2013 now has support for the Touch features of Windows 8:

However, the AutoRoute team has completely forgotten to use the new interfaces for GPS sensors that may be present in Windows 8 devices. Open mouth, change feet.

A further irony is given by the fact that when this issue was raised in a Microsoft forum, Janet Schneider, a Microsoft employee, blithely writes that

You can use the Location API and a Location Provider Driver to get NMEA strings, instead of using a virtual COM port.

Janet, please tell that to your fellow developers in Microsoft, not us, the poor users of this stuff. The left hand of Microsoft clearly has no clue what the right hand is doing.

Now what would be really useful is for someone in Microsoft to code a software shim that would connect a virtual COM port to a Location Provider Driver. That would enable us to carry on using our legacy Windows navigation software on Windows 8 tablets with GPS receivers. It would even allow the AutoRoute 2013 software to work as advertised.

Addendum: Well, Microsoft hasn’t bothered to write a software shim, or updated their Streets & Trips or AutoRoute software at this time of writing (December 2013), but at least two third parties have developed shims:

• http://www.centrafuse.com/centrafuse-localizer
• http://www.turboirc.com/gps7/

Addendum 25 February 2014: If you’re looking for a map application that has maps held on your Tablet, and which will work directly with the GNSS sensor in the ThinkPad Tablet 2, then the good news is that Nokia has released its HERE Maps App for all Windows 8.1 devices. Even better, it’s free.

Addendum 8 July 2014: Microsoft has announced that AutoRoute, Streets and Trips, and Mappoint will no longer be developed, and will be dropped. I can’t say that I’m surprised, but on the other hand there are many Line of Business applications that have been built on top of MapPoint services, so those will have to be migrated over to Bing, HERE or Google Maps…

Addendum 25 August 2015: And Microsoft drops the ball once more… I’m now seeing reports that Microsoft has changed something in Windows 10 that affects the traditional virtual COM ports. The effect is that Bluetooth GPS loggers no longer connect properly. This means that I can no longer use my Qstarz GPS logger with my Surface 3 to feed GPS data into the Microsoft Maps app. Honestly, I despair at Microsoft sometimes; they are their own worst enemy…

Addendum 30 August 2015: For those of us who are definitely having problems getting the SPP slave port to work, there could be some good news on the horizon…
I’ve just upgraded my Yoga 3 Pro to the latest Insider Preview build (10532), and the SPP problem seems to have been fixed. I’m able to connect my Qstarz GPS logger and get data. This result has been confirmed by another person who had the same problem with the 10240 build of Windows 10.  I hope that this fix will be present in the October update to Windows 10 that will be available to everyone…

Addendum 1 October 2015: Microsoft has issued an update (KB3093266) to Windows 10 that fixes the virtual COM ports issue. Excellent.

I’ve commented a couple of times before on the new licensing models that Microsoft has introduced with Office 2013.

The nub of the situation is that whilst with earlier versions of Office (e.g. Office 2003, Office 2007 and Office 2010) it was possible to transfer your licence from one computer to another; with Office 2013, if you buy a licence for Office 2013 and install it on a computer, that’s it. You can’t transfer it to another computer. So if, for example, after a couple of years, you upgrade your computer to a newer model, you can’t move your Office 2013 licence across. You have to purchase a completely new licence, which is in turn locked to your new computer.

I see that Jevon Fark, in Microsoft’s Office Team, has attempted to clarify the licensing situation. However, he singularly fails to make the proper comparison between the earlier so-called Full Package Product versions of Office 2003, 2007 and 2010 (i.e. Office products that were supplied with actual DVDs) and the current situation with Office 2013, where it is no longer possible to purchase the software. Instead, all you get is a product key, and if you download the software to a computer and activate it using the key – that’s it – it is locked to that particular computer.

So, is Fark’s blog post disingenuous, contemptible, or both?

In my opinion, it’s both.

I will neither purchase Office 2013 licences, nor subscribe (at five times the cost of my current Office licences). Instead I will continue to use my (transferable) Office 2010 licences for the foreseeable future. And if in the future I require to replace my Office 2010 product, then I will seriously consider alternatives before I look again at what Microsoft has to offer.

