Tag: Windows 8

Backing Up Your Data

Here’s a simple question: do you have backups of the data held on your Windows PC or your Mac?

Apparently, the answer from most people (if they’ve ever even thought about the question) is a resounding “no”. That’s the conclusion that Microsoft has reached. In a post on the Building Windows 8 blog, they state:

Our telemetry shows that less than 5% of consumer PCs use Windows Backup and even adding up all the third party tools in use, it is clear nowhere near half of consumer PCs are backed up. This leaves user’s personal data and digital memories quite vulnerable as any accident can lead to data loss.

Windows has had data backup tools included in it for years, but the fact is that very few people actually use them. Microsoft is introducing a totally new backup method in Windows 8 called File History. It comes with a user interface that is designed to be attractive and easy to use.

Now there’s a lot to like about the Windows 8 File History feature, but it focuses on the user’s personal data. It will only backup data held in the user’s Libraries, Desktop, Contacts and Favourites. It will completely ignore applications that have their own databases, e.g. Adobe’s Lightroom. For some time, Microsoft has been telling developers to store application data in locations contained in the C:\ProgramData folder, and now the File History feature will totally ignore such files. Also, user data that is not document-based is supposed to be held in locations contained in the C:\Users\Username\AppData folder. That is also ignored by the File History feature. It turns out that Microsoft’s own Windows 8 Mail App stores mail messages in the AppData folder, so File History will not backup your mail messages. Microsoft seems to be assuming that we store our mail in the Cloud, e.g. in their Hotmail service. I’ve got news for them – we don’t all do this.

I’ve got used to the elegant and simple-to-use client PC Backup function of Windows Home Server (which covers all files and provides a bare-metal restore). Moving to Windows 8 on my current hardware will mean that I will continue to use WHS for backup.

However, because WHS does not support backup/restore of client PCs that use EFI/GPT technology, that will mean that I will have to use a combination of File History and some other method of backing up application data, if I invest in new hardware (a PC or a Tablet). Modern PCs use EFI/GPT.

[Update 4 March 2013: Microsoft has at last issued a Hotfix to add backup support for UEFI-based computers to back up to servers that are running Windows Home Server 2011]

Frankly, that makes it sound a bit of a kludge, instead of the current “set it and forget it” method of WHS.

Peter Bright has a good analysis of the new File History feature, and a comparison with the older methods of data backup in Windows here. I rather like one of the comments on his analysis:

So basically, they killed Windows Home Server but still don’t have an effective product to replace its backup mechanism. Got it.

July 11, 2012
Well, I Told You So…

So Microsoft has effectively killed off their Windows Home Server product.

Being Microsoft, of course, they don’t say this quite as baldly as I just did. Instead, they’ve announced some details of their forthcoming Windows Server 2012 lineup of software, and buried on page 4 of the 6 page FAQ we find this:

Q: Will there be a next version of Windows Home Server?

A: No. Windows Home Server has seen its greatest success in small office/home office (SOHO) environments and among the technology enthusiast community. For this reason, Microsoft is combining the features that were previously only found in Windows Home Server, such as support for DLNA-compliant devices and media streaming, into Windows Server 2012 Essentials and focusing our efforts into making Windows Server 2012 Essentials the ideal first server operating system for both small business and home use—offering an intuitive administration experience, elastic and resilient storage features with Storage Spaces, and robust data protection for the server and client computers.

OK, so they are saying that Windows Server 2012 Essentials is to be “the ideal first server operating system for both small business and home use”. And how much will it cost? Well, it’s $425. And how much does Windows Home Server 2011 cost? Er, $40. There’s no way I can possibly justify shelling out $425 for Microsoft’s proposed successor to WHS 2011.

Now, to be fair, that $425 price is a retail price, while the $40 is an OEM price. There isn’t an OEM price for Windows Server 2012 Essentials, instead, there’s another product in the range that will be available as OEM software, and that’s Windows Server 2012 Foundation. We don’t yet know what the OEM price will be for this software, and while it will be less than $425, I very much doubt that it will be $40 either, probably more in the $100 – $150 range.

But there’s another issue to worry about, will there be things missing from the Foundation version that are present in Essentials? Microsoft says this:

“If you’re a small business with limited in-house skills, Windows Server 2012 Essentials is an appropriate option. It’s simple, affordable, and easy to manage, and has been tailored to address common small business IT scenarios. Windows Server 2012 Essentials is the ideal solution if you plan to expand your business capabilities through the cloud as it is designed to facilitate your connection to online services. On the other hand, if you have some level of in-house IT skills and want the ability to tailor server roles to their unique environments, then Windows Server Foundation is potentially better suited to your business.”

In other words, if you are a home user, then you had better have some degree of IT skills at your fingertips if you want to use Windows Server Foundation, assuming that it does contain all the necessary functionality. It certainly won’t have the easy-to-use Wizards that will be present in the Essentials edition…

The upshot of all this is that Microsoft has essentially dropped the whole concept of a Home Server product, priced for the consumer market. I can’t say that I’m the least little bit surprised, the writing has been on the wall since the early days of the development of WHS 2011.

The first version of Windows Home Server began with a vision and a focus on the home consumer. There was even a set of guiding principles for the design of the storage system for WHS v1 that were predicated on the needs of the home consumer. After the release of that first version of WHS, the team leader (Charlie Kindel) moved on, the WHS team got reorganised, and ended up in the Server group at Microsoft – small fish in a very big pond. In the process of developing WHS 2011, they effectively tore up Kindel’s guiding principles, and the result has been a product that while it bears the word “Home” in its title, is far less focused on the home consumer than the first version. Now that focus has been reduced even further to a blur.

While some people will question the value proposition of a home server in these days of cloud services and online streaming, I firmly believe that it has a place. I have more data than I can affordably hold in the cloud, and living as I do in the countryside, I am at the end of a piece of wet string, so streaming of high-quality content is not an option.

The original concept of WHS, with its easy to manage storage, and single-instance backup of up to 10 client PCs was something that had clear value to me. Microsoft weakened that with WHS 2011, and now they are in effect getting out of the home server market altogether.

The one possible ray of hope is that it may be possible to replicate the functionality of WHS using Windows 8. That is dependent on someone developing an App for Windows 8 that replicates the client PC backup functionality that is present in WHS, while addressing its limitation (it can’t backup PCs that use EFI/GPT technology). There’s a gap in the market opening up – let’s hope someone will fill it…

[Update 4th March 2013: Microsoft has at last issued a Hotfix to add backup support for UEFI-based computers to back up to servers that are running Windows Home Server 2011]

Update 15 July 2012

Being somewhat curious, I downloaded the beta of Windows Server 2012 Essentials and installed it into a virtual machine. I followed the excellent guides provided by Jim McCarthy on how to do this. Here’s his guide on installing Hyper-V (the virtual machine environment) in Windows 8 and here’s his guide on installing the beta of Windows Server 2012 Essentials.

I found that I needed to make a change to my PC to enable the virtualisation mode of the CPU, but once that was done (and the PC rebooted multiple times), the Hyper-V environment was up and running. The installation of the beta of WSE 2012 was very straightforward, and before too long, I saw the server appear on my home network.

I have to say that I think Microsoft is being disingenous when they say that WSE 2012 is suitable for “home use”. From what I saw of the environment, it is clearly aimed at a small business, not the home. For one thing, it provides a full domain controller environment, which is very much overkill for the home.

I confess that I didn’t leave WSE 2012 in place for very long before I deleted it and removed the Hyper-V environment.

For one thing, although it may have been a coincidence, following the installation of WSE 2012 into Hyper-V running on my main Desktop PC, the WHS backup service of that PC stopped running. Looking in the Event Viewer showed .NET runtime errors occurring with the Windows Server Client Computer Backup Provider Service, which manages the backup and restore service for client computers. Since this service was stopped (and couldn’t be restarted without errors), I could not back up or restore data for my Desktop PC.

The other thing that sealed the fate of WSE 2012 for me was the news that a version of MyMovies will not be developed for WSE 2012. Brian Binnerup, the developer of MyMovies, believes (quite rightly, in my view) that the market will be too small to justify development and support of a WSE 2012 version. Since I have the MyMovies server installed on my WHS 2011 system, that rather closes off a possible upgrade path from WHS 2011 to WSE 2012 (quite apart from the cost of WSE 2012, of course). It looks as though a future version of the MyMovies server will only be developed for Windows 8. Update 24 August 2012: I see that Brian Binnerup now seems to have changed his mind about supporting Windows Server Essentials 2012. That’s good to know, but it’s still too expensive for me.

As a result, I have turned my back on Windows Server Essentials 2012. It has been removed from my PC. I’ve reinstalled the WHS 2011 Connector, and now my Desktop PC is once more being backed up on a daily basis to my WHS 2011 server.

July 6, 2012
Some People Just Don’t Grok It

Yesterday, Microsoft revealed that it would be entering the Tablet market with two models of its own. I’ll come back to them later, but first, I must say that I’m struck by the continuing negative press that Windows 8 continues to receive. While it’s by no means perfect, I find the hyperbolical vitriol poured on it by some of the technical press quite astounding, and almost entirely without basis.

Yes, the Metro user interface (UI) is very different from the UI of the traditional Windows Desktop, but I note that the iPad UI is very different from the traditional Mac desktop OS X UI, and yet none of the negative reviewers seem to even give this a second thought. Somehow, they seem to have adapted to being able to use both devices, and praise Apple to the skies.

Apple, when it created iOS, took the view that a touch-oriented direct-manipulation user interface demands entirely different solutions and paradigms than mouse/pointer-driven user interfaces do. Microsoft, on the other hand, recognises the same challenge, yet is attempting to support both within the one operating system: Windows 8. That seems to me to be a far riskier strategy that the play-it-safe one that Apple has followed.

I don’t have either a touchscreen or a touchpad on my PC, yet I’ve not found any problem about continuing to be productive using Windows 8, unlike some technical reviewers. I rather suspect that either they don’t like change, or they don’t like Microsoft.

And now Microsoft has further upped the ante, by announcing two Tablets bearing the Microsoft name, and called Surface. The entry-level Tablet runs Windows RT (the version of Windows 8 designed to run on ARM hardware), while the top-of-the-range model runs Windows 8 Pro and uses Intel’s Ivy Bridge architecture.

The entry-level Tablet is clearly aimed at the iPad market niche, but I’ve never found that market niche particularly interesting. I want something that is more than just a device for consuming content. I want one that has the power of a desktop available. So the more interesting one (to me) is the one running Windows 8 Pro. This comes with a pen, and (excellent) handwriting recognition is part of Windows 8. Coupled with the detachable keyboard, this model of the Surface range looks as though it meets my desire for origami computing.

As well as the Surface tablets, Microsoft also announced two new keyboards (which double as covers for the Surface). The “Touch” model (3mm thick) is shown in the picture above. The “Type” model (5 mm thick) comes with moving keys for a traditional feel.

The specifications of the Surface tablets are still not spelt out in great detail, but the top model seems to have two cameras (one forward-facing and one rear-facing), and a screen resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. The Intel-based Surface has a mini DisplayPort for Video. I wonder whether this could also be a Thunderbolt port for connecting other devices, although I suspect that that will come in a future Surface model in 2013. No word on price, either, so I’ll have to wait to see whether this is a good match with my wishlist. But I have to say, it does look good.

Update: I watched the video of the Microsoft presentation yesterday and picked up on a couple of things.

First, the Windows RT machine being demonstrated by Steven Sinofsky froze up on him during the demo. He had to switch it for another machine. To be fair, demos of unreleased hardware and software are always a highwire act, so it’s hardly surprising he had to rely on the safety net of a second machine.

Second, the words that are spoken during these Microsoft presentations are very carefully chosen. When Sinofsky talked about retail channels, he only talked about Microsoft’s own stores, both physical and online. These are both US-only, which leads me to worry that Surface may only ever be available in the US. It won’t be the first time Microsoft has done this; the Zune and Microsoft Kin products were also US-only. If that does turn out to be the case, then that will be a real disappointment to me.

One other thought, I know that I said that it would be the Windows 8 Pro version of Surface that I would be interested in, because I thought the Windows RT Surface would be too limiting, like the iPad. Someone pointed out that you can still get the full PC experience on a Windows RT device by using the Remote Desktop App, and accessing the full environment of a desktop PC through the Surface tablet. Now that is a very interesting idea, and one that I had not considered. I often use the Remote Desktop App to remotely login to my Windows Home Server from my desktop PC, and the experience is indeed just as though I have my monitor, keyboard and mouse directly connected to the server. However, it would mean that I would have to upgrade my Desktop PC to Windows 8 Pro, so it is not a cost-free route.

So I may have options. Options are good.

June 19, 2012

Windows 8 “Play to” Revisited

Important Update 27 October 2012: The bug I describe below does seem to have been fixed in the final release of Windows 8. I can now use the “Play to” feature with my Denon AVR-3808.

Hoorah!

However, this is just one cheer. The Denon is not a “Windows Certified Play to” device, so the Microsoft-supplied Music Modern UI App does not recognise it as a device that can be used in a “Play to” scenario. While I can use the desktop Windows Media Player to “Play to” my Denon (as I could under Windows 7), the new Music App doesn’t even recognise the Denon as a “Play to” device.

In a post on the Building Windows 8 blog, Microsoft states:

Metro style apps work only with Windows certified Play To receivers [my emphasis]. These devices are validated to support modern media formats, are DLNA standards-compliant, and have great performance (including the updated Xbox 360 available later this year). The desktop experience first introduced in Windows 7 has been added to the Explorer Ribbon and will continue to support all DLNA DMR devices.

So if I get one of the new tablets (e.g. Microsoft Surface) which run Windows RT, I won’t be able to use it to play music to my Denon. Why? Well, Windows RT does not support the desktop Windows Media Player, and Microsoft has just told me that their Metro Media Apps will not support my Denon, even though it is DLNA-certified. Yet another reason not to touch the Microsoft Surface with a bargepole, I think.

It looks as though Microsoft are building proprietary extensions on top of the cross-industry DLNA specifications. I’m not convinced that this is a good thing.

Update 4 February 2013: I see that Paul Thurrott has just written an article on this subject: The Sad Tale of Play To and Windows 8, with much the same conclusions. As I write in the comments here, it’s good to see that Mr. Thurrott is banging the same drum. He is able to make far more noise than I, but I think that Microsoft will remain deaf to the sounds. BTW, it’s worth reading the comment by John Galt after the Thurrott article. He lists a number of shortcomings in the media “features” that Microsoft have implemented in Windows 8, any one of which has me tearing my hair out. One wonders how Microsoft can be so dismal in delivering a product that should delight, not disappoint in so many ways.

Update 31 March 2013: Barb Bowman has found a way to hack the Registry to get Windows 8 to recognize “uncertified” DLNA devices, and to use them within Windows 8 Apps. Like her, I wish that Microsoft would give advanced users the option to add our DLNA devices directly, without the need for these hacks.

Update 21 October 2013: Well, now that the final release of Windows 8.1 is available, the Play to experience seems to be broken again. I applied the registry fix given by Barb Bowman (and which came originally from Microsoft’s Gabe Frost), and that no longer seems to work for me. One step forward, two steps back yet again. Thank you Microsoft.