Update 6 March 2013: Well, it appears as though Microsoft has had second thoughts. Mr. Fark has now posted that it is possible to transfer licences between computers. Good to see that common sense can prevail after all. Thank you to all those who protested that Microsoft were doing the wrong thing with the original licence conditions.

Back in September last year, I wrote about the pricing of Microsoft Office 2013. Unlike Paul Thurott , I failed to see how it was “An Incredible Deal”. For my use, the change to a subscription model would increase my cost of ownership over a 6 year period by almost 5 times.

Subsequent to that, Microsoft announced an offer to buy a copy of Office Home and Student 2010, and get a copy of Office Home and Student 2013 when it became available, for free. Well, I thought, that sounded pretty good. A little further investigation rather took the icing off the cake. The 2010 version of Home and Student’s licensed for use on 3 PCs, while the 2013 version is only licensed for use on one. Nevertheless, I thought that the offer remained sufficiently attractive to warrant investing in a copy of Home and Student 2010. I could install Office 2013 on my tablet, and carry on with 2010 on our other two PCs.

So I   purchased a copy of Office Home and Student 2010 and registered for the offer. And yesterday, I received an email from Microsoft telling me that the new Office was available and that I could redeem my offer.

I clicked on the link in the email and arrived at the Microsoft web page setup for the offer. Clicking on the “Redeem now” button, brought up a page where, amongst other things , I was asked to enter the Product key of my existing version of Office and select the country/region where I would be using the version of Office 2013. Note that I have an English language version of Office 2010, and I would be using Office 2013 here in the Netherlands.

I filled in all the fields, clicked the “Submit” button and promptly got an error 012913 -very helpful, not. Noticing that the web page was set to English (US) , I changed it to English (International), and tried again. Nope, same error.

With a sinking heart l changed the web page to Nederlands and repeated the process yet again. This time I got further – I was asked whether I wanted the subscription version of Office 2013 or the single license version. However, note that I am now looking at a page written in Dutch. The clear implication is that if I download the single license version I will end up with the Dutch version of Office.

Now, this might not be a problem providing I can change the display language and the proofing tools to UK English. This blog post from Julian Parish in the Office team seems to suggest that the language packs are available, but that, as a consumer, I have to buy them. That’s not really what I wanted to hear. It is particularly galling when you realise that the display and help languages of Windows 8 can be changed or added to for free.

One other little thing. Microsoft has also changed the licensing terms of the downloadable software. Unlike earlier versions, it can no longer be uninstalled from one PC and transferred to another. Now, once installed on a PC, that’s it – it can never be transferred. And if your PC breaks, and you get a new motherboard, for example, then tough, Office will stop working, and you will need to buy a new license.

I can’t say that I’m delighted with these changes, but I fear it’s the shape of things to come from Microsoft. Next up, I fear that Windows 9 will switch to a subscription model as well.

Update: Well, I decided that I’d see what would happen if I went one step further on the Dutch web site, and selected the downloadable Office Home and Student version. Thankfully, the next page gave me the opportunity to confirm that my country was the Netherlands, but also gave me the option of choosing English. I rather think that should have been made clearer earlier in the process…

So now I’m in the process of downloading and installing what I hope will be an English language version of Office. Oh gawd, now I’ve got a perky little welcome video playing.

Update 2: I see that Paul Thurrott is still convinced that the subscription model is “an incredible deal”. He writes:

Office 365 Home Premium, at just $99.99 a year, with five easily distributed and changed PC/device installs of Office 2013 Professional, is obviously the way to go for most people.

I’m clearly not most people. It’s way too expensive and a very bad way to go for me. However, I do agree that the fact that Microsoft has apparently removed the right to transfer licenses between machines is a slap in the face from the customer’s point of view.

Update 3: Peter Bright, writing in Ars Technica, calls a spade a spade:

If you buy a perpetual retail license for Office 2013, it will be locked to the computer you first install it on, forever. Buy a new PC and you won’t be allowed to install your existing copy of Office on it, even if you wipe the disk of the old PC. You’ll have to splurge for a new one.

This is a change in policy from Office 2010. Office 2010 permitted a single transition from one PC to a new one. It’s not, however, an entirely new policy: OEM pre-installed versions of Office (and Windows) are similarly tied to their (OEM) hardware and can’t migrate. Adam Turner at The Age first pressed Microsoft for clarification over what its “single PC” constraint actually meant, and noted the newly aligned OEM and retail licenses.

It’s difficult to see the wisdom in this change. It’s not a big change, but it’s not a nice one, either.

Update 6th March 2013: Following protest, it appears as though Microsoft has changed its mind. Excellent news.

I received my Lenovo ThinkPad 2 tablet last Friday. Since then, I’ve been playing around with it to get a feel for the good points and bad points of both the tablet itself, and how the experience of using Windows 8 on a proper tablet might be.

First the hardware.

As I wrote last week, I chose the Lenovo tablet from a shortlist of four. Well, five if you include the outside candidate: the Microsoft Surface Pro tablet. There were a number of reasons as to why I picked out the Lenovo tablet.

• The build quality looked  promising.
• The dimensions were compact, so that the tablet was not unwieldy. It could be comfortably held in one hand.
• The pen could be stored in a silo in the tablet itself’. The three other tablets on my shortlist came with loose pens.
• The particular model of the ThinkPad range that I chose (the 3679-25G) came with a full set of sensors and capabilities: GPS , WiFi, Bluetooth, WWAN and NFC.
• It was a pure “slate” tablet.

A couple of the other models on my shortlist were hybrid convertibles. That is, they looked like notebooks, but the “screen” could be completely detached, and then they acted as a slate tablet. Such hybrids have their advantages – for example, some carry an extra battery in the keyboard section for extra life between charges. But in the end I decided that the form factor was not what I was looking for. I already had a wireless keyboard (a Microsoft Arc) that I could use directly with the tablet when required.

So how is the hardware shaping up? Well, so far, I think it’s shaping up pretty well. The build quality does seem to be very good and the form factor is just right for me. There are trade-offs though. Because of the small form factor, the pen is smaller than I would like. It is a bit fiddly to use for long passages. In fact, while this whole post has been created using a pen, from this point on I’ve changed to using a full-size pen (an ancient Wacom pen that I’ve had for at least 10 years). The supplied pen will still be fine for quick notes, and for on the road use; but for extended writing, the full-size pen is much more comfortable.

One thing, like all the tablets currently available, it has a smooth glossy screen. This is all very well, but it does mean that the feel of the pen writing on the glass is very slippery – like writing on glass, in fact. I might look out for a screen protector that turns the experience into something that approximates closer into writing on paper.

The display is bright and clear enough for me and with a wide viewing angle. I admit that I haven’t tried to use it outside in the garden in bright sunlight, but that’s partly because we have overcast skies, 20 cms. snow, and -8 degrees Celsius at the moment. There is only so much that I’m prepared to suffer in my testing. The sound quality is also good enough for me. It’s a tablet, for heaven’s sake, not a piece of Hi-Fi equipment.

Battery life is perfectly acceptable. I’m getting a day’s use out of it, and that seems to be improving as the battery beds in.

The cameras front and back seem OK. I have not done any extensive testing on them. I’ve had a couple of Skype sessions with the front camera, and everything seemed perfectly satisfactory to both parties.

Looking at the Lenovo forum devoted to the ThinkPad slates, there are two hardware issues that are being reported. These are:

• The USB port does not seem to be able to power some devices.
• The WiFi sensitivity is reported by some people as being unacceptably poor.

I have not tried a range of USB devices, so I cannot confirm this issue. However, even if my tablet suffers from this issue, I would not consider this a showstopper because of my patterns of usage. But I can well understand that for some people it would be – for example, those who need true portability on the road with no power point in sight and who need to plug in external hard drives into their tablet.

I have not seen any evidence of unacceptable lack of sensitivity in the WiFi of my tablet. It seems perfectly normal to me.

Update: it’s possible that this poor sensitivity is being caused by an assembly issue. A recent posting in that thread suggests that the cable connector of the WiFi antenna is not seating correctly on the WiFi board in the models showing poor sensitivity.

I do have an issue with my WWAN connectivity at the moment. This model has a WWAN modem, and came with a Lenovo SIM card installed. When I start up the Lenovo Mobile Access App, I see the start screen, then briefly a screen with fields for my user details, but immediately this is overlaid with an error screen that claims that I am missing either the WWAN modem or my SIM card.

However, both the WWAN and SIM card are present. In the Windows 8 Network settings there is a Mobile Broadband network shown, with NL KPN showing as the network service provider.