Update 24 October 2013: I posted the Windows 8.1 issue in a Microsoft forum, and got some useful feedback from Gabe Frost. The issue is not resolved, but at least we now know what’s going on. See https://gcoupe.wordpress.com/2013/10/23/play-to-and-windows-8-1/

Original post

You may recall that I’ve found that the “Play to” feature of Windows 8 is broken. I’ve been poking around trying different scenarios to see what’s going on, and come up with some further information.

The bottom line is, yes, the Windows 8 implementation is broken as far as I’m concerned. However, I fear that Microsoft will simply say that this is not a bug, it’s a feature… What’s the old joke? Ah yes:

Q: How many Microsoft developers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: None. Microsoft simply declares darkness to be the new standard.

This is what I think I have found:

In Windows 7, the “Play to” feature will negotiate with the media renderer device to ensure that the audio format streamed from the server can be handled. If it can’t, it will try and have the server transcode it to a format that can be understood by the renderer.
In Windows 8, the “Play to” feature doesn’t bother to find out whether the device can cope with the streamed format, it just sends it, and the consequences be damned…

Here are the details:

First, let me recapitulate some of the terms and technology specification used by Microsoft in its implementation of “Play to”. These come from the Digital Living Networking Alliance, or DLNA for short. Their specification defines how a variety of different types of digital devices can connect and share information. I’ve summarised the devices used in “Play to” in the following table:

Device Class	What it Does	Examples
Digital Media Server (DMS)	Stores content and makes it available to networked digital media players (DMP) and digital media renderers (DMR).	PCs, Windows Home Server, and network attached storage (NAS) devices
Digital Media Player (DMP)	Finds content on digital media servers (DMS) and provides playback and rendering capabilities.	TVs, stereos and home theaters, wireless monitors and game consoles. Windows Media Player also has a DMP capability
Digital Media Renderer (DMR)	These devices play content received from a digital media controller (DMC), which will find content from a digital media server (DMS).	TVs, audio/video receivers, video displays and remote speakers for music
Digital Media Controller (DMC)	These devices find content on digital media servers (DMS) and play it on digital media renderers (DMR).	Internet tablets, Wi-Fi® enabled digital cameras and the “Play to” function in Windows 7 and Windows 8.

Table 1: Information drawn from the DLNA web site.

Windows 7 and Windows 8 implement a number of these classes as shown here:

Device Class	Windows Implementations
Digital Media Server (DMS)	When media streaming is enabled, Windows acts as a DMS.
Digital Media Player (DMP)	Windows Media Player and Windows Media Center act as a DMP when browsing shared media libraries
Digital Media Renderer (DMR)	Windows Media Player acts as a DMR when configured to allow remote control of the Player.
Digital Media Controller (DMC)	The “Play To” feature from Windows Media Player (and the Windows Explorer in Windows 8) launches a DMC to control the media playback experience

Table 2: Information drawn from the Engineering Windows 7 Blog.

At its simplest, just two devices can be involved: a Server and a Player. These can even be running on the same physical device, as in the case where your Windows Media Player on your Desktop PC is streaming music or video stored on the PC itself. The next step up is where the server and player are on separate physical devices. Two typical scenarios are shown in figure 1:

Figure 1: Typical scenarios of simple case of DMP devices accessing DMS devices.

I’ve used the Denon AVR-3808 as an example, since this is what I have in my home network. My DMS is a headless (no monitor, keyboard or mouse) home-built PC running the Windows Home Server 2011 operating system.

In my particular case, both the two scenarios shown above will work, that is, the DMS that is part of WHS 2011 will stream audio to other PCs in the home network, and to the Denon AVR3808.

Now, this next bit is important, I’ll return to it later: Under the covers, there’s actually some negotiation of streaming formats going on.

This is because I have stored all my music files on the WHS 2011 in Windows Media Audio Lossless (WMAL) format. This presents no problems for the PCs, since the Windows Media Players installed on them can handle WMAL. But while the Denon can handle standard Windows Media Audio, it can’t handle the Lossless variant. So when I use the Denon to browse my music library on the server and select a track to play, the DMS in WHS 2011 sees that the Denon can’t handle WMAL and transcodes the stream into a format that the Denon can handle on the fly – it transcodes it into a PCM stream, which the Denon can deal with.

Now let’s look at scenarios are where there are three devices linked together: a Digital Media Server, a Digital Media Controller, and a Digital Media Renderer.

Figure 2: Typical scenarios of a three device link (DMS-DMC-DMR).

In my case, all flavours of scenario 3 will work. That is, I can stream from my Windows Home Server using the “Play To” feature in either Windows 7 or Windows 8 Release Preview, and push the stream to PCs that are running Windows Media Player in Windows 7 or the Windows 8 Release Preview.

But while scenario 4 (streaming to the Denon) works with the “Play to” of Windows 7, it does not always work with the “Play to” of Windows 8 Release Preview.

The following table shows which formats work and which don’t, when using scenario 4:

Format	Windows 7	Windows 8
MP3	Yes	Yes
Windows Media Audio	Yes	Yes
Windows Media Audio Lossless	Yes	No

Table 3: Audio formats used with “Play to” features in Windows 7 and Windows 8

Now take a look at a table showing which formats are supported by the Denon AVR-3808:

Format	Supported by the Denon
MP3	Yes
Windows Media Audio	Yes
Windows Media Audio Lossless	No
FLAC	Yes

Table 4: Audio formats supported by the Denon AVR-3808

My very strong suspicion, therefore, is that the Windows 8 “Play to” does not negotiate a playable format with the DMR of the the Denon, it simply sends the source format regardless. The Denon’s display panel has indicators (MP3, WMA, PCM) that show the audio formats being received. Let’s take another look at Table 3, but this time, show the state of the Denon indicators:

Format	Windows 7	Windows 8
MP3	MP3	MP3
Windows Media Audio	WMA	WMA
Windows Media Audio (Lossless)	MP3	–

Table 5: Denon front panel indicators state

You can see that, for Windows 7, the WMA Lossless format of the source media has been transcoded into an MP3 stream so that the Denon can deal with it. In scenario 2 (the Denon communicating directly with the Windows Home Server), the PCM indicator lights, showing that the negotiation with WHS 2011 has resulted in an alternative format being used.

If the Windows 8 “Play to” is not carrying out any negotiation, as I think is happening in scenario 4, then of course the Denon will respond with an error – it cannot play native Windows Media Audio Lossless format.

I note that Microsoft states that:

Improved device experience: Metro style apps work only with Windows certified Play To receivers. These devices are validated to support modern media formats, are DLNA standards-compliant, and have great performance (including the updated Xbox 360 available later this year). The desktop experience first introduced in Windows 7 has been added to the Explorer Ribbon and will continue to support all DLNA DMR devices.

Fine words, except that Microsoft are being economical with the truth at the moment. “The desktop experience first introduced in Windows 7” does not “continue to support all DLNA DMR devices”.

It’s broken.

June 16, 2012

What’s Not To Like In Windows 8?
Unlike many people, I don’t consider myself a dyed-in-the-wool hater of Windows 8. In fact, I find much to like in Microsoft’s latest operating system, which will be available this October. Nevertheless, I thought it might be useful to gather together in one place all the bugs, quirks, and the WTFs that I’ve come across in the last few months of kicking the tyres of the pre-release versions of Windows 8.

This post will be updated and/or corrected as I come across new information.