Unfortunately, the fields for the APN, username and password are all blank. I can hear network activity is present, by the interference on the speakers of my desktop PC nearby, so I assume that the WWAN and SIM card are working. The device manager is also claiming that the WWAN modem is working properly.

I rang the helpdesk and unlike many of my experiences, the person I spoke to was very helpful. I sent through the logs of the application via email at his request and a support ticket has been opened.

Today, I noticed a change. The APN and other fields now had values in them.

I assume that they have been put there by a Macheen engineer (the company that provides the mobile access services for Lenovo). However, I still can’t connect. This is probably because the engineer has put in the details for an APN in Germany, while I, and KPN, reside in The Netherlands. I’ve sent another email to the support service, so we’ll see what will happen.

Update: I had an email reply back from Support, which contained another set of APN details. I tried this, and definitely got connected to their mobile access service, but alas, the Lenovo Mobile Services App is still complaining that either the WWAN modem or the SIM card is missing. It’s lying, and I’ve told Support this. We’ll see what they come up with next…

Update 2: While I’m waiting for Lenovo/Macheen Support to get back to me, I thought I’d try a Vodafone pre-paid SIM card in my tablet. Vodafone NL are offering these pre-paid SIM cards for Tablets for free at the moment, so it didn’t cost me anything to try it.

The experience was pretty straightforward. I plugged in the SIM, looked at the Network settings, and it showed a “Locked” indication. Touching that brought up the field to enter the SIM code, which I did, and then it showed a Vodafone NL service connection. Interestingly, it also showed a link to download the Vodafone Windows 8 Mobile Access application. Touching that took me to the application’s entry in the Windows Store, so I installed it.

Now I have a working Broadband connection which I can use while I’m travelling. The Vodafone app is pretty good and straightforward to use. Here’s a screenshot showing the app, with the network settings screen overlaid on the right.

I may just stick with the Vodafone service.

That is all I can think of now. I’ll put my thoughts on the software into another post.

Update 3: Here are the other posts concerning my impressions of the ThinkPad’s software experience.

Thoughts on the Lenovo Thinkpad 2 -Part II

Thoughts on the Lenovo Thinkpad 2 -Part III

Thoughts on the Lenovo ThinkPad 2 – Part IV

Update 4: well, I’ve had my tablet for ten days now, and I thought I’d add a few comments on how the tablet has been behaving during that time.

When I first started it up, there were thirty-four Windows 8 updates that needed to be applied, and these all went without a hitch. Similarly for some Modern UI App updates. On the second day, I installed Office 2010 on the tablet, and that then installed twenty-seven Office 2010 updates. A day later, I had a further ten Windows 8 updates installed automatically. Since that initial flurry of activity, there has been the usual daily update of the Windows Defender signature file. All this has gone faultlessly.

During the ten days of operation, I have had just two occasions where the pen and touch input stopped working, and I needed to restart the tablet. I see that on the Lenovo forum, there are complaints that the tablet does not wake up after going to sleep. However, for me, there has only been one time when I couldn’t bring the tablet out of sleep, and I needed to physically reset the machine by pushing a bent paperclip into the reset hole. Other than that, the machine has behaved faultlessly. I am very pleased with it.

Update 5: 25 February 2013. I’ve just had an email back from Lenovo/Macheen support saying that they’ve fixed my problems with using Lenovo Mobile Access. And indeed they have – it’s now working satisfactorily. Now I just have to decide whether I continue with the Lenovo or the Vodafone service. Ah, decisions, decisions.

Update 6: 11 May 2013. Some people have been reporting issues with the speakers in the ThinkPad Tablet; one of the speakers, usually the one on the right hand side, will start distorting the sound, and playing back at a lower volume. It’s now started happening on my tablet. It’s a hardware issue, so to fix it means returning the tablet for repair under warranty.

Update 7: 26 May 2013. I raised an Electronic Service Call with Lenovo on the 14th. Two days later (Thursday), the tablet was picked up by courier for delivery to a repair centre in Frankfurt. A week later, the tablet was repaired under warranty and returned to me on the Friday. That was a turnaround of four working days (we had a holiday weekend), and within Lenovo’s target of six working days for repairs. I’m pleased with this.