The List
- I really dislike the marketing decision that Microsoft has made concerning Windows Media Center. However, on the upside, it means that I won’t be upgrading my HTPC to Windows 8. It will remain on Windows 7, running Windows Media Center, until something better comes along.
  NOTE: since writing that, Microsoft has announced an upgrade offer of just $40 to upgrade Windows 7 systems to Windows 8 Pro. That sweetens the pill substantially, since the Pro version will include Media Center for free until 31st January 2013.
- Not only is Microsoft’s marketing going to hamper Windows Media Center, but they have also deliberately removed two of its features that are required for use in dedicated HTPC systems.
- Windows 8 takes full advantage of modern PC hardware, such as UEFI for firmware and GPT drives. However, Microsoft’s dirty little secret is that their Windows Home Server 2011 product cannot backup or restore any systemusing UEFI and GPT drives. [Update 4th March 2013: Microsoft has at last issued a Hotfix to add backup support for UEFI-based computers to back up to servers that are running Windows Home Server 2011]
- Your Microsoft Account is tied to a single country/region, and can’t be changed, either by you or Microsoft. Bad news if you move to a different country. Microsoft claims to be working on addressing this, but when we will see results is anyone’s guess (this has been a known issue since at least 2007 – it’s caused by a limitation in the Xbox Live infrastructure).
  Update 17th October 2012 – it looks as though Microsoft are starting to offer Xbox Live customers the ability to migrate their accounts under certain circumstances.
- The Photos App cannot access pictures held on Network Shares. This includes photo libraries held on Windows Home Server systems.
  See Update 1 and Update 2 below.
- The Music App only has four views of your music library: songs, albums, artists and playlists. I miss the sorting by composer that I have in Windows Media Player or Windows Media Center. And where is “Play to” or Podcast support?
- The “Play to” feature that was introduced in Windows 7 is now broken in Windows 8.
  Update: This has been fixed in the final release of Windows 8.
- I consider that the Windows Explorer in Windows 8 is more clumsy than the version in Windows 7. I find it’s a step backwards in usability.
- The Mail App still doesn’t have IMAP or POP support. This is a staggering omission, since these protocols are the foundation on which internet email clients have been based for years.
  See Update 2 below.
- To search within a Metro App, you use Winkey+Q. However, not all Apps support this, including, rather strangely, the Reader App. Here, you have to right-click in the App to reveal the Search button (which then has to be clicked to reveal the Search box where you type your search terms).
- Searches in the Video App will only return results from the Video Marketplace (if your region has a Marketplace). It does not seem to search any of your own content, not even filenames that match the search terms. As for searching on any metadata, such as tags, in your video files; forget it.
- The Weather App is supposed to have a “Live Tile”. On my system it doesn’t; why, I have no idea.
- Microsoft’s News App looks good, but the news it displays is hardly up-to-the-minute, is it? There are articles dating from 4 days ago (at least in the UK feeds). That’s not news – that’s what we use to wrap fish and chips in. Also, this App (like too many others) can’t use Printing Devices. I’m sufficiently old-fashioned to want to be able to print things for hardcopy now and then.
- Printing in Metro Apps. So tell me, how do I just print the current page, or a selection of pages? Something that’s easily done with the traditional Windows Print dialog, but that seems totally impossible with the whizzo new Metro design with certain Apps. The Metro Mail and IE10 Apps, for example. They drop the “Pages” setting from the Metro Print screen. See below for screenshots. Sigh.
- Backing up your data. Windows 8 has a new backup method: File History. Be aware that it only covers the contents of your Libraries, Desktop, Contacts and Favourites. It won’t cover application data, or your mail messages… Microsoft assumes that we all hold our email in the Cloud. Er, no, we don’t.
Here’s examples of the confusing Print screen in Metro. This is what you see when you want to print something in the Metro Reader App:

Note that you’ve got a “Pages” setting, where you can select to print “All pages”, “Current page” or a “Custom” selection of pages from the document.

Now here’s what you see (using the same printer device) when you want to print out a mail message from the Metro Mail App (you’ll also see the same settings when you print out a web site in the Metro IE10 App):

Er, hello? We’ve got additional options, but the “Pages” setting has disappeared altogether. Don’t bother clicking on the “More settings” link, it’s not lurking under there either. I like consistency in my tools, not nasty surprises.

Update 28th October 2012: This inconsistent print behaviour is still present in the final version of Windows 8, despite some of the Apps being updated. The Mail App and IE10, for example, still can’t print out a single page or a range of pages. Sigh.

Update 1: Brad Weed, a program manager in the Windows Live team has contributed a post on the Photos App in the Building Windows 8 blog. I note that he doesn’t even mention the fact that the Photos App cannot display photos held on Windows Home Server, yet he boasts that the Photos App will “display photos from all your devices”. Er, no, Mr. Weed, it won’t, as you damn well know. Please try harder.

Update 2: On October 5th, Microsoft announced that many of its Modern Apps would be updated in the run-up to the release of Windows 8 on October 26th. This includes the the Mail App, which will at long last get IMAP support, and the Photo App, which will finally be able to support network locations. I found it rather curious that only a couple of days earlier, Analy Otero, on the Photo App team, said (my emphasis):

…support for network locations is definitely something we will consider for future versions of the app.

When she could quite easily have said:

…support for network locations is definitely something we will provide for future versions of the app.

Odd. Mind you, it still doesn’t support searching on Tags. So, the Photo App is still a miserable excuse for what it should be.

Microsoft are doing themselves no favours with the current collection of Metro Apps, which are little better than toys.

Update 26th March 2013: The Mail, People, Calendar and Xbox Music Apps have been updated. Some small improvements, but there are still shortcomings.
June 7, 2012
Fun With Technology – Part VIII

Important Update 27th October 2012: The bug I describe below was fixed in the final release of Windows 8. I can now use the “Play to” feature with my Denon AVR-3808 receiver.

Hoorah!

Update 24 October 2013: With the release of Windows 8.1, I was getting problems with “Play to” again. I posted the Windows 8.1 issue in a Microsoft forum, and got some useful feedback from Microsoft’s Gabe Frost. The issue is not resolved, but at least we now know what’s going on. See https://gcoupe.wordpress.com/2013/10/23/play-to-and-windows-8-1/

Original Post

Sigh. I’m having another facepalm moment with Microsoft again. I’ve downloaded and installed the Windows 8 Release Preview, and am currently kicking the tyres. I’ve already found some nasty things in Microsoft’s Metro Apps; this post is about something else.

Microsoft introduced the “Play to” feature in Windows 7. It’s a very useful feature that allows Windows Media Player to stream music to other devices (e.g. my Hi-Fi amplifier) on the network. I found that this feature was broken when I tried it in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Now that I have the Release Preview installed, I had hoped that Microsoft would have fixed it.

Alas, no, it still doesn’t work, and there’s been a rather worrying development… Here’s what I saw when I tried it in the Consumer Preview:

Now take a look at the error message I get when I try using the “Play to” feature in the Release Preview:

Er, what’s that “Not Windows certified” message? I thought the whole point of having DLNA-certified devices (which I have) was that they would plug and play. It worked in Windows 7. Now it seems as though Microsoft are introducing something else for Windows 8 – and breaking the whole concept that DLNA is trying to address.

I would have thought that Microsoft would have learned from the failure of their “Plays for Sure” branding, but no, they’re at it again. In a final irony, my Hi-Fi amplifier, a Denon 3808 AVR, proudly bears a Microsoft “Plays for Sure” sticker. Well, it doesn’t “play for sure” any more, thanks to Microsoft and Windows 8.

June 3, 2012
Thoughts on the Windows 8 Release Preview

I must admit, since Windows 8 is going to be released in October 2012, I was expecting Microsoft’s Metro Apps in the Windows 8 Release Preview to be more fully functional than they are. To my mind, they are still little better than toy demos. Yes, I know that they are still labelled “Previews”, but there’s precious little time left before October, and an enormous amount of functional ground left to cover.

For example, the Mail App still doesn’t have IMAP or POP support. This is a staggering omission, since these protocols are the foundation on which internet email clients have been based for years. Then there’s all the extra stuff in the Windows Live Mail client that is missing from the Metro App, such as message rules or the ability to define extra storage folders. Since my email is hosted on an IMAP mail server by my internet service provider, I haven’t been able to use the Metro Mail App in earnest. There may well be other shortcomings that I haven’t discovered yet.

The Music App only has four views of your music library: songs, albums, artists and playlists, as shown in this screenshot:

Since you can’t define your own additional views, I miss the sorting by genre or composer that I have in Windows Media Player or Windows Media Center. And where is “Play to” or Podcast support? Missing in action, it would seem.

The Photos App is still only a viewer, not an organizer/editor/metadata tagger in the manner of Windows Live Photo Gallery or Picasa.

And then there are the bugs.

For example, amazingly, it turns out that the Photos App cannot deal with photos that are stored on a Windows Home Server. The Photos App is supposed to use the Picture Libraries that you define in Windows 8. In both Windows 7 and Windows 8, you have a standard set of libraries defined for your media. See this screenshot:

The Documents, Music, Pictures and Videos libraries are defined by default in installations of Windows 7 or Windows 8. If you install the Zune client (which is currently needed to support Windows Phones), then you get a Library defined for Podcasts as well.

By default, each of these libraries point to the corresponding folder in your Windows account on your PC, plus a pointer to the corresponding folder in the Public account on your PC. Here’s the pointers for the Documents library as an example:

You can add additional pointers to folder hierarchies held locally on your PC, or network locations. If you have a Windows Home Server, then it will automatically add pointers to the corresponding Shared Folders on the server. Here’s a screenshot of the pointers to my music folders in the Music Library as an example:

However, it turns out that the Photos App can only handle local folders, not network locations, such as the Shared Folder for pictures held on a Windows Home Server.

This is even more curious when you realise that the Music App can handle music held in the Shared Folder for music on a Windows Home Server… That screenshot above of the Music App is showing music stored on my Windows Home Server.

Now, the team responsible for the Photos App have admitted this is an issue. In this thread on the Microsoft Answers forum, Analy Otero, a member of the Photos App’s team states:

The Photos team is aware of the concerns and issues that surround network locations, removable storage and Windows Home Servers. Unfortunately there are technical limitations to supporting them completely and correctly and as you have noted those locations are not supported in the Release Preview version either.

Rest assured that we are want to see these scenarios work and we aspire to support them just as all of you do so that you can use the Photos app as one place to see all of your photos regardless of where they are.

If you have your photos in other PCs (Vista, Win7 or Win8 machines) you have the option to install the recently released SkyDrive client on them to be able to fetch files from them from anywhere. This includes being able to browse all your photos (and videos) from the Photos app as well. Definitely check it out if you have a chance.

Thanks for the feedback, we’re definitely are listening and understand that support for WHS and other network locations is important for you.

Notice that she mentions that the SkyDrive client can be used as a workaround to allow the Photos App to access files and folders held on other PCs in your network. It’s not clear whether the client is officially supported on the WHS operating system. This post on the SkyDrive forum does say that it will run on Windows Server 2008 R2, and that is the operating system that underlies WHS 2011. However, whether this also means that Microsoft will support the use of the client on WHS 2011 is another matter. Update: Analy Otero has confirmed that Microsoft does not support the use of the SkyDrive client on WHS 2011, and it won’t install at all on WHS v1.

I downloaded the SkyDrive client onto my Windows 8 system (which is 64bit), and then copied it across to my WHS 2011 (this is a 64bit operating system). I then did a Remote Desktop connection into my (headless) WHS, and successfully installed the client.

Sure enough, the client then started synchronizing with my SkyDrive photos, but interestingly, something else also started happening… When I next opened the Metro Photo App, an additional pane had appeared on the opening screen – it was for “Degas” – the name of my WHS 2011 system.

This view of the pictures folder on my Windows Home Server is not the default Pictures Shared Folder. Instead, it appears to be mapped to the Pictures folder of the Public user on WHS 2011. Now, while this is logical when the SkyDrive client is installed on a Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8 PC, it makes no sense at all for a Windows Home Server. For one thing, no user account folders, including the Public user account folders, are ever exposed over the network in a standard Windows Home Server setup. A standard WHS 2011 system uses Shared Folders that are not tied to the Public user account.

Also, I discovered that the Public Folders are only exposed so long as you are logged on to the Administrator’s Desktop (so that the SkyDrive Client runs). So if you want to use this workaround, you’re going to have to Remote Desktop in to your WHS, and populate the Pictures folder of the Public user account and keep logged on via Remote Desktop; photos in the standard Shared Folder for Pictures simply aren’t accessible by the Photos App. In my opinion, it’s a kludge. An unsupported kludge. Sigh.

Update: I’ve gathered together in one place all the bugs, quirks and WTFs that I’ve found thus far with Windows 8. Check it out if you want to see the full list.

June 2, 2012
Origami Computing
As you may be aware, I’ve been following the development of Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system with some interest.

I confess that I have been somewhat taken aback at the amount of negative press that Windows 8 has been receiving, both from technology pundits and users, because I’m finding Windows 8 rather exciting. I’ve been using it on my main desktop PC since the Windows 8 Consumer Preview was released in February, and I’ve never thought for a moment about uninstalling it and going back to Windows 7. Indeed, I’m looking forward to the Release Preview of Windows 8 that will be available in a couple of weeks.

It’s true that my joy over Windows 8 has not been entirely unalloyed. At the moment, I have a list of three negatives:
- I really dislike the marketing decision that Microsoft has made concerning Windows Media Center. However, on the upside, it means that I won’t be upgrading my HTPC to Windows 8. It will remain on Windows 7, running Windows Media Center, until something better comes along.
- I consider that the Windows Explorer in Windows 8 is more clumsy than the version in Windows 7. I find it’s a step backwards in usability.
- Windows 8 takes full advantage of modern PC hardware, such as UEFI for firmware and GPT drives. However, Microsoft’s dirty little secret is that their Windows Home Server 2011 product cannot backup or restore any system using UEFI and GPT drives. [Update 4th March 2013: Microsoft has at last issued a Hotfix to add backup support for UEFI-based computers to back up to servers that are running Windows Home Server 2011]
I can live with the first two, but the last does worry me. New PC systems are increasingly based on UEFI/GPT technology, so I am likely to be faced with a problem in the future if Microsoft don’t fix this. Update: I’ve gathered all the bugs, quirks, and WTFs that I’ve found in Windows 8 thus far into one place: here.

It seems to me that with Windows 8, Microsoft has a chance to move personal computing into a new era, one where not only can a range of computing devices (PCs, Tablets, Smartphones) share a common operating system and applications, but where the hardware itself can have a range of flexibility that goes beyond what we have seen so far.

I got a taste of this with my old HP TX2000 Tablet PC, but running Windows 7, it couldn’t deliver what will be possible with Windows 8.

Paul Thurrott touches upon this in his latest opinion piece. I think he is right. My next PC purchase is unlikely to be a Desktop PC. It will be a Slate, running Windows 8, based on Intel’s Broadwell. It will have multitouch and a pressure-sensitive stylus. I will be able to carry it around and take notes/photos/videos on the move, and I’ll be able to plug it into multiple monitors, a keyboard, and a mouse for my next generation Desktop.

We are at the dawn of Origami Computing. Apple and Android are way behind.
May 22, 2012
Another Facepalm Moment
Sigh. Microsoft has announced the versions of Windows 8 that will be available later this year, and I am once again shaking my head trying to understand what on earth they were thinking about when they came up with the scheme.

Let me explain.

At the moment, there’s a component that ships as standard in most versions of Windows 7: Windows Media Center. Most people don’t even know it’s there, which is a pity, because it’s a pretty good piece of software for turning your PC into a combined Entertainment Center for TV, movies, music and photos, and also provides DVR functionality for record and playback of TV. I’ve used it to set up our HTPC, which uses our TV to display our digital media (movies, music and photos).

For the upcoming versions of Windows 8, Microsoft has done two things:
1. Removed Windows Media Center from being a standard component shipped with Windows, to being an Add-on component (the “Media Pack”) that will be charged for separately.
2. Prevented the Media Pack Add-on from being available to the consumer version of Windows 8, but only making it available for Windows 8 Pro.
Now, I can understand Microsoft’s rationale behind (1). There are third party licensing costs involved (e.g. Dolby Digital codecs) in Windows Media Center, and by spinning the Media Pack off to be a separately charged item means that Microsoft can reduce the cost of Windows 8 slightly.

But I really fail to understand why Microsoft are forcing those of us who are interested in buying the Media Pack to upgrade to Windows 8 Pro, instead of being able to continue with the consumer version of Windows 8. After all, Windows Media Center runs on Windows 7 Home Premium (the consumer product) today. It does not require Windows 7 Professional. Looking at the price differentials of Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional upgrades for XP and Vista today, I suspect I will have to pay almost twice as much for Windows 8 Pro as I would for Windows 8.

The seven additional features of Windows 8 Pro are of absolutely zero interest to me, and have no bearing (as far as I can see) on the running of the Media Pack. Yet I, and others like me, who would consider upgrading to the Windows 8 version of Windows Media Center are faced with double costs: first upgrade from Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 8 Pro, and then acquire the Media Pack.

I think I’ll be seriously considering the zero-cost option of sticking with Windows Media Center running on Windows 7 Home Premium for as long as I possibly can, and I don’t think that I’ll be the only one.

It seems to me that Microsoft has killed the potential market for the Media Pack with this move. That may, of course, have been their real objective in coming up with this scheme.

Update 4 May 2012

Oh dearie me. Microsoft has issued another post to clarify the situation. Except it seems to me to have changed absolutely nothing.

The post contains a diagram showing the possible upgrade paths to a version of Windows 8 that will contain Windows Media Center:

So, let me understand this. Let’s look at the starting points; you have a choice between plain old Windows 8 or Windows 8 Pro. The difference between these two features was defined in Microsoft’s original announcement of the Windows 8 versions. Here’s a part of the Features Table from that post showing the seven additional features that are included in Windows 8 Pro:

The difference in cost between the two versions is likely to be in the region of $100, judging by the price differential between Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional.

Now, looking at the diagram of the upgrade paths again, it is clear that, just as the original announcement stated, it will not be possible to simply add Windows Media Center to Windows 8 via an add-on pack that just contains WMC. Oh no, you have to buy an add-on pack that contains WMC and the additional features of Windows 8 Pro. So I would still end up buying Windows 8 Pro features that I don’t want or need (at a likely $100 cost) along with a cost for the WMC component.

To add insult to injury, it appears that the version of WMC that will be available for Windows 8 is essentially the same old version as the one that we currently get for free in Windows 7.

I think that seals the deal for me: I’m sticking with my Windows 7 Home Premium (with its free WMC) as the operating system on my HTPC. I see no point in paying $100+ for a version of Windows 8 that gives me no advantages whatsoever.

Update 11 May 2012

I see that Microsoft has now closed the comments on both of their posts on the Building Windows 8 blog on this issue. Too many negative reactions, I suppose, and who can blame us?

Paul Thurrott has also now weighed in with a column in which he also vents about Microsoft’s media direction.

The thing is: Microsoft had something in WMC that was ahead of the curve, and they have dropped the ball. Their vision has failed – probably the original team got disbanded, and their executive sponsorship vanished. Much the same thing has happened with Windows Home Server.

It’s also true that streaming of content is on the rise; but there will always be a minority of users for whom streaming will never be the answer. I’m in the countryside, at the end of a piece of wet string – I depend on optical media for high quality content. I also depend on optical media for content that is otherwise not legally available in my market.

It’s all very well for Microsoft to say that I can get my DVD codecs from third parties, if I’m not prepared to pay top whack for Windows 8 Pro, with its features that I don’t want. But quite honestly, the sort of bloatware that third parties provide is something that I don’t want to be forced to accept.

We seem to be heading back to the old days, when we had to buy something like Nero in order to be able to burn a CD in Windows. Over the years, Nero ballooned into a software suite that was truly appalling. It was a relief to be able to dump it, and just use the features built-into newer versions of Windows to handle my optical media.

Now, with Windows 8, Microsoft seem to be turning the clock back to the bad old days. The bean-counters are in charge. The people with vision have left the company.

Update 7 June 2012

Microsoft has quietly removed two features from the version of Windows Media Center for Windows 8. These features are required for dedicated HTPCs. See this post at The Digital Media site for details. Two more reasons not to upgrade my HTPC, it would seem.

Update 3 July 2012

Well now, Microsoft has just thrown a curve ball. They’ve announced that the upgrade price from Windows 7 to Windows 8 Pro (note: the Pro version!) will be $39.99 up until 31 January 2013. That is a very attractive price, I have to say. It also includes a free upgrade to Windows Media Center. Now at that price, while I will certainly upgrade our other PCs with Windows 8 Pro, it is also going to make me think hard about whether I should not just take the plunge and upgrade our HTPC as well.

I find it interesting that the upgrade is for the Pro version of Windows 8, rather than simply the base Windows 8 version. Perhaps Microsoft has been stung by all the negative reactions from the technical press and blogs about Windows 8 and is making a gamble here to regain lost ground. Whatever the reason, I find it an attractive offer.
April 17, 2012
Don Norman on Windows 8

Don Norman is a well-respected consultant and author working in the field of product design and ergonomics. His classic “The Psychology of Everyday Things” (1988) – in his own words: part polemic, part science. Part serious, part fun – contains a critique of design and design principles that are still relevant today. And his later book “Turn Signals Are the Facial Expressions of Automobiles” (1992) carries that forward, with one chapter – the Teddy – being especially thought-provoking and prescient over how we seem to be developing a symbiotic/dependence relationship with our Smartphones.

So I was interested to read what Norman thinks about Windows 8. As I’ve written before, an awful lot of people seem to think it is a disaster (I’m not one of them). And it appears, like me, Donald Norman is a fan of Windows 8:

Windows 8 is brilliant, and its principles have been extended to phones, tablets, laptops, and desktop machines (and larger – for example, Surface), whether operated by gesture, mouse and keyboard, or stylus, but with appropriately changed interaction styles for the different sizes of devices and different input devices.

Of course, being the thorough observer that he is, he references some of the negative reviews of Windows 8 in his piece:

Here is a critical review by Troy Wolverton of Silicon Valley.com who used Windows 8 for awhile. Nice dress, he says, but crappy fit. Multitasking is difficult or not even possible beyond two metro apps. Most work still requires the old (Windows 7) desktop, and switching between Metro and desktop is difficult. And he gives a simple example of quitting a Metro application that should send shivers down all of our backs

Perhaps, but I notice that Wolverton doesn’t exactly play fair. His example is not correctly reported. What he says is:

Take a simple example: closing programs. Since Windows 95, users have typically just clicked on the “x” in the upper right hand corner of the program’s window to close it. For those who prefer to use the menu bar, you can usually click on “File” and then “Exit.”

But with Metro-style apps, you won’t find a close-program “x.” You won’t even find a menu bar. Instead, to close a program you have to move your pointer to the top edge of the screen, click and hold until the app screen becomes a thumbnail and then drag that thumbnail image to the bottom of the screen. And you have to do all this without any clues: there’s nothing to “grab” at the top edge of the screen and the interface gives you no indication of what you should do with the thumbnail once you’ve grabbed it.

That’s merely one of many commands that are not only different but also hidden by the Metro interface.

Er, no, Mr Wolverton – you don’t need to “click and hold until the app screen becomes a thumbnail” – merely moving to the top of the screen turns the cursor into a thumbnail. At that point, there are two options open to the user. You can click and drag the cursor to the bottom of the screen to close the App; or you can click and drag it to the left or the right border of the screen to split the screen for multi-app working.

It’s true that the options are not spelled out. But on the other hand, neither are much of the workings of the current version of Windows. People learn about them over time. And, yes, some people never learn, despite good design. But let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Windows 8 is a radical rethinking. It has excellent design principles and it deserves a chance. What it does not deserve is lazy condemnation by people who don’t approach it with an open mind.

April 14, 2012

Fun With Technology–Part VII

Important Update 27th October 2012: The bug described below has been fixed in the final release of Windows 8.

Hoorah!

Update 24 October 2013: With the release of Windows 8.1, I found another issue with “Play to”. I posted it in a Microsoft forum, and got some useful feedback from Microsoft’s Gabe Frost. The issue is not resolved, but at least we now know what’s going on. See https://gcoupe.wordpress.com/2013/10/23/play-to-and-windows-8-1/

Original Post

Here we go again – one step forwards, two steps back… Something that was working under Windows 7 has stopped working in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, and that is the “Play to” feature of Windows Media Player.

Almost three years ago, I wrote a post (Fun With Technology – Part IV) describing my trials and tribulations with this feature of Windows Media Player in an early version of Windows 7. Sometimes it would seem to work, and sometimes it didn’t. I eventually found out, and described in that post, what was going on. I also identified how to get “Play to” working very satisfactorily for the devices on my home network. And there matters have rested until now, when I’ve found that Windows 8 Consumer Preview has broken things again.

First, let me recapitulate some of the background terms and technology specification used by Microsoft in its implementation of “Play to” and how I’m using it at home. These come from the Digital Living Networking Alliance, or DLNA for short. Their specification defines how a variety of different types of digital devices can connect and share information. This I’ve summarised in the following table:

Device Class	What it does	Examples
Digital Media Server (DMS)	Stores content and makes it available to networked digital media players (DMP) and digital media renderers (DMR). Some digital media servers can also help protect your content once stored.	PCs and network attached storage (NAS) devices
Digital Media Player (DMP)	Finds content on digital media servers (DMS) and provides playback and rendering capabilities.	TVs, stereos and home theaters, wireless monitors and game consoles
Digital Media Renderer (DMR)	These devices play content received from a digital media controller (DMC), which will find content from a digital media server (DMS).	TVs, audio/video receivers, video displays and remote speakers for music.
Digital Media Controller (DMC)	These devices find content on digital media servers (DMS) and play it on digital media renderers (DMR).	Internet tablets, Wi-Fi® enabled digital cameras and personal digital assistants (PDA).
Digital Media Printer (DMPr)	These devices provide printing services to the DLNA home network. Generally, digital media players (DMP) and digital media controllers (DMC) with print capability can print to DMPr.	Networked photo printers and networked all-in-one printers.

Table 1: Information drawn from the DLNA web site.

Windows 7 implements a number of these classes as shown here:

Device Class	Windows Implementations
Digital Media Server (DMS)	When media streaming is enabled, Windows acts as a DMS.
Digital Media Player (DMP)	Windows Media Player and Windows Media Center act as a DMP when browsing shared media libraries
Digital Media Renderer (DMR)	Windows Media Player acts as a DMR when configured to allow remote control of the Player.
Digital Media Controller (DMC)	The “Play To” feature from Windows Media Player launches a DMC to control the media playback experience

Table 2: Information drawn from the Engineering Windows 7 Blog.

WMP Scenarios
Figure 1: Typical scenarios of simple case of DMP devices accessing DMS devices.

I’ve used the Denon AVR3808 as an example, since this is what I have in my home network. My DMS is a headless (no monitor, keyboard or mouse) home-built PC running the Windows Home Server 2011 operating system.

In my particular case, both the two scenarios shown above will work, that is, the DMS that is part of WHS 2011 will stream audio to other PCs in the home network, and to the Denon AVR3808. Under the covers, there’s actually some negotiation of streaming formats going on. This is because I have stored all my music files on the WHS 2011 in Windows Media Audio Lossless (WMAL) format. This presents no problems for the PCs, since the Windows Media Players installed on them can handle WMAL. But while the Denon can handle standard Windows Media Audio, it can’t handle the Lossless variant. So when I use the Denon to browse my music library on the server and select a track to play, the DMS in WHS 2011 sees that the Denon can’t handle WMAL and transcodes the stream into a format that the Denon can handle on the fly.

The interesting scenarios are where there are three devices linked together: a Digital Media Server, a Digital Media Controller, and a Digital Media Renderer.

WMP Scenarios 2
Figure 2: Typical scenarios of a three device link (DMS-DMC-DMR).

In my case, all flavours of scenario 3 will work. That is, I can stream from my Windows Home Server using the “Play To” feature of Windows Media Player running in either Windows 7 or Windows 8 Consumer Preview, and push the stream to PCs that are running Windows 7 or the Windows 8 Consumer Preview.

But while scenario 4 works if “Play to” is running in Windows 7, it does not work if “Play to” is running in Windows 8 Consumer Preview.

Here’s a screenshot of the “Play to” of Windows Media Player running in Windows 7, and streaming a WMA Lossless file to my Denon:

The WMA Lossless file is held on the WHS 2011 system, and is being transcoded into a different format on the fly so that the Denon can play it. I’m not sure whether the transcoding is being done on the Windows 7 PC (where the Windows Media Player is running), or whether it is being done at source on the WHS 2011 system. Either way, the Denon is being fed with a stream in a format that it understands, so it plays it without problem.

Now look at the following screenshot. It’s the very same music file that has been chosen from the Music Library held on the WHS 2011 system, but this time the “Play to” and the Windows Media Player are running on Windows 8 Consumer Preview:

As you can see, the Denon is reporting an error – it can’t play the file. I’m pretty sure that this is because no transcoding is being done – the WMA Lossless file is being sent straight to the Denon.

In Windows 8, the Windows Explorer also has the “Play to” feature, and the same error occurs:

So, to sum up; something has been broken in the “Play to” feature in Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Hopefully it will get fixed before Windows 8 is released

April 4, 2012

People Don’t Like Change

It’s been a month now since I, like probably over one million others, downloaded and installed Microsoft’s Windows 8 Consumer Preview. As I wrote at the time, people seemed to either love it or hate it.

The haters seem to hold that opinion because the user interface of Windows 8 is so very different from all the previous versions of Windows from Windows 95 onwards.

I think it’s worth remembering that when Windows 95 was introduced, its user interface was radically different from previous versions of Windows, and there was a similar outcry from people who hated the new interface. Over time, people accepted the change, and now, once again, it seems that many cannot conceive of Windows in any way other than what they are used to.

As for me, after a month of using Windows 8, I am very relaxed about the new user interface. It doesn’t bother me, and I seem to be accomplishing my tasks equally well, albeit in a different way. It is still the fact that, at the moment, I rarely use any of the new Metro applications (except to play the occasional game), but that’s simply because their functionality is not yet on a par with their traditional Desktop equivalents. The only Metro App I have permanently displayed alongside my desktop (using the tile function of Windows 8) is the Calendar App:

On the whole, I like what Microsoft has done to reimagine Windows. The past is another country, they do things differently there. I don’t want to live in the past, I want to look forward to the future.

April 1, 2012
Just Testing…

You can ignore this post. It’s just a test to check something out.

I use Windows Live Writer to prepare blog posts. It’s a very good application; easy to use and functional. However, I’ve noticed that since I’ve been running the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, I often get an error message when I try and publish a post to my blog.

March 12, 2012
Microsoft’s Marmite

Marmite is a British food – a paste that is smeared on bread or toast. It has a very distinctive taste, which splits people into two camps: they either love it or hate it.This polarised reaction seems to be how people are reacting to Microsoft’s Windows 8 Consumer Preview: they either love it or hate it. This post is about my first impressions of W8CP.

As I said I would, I’ve installed the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, and have been playing with it over the past couple of days. There are several ways to install it: in a virtual machine, on a separate drive partition for dual-boot with Windows 7, but I’ve gone for the highwire act – I’ve done an upgrade installation. My PC is no longer running Windows 7, but it is running only Windows 8.

I haven’t completely lost my mind – I took a full backup of my running Windows 7 installation immediately prior to installing the Consumer Preview, so I can always rollback to Windows 7 if I lose my nerve.

So now, what I see when I sign on to Windows 8 is something like this:

This Start screen has effectively replaced the Start button, that has been a part of Windows since Windows 95. On the traditional Desktop view in Windows 8, there is no Start button, instead, when you mouse down to the bottom left corner of the Desktop (where the Start button traditionally was), you get a small pictogram of the Start screen. Clicking the mouse brings you to the Start screen itself.

It’s certainly a shock to the system, and I found it needed getting used to. Some people have already found ways of forcing the traditional Start button back into Windows 8, but I don’t want to go down that route. I’d rather give Windows 8 a chance, and see how I feel about the UI after a few weeks.

I’ve already started adding icons for some of my most-used applications onto the Start screen, and am starting to use the Search function much more than I used to in Windows 7.

One thing that I am definitely finding at the moment: I spend the majority of my time on the traditional Desktop, using traditional applications. The much-vaunted Metro Apps that have shipped with the Consumer Preview are dumbed down too far for me. To be fair, many of them are previews themselves, and Microsoft claim that they will be improved for final release. Still, I don’t think Microsoft has done itself any favours by shipping such limited Apps in the Preview. Let’s look at a few examples.

The Mail App. Unless you have a Hotmail, Google, or Exchange account, you won’t be able to use the Mail App – it has no support for IMAP or POP mail servers. Guess what I have? Yup, my Internet Service Provider supports IMAP and POP mail services. So I won’t be using the Mail App. One other thing, it is just a very simple mail application. I use Windows Live Mail as my mail client, and this integrates my mail, my calendar, and my contacts list. In Windows 8, these are separate applications. I like the integrated approach. Windows 8 seems to be taking a step backwards. Although Microsoft have introduced a new mechanism for sharing information between apps in Windows 8, at the moment all three, Mail, Calendar and People apps, plaintively bleat that they can’t share… This may change on final release. I hope so.

The Maps App. The Search function in this app doesn’t work. Here, for example, it claims it can’t find Amsterdam:

Yet, strangely enough, it works with driving directions:

Update 7 March 2012: The Map App was updated today, and that seems to have fixed the search problem. Excellent.

The Photos App. Another very simple application, really only suitable for searching and browsing. It will display photos held both locally and online. Note that in the screenshot below, there is no Facebook panel shown, because I don’t use Facebook, so I removed the panel.

At least the searches are aware of tags in the photos, so searching for the name of my dog turns up all the photos that have been tagged “Watson”:

However, unlike Windows Live Photo Gallery, I don’t think you can do complex searches (a AND b, but NOT c), and there’s certainly no function for editing photos as WLPG has. Once again, though, this is a preview – the final release may be another story. The Photos app can Share with the Mail app, and use it to send photos via email; either as attachments or via Skydrive. However, unlike WLPG, there doesn’t seem to be any way of choosing the size of the photo files that you send. Update 13 March 2012: hmm, even the Search functiona has problems at the moment. I discovered today that it finds less photos with a given tag than actually exist. It seems to only find about half the number it should be finding.

The Music App. You may have thought that Windows Media Player and the Zune application were limited – this one’s even worse. No Podcast support, no “Play to” support, no way to view and filter your collection other than by Album, Artist, Song, and Genre.

The opportunity is here for this app to be a full DLNA implementation – a player, a renderer and a control device (think of a Windows 8 tablet running this app being used to control your home’s networked media – music, video, movies, photos – stored locally and in the Cloud). Unless this app improves, it will be a missed opportunity. The Consumer Preview comes with the old Windows Media Center application, that has been around since 2005. I would like to think that Microsoft are revamping it for Windows 8…

And so it goes – I don’t think I’ve found a single app yet that I find I’m using in preference to an equivalent traditional Windows 7 application. Yes, it’s early days; but thus far, I find the experience disappointing.

The other thing I’m noticing is that my system feels sluggish. Not too much (at least not too often), but it has definitely slowed. Once again, this is to be expected with a beta, so I’m pretty confident that come final release, things will have improved so that it is no longer an issue.

The most positive thing I’m noticing at the moment is that underneath it all, Windows 8 is running all my Windows 7 applications without (so far) any issue. I’m very hopeful that I can continue to use the Consumer Preview on my main PC as my everyday operating system.

The one big concern I have is that the issue of being unable to change my country of residence in the Windows Store could be a make or break issue for me.

March 2, 2012
Lipstick On A Pig

Yes, this is a post about the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, but despite what you may be thinking, this is not a post about how awful the Metro UI is. I’ll deal with that later. No, this is a post about how awful “Microsoft Account” is.

You may recall my post of last week, where I was worried about whether Windows 8 would do anything to change the inflexibility of Microsoft’s back-end infrastructure used for digital distribution of apps and digital media. Well, now I’ve got my answer:

Absolutely nothing.

Yes, there’s been a name change: the Windows Live ID service has been rebranded to Microsoft Account, but beyond that, the same problem remains: once you have registered a country of residence in your Zune or Xbox Live billing account, neither you nor Microsoft can change it, nor even delete your account.

So the name change to Microsoft Account is the lipstick, and the pig of the billing account remains as porcine as ever.

I thought I’d try one last time to contact Customer Support via the online Chat channel to see if I could get my Zune account deleted without having to also delete my Windows Live ID. Nope. No joy.

As I wrote last week:

Unfortunately (for me), a few years ago I made the mistake of downloading and playing with the Zune software. Along the way, I created a Zune account using my Windows Live ID, just to try out the experience, not realising that the country of residence would be hardwired to the US without any possibility of change or deletion. At the time, I just shrugged my shoulders and thought no more about it.

And because of that mistake, if Windows 8 uses the same backend infrastructure as Zune, I will not be able to use my trusty Windows Live ID. If I did, I will not be able to purchase anything in Windows Store, because I do not have a credit card with a US address. Because of a badly-thought-out design in a Microsoft infrastructure, I’m expected to throw all the history of what’s associated with my old Windows Live ID away, and start again with a new one.

Windows 8 does use the same backend infrastructure. I’m screwed.

Update: It took writing letters to Microsoft, but I finally managed to get my old Zune/Xbox Live account deleted, and used my existing Windows Live ID to create a new account.

March 2, 2012