They aren't subtle, either.

As pointed out by @lukec on Twitter earlier today, Microsoft apparently paid to be listed as the top result when you search for ‘firefox’ on Twitter. What an odd coincidence, considering Firefox 4 was just released.

“The requested session access is denied”

The problem, it turns out, was me. When connecting, I used a desktop shortcut for Remote Desktop Connect that had the “/admin” switch applied, which instructs Remote Desktop to connect to the Console session, which is restricted to administrators only. Using a regular shortcut without said switch solved the problem.

D’oh.

Unfortunately, when I went to download the latest version of it, 2.5, I found this notice on the download page:

ANNOUNCEMENT: Windows SteadyState will continue to be available for download through December 31, 2010. Support for Windows SteadyState will continue to be available through the Microsoft Knowledge Base portal through June 30, 2011.

This announcement does not affect your right to continue to use Windows SteadyState.

Wait, what? Further digging revealed almost no information other than a vague statement saying that SteadyState wouldn’t be updated to support Windows 7. Additionally, while the system requirements state that Windows XP SP3 is supported, there are no references to IE8 — only IE7. Even worse is the list of Windows Vista supported versions — RTM and SP1 only.

I decided to try it out on a Virtualbox VM running XP SP3 and Internet Explorer 8 (although it technically isn’t supported), as that’s what my little lab will be running, and the results were actually pretty surprising. SteadyState actually works quite well with IE8 – all of the restrictions/settings function as expected, and it’s very easy to lock everything down.

So if you’re looking for a free alternative to Deep Freeze, and running Windows XP, then SteadyState is the way to go – just make sure to grab it before December 31st of 2010, or you’re out-of-luck. If you’ve moved on to Windows 7, though, prepare to pay up for a few Deep Freeze licenses (which, to be fair, are worth the cost if you can work it in to a budget).

Update: Microsoft has published a posting on the Windows Team Blog about why SteadyState wasn’t updated for Windows 7. As some of the comments say, the whitepapers provided fall short of what most admins who use[d] SteadyState want — disk protection that isn’t available in Windows 7.

Notice to Windows® Home Server customers: Microsoft Security Essentials Beta is not supported on Windows Home Server (WHS). Beta testers who have installed Microsoft Security Essentials Beta on WHS should consider uninstalling Microsoft Security Essentials Beta to avoid potential incompatibility problems. Those who plan to beta test Microsoft Security Essentials Beta unsupported on WHS should wait until the next Windows Home Server update rollup currently scheduled to occur on or about September 1, 2010.

Emphasis mine. It’s not a lot to go on, but Microsoft may finally be officially adding support for their own anti-virus product to Windows Home Server. In the words of Jeremy Clarkson, “Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!”

Event viewer wasn’t helpful, a reboot didn’t fix it, and neither did uninstalling/reinstalling. On a whim, though, I decided to try to the upgrade through Windows Update (after enabling Microsoft Update) and what do you know, it worked!

TL;DR Version: If you get the 0×80070050 error code while trying to upgrade MSE through the MSE program itself, enable Microsoft Update via the Windows Update Control Panel and do the upgrade from there.

I get what they’re trying to say – the PC is boxy and old-fashioned while the Mac is shiny and new. The unintentional humour is that while the Portal turret does it’s job adequately in its game, it’s easily defeated. The PC (or Team Fortress 2 turret) on the other hand starts out small and meek, but can be easily upgraded in to a massive powerhouse. That said, which would you rather have? Effective but locked down, or less-than-pretty but easily customizable?

Of course, I could just be reading too much in to things again.

The Post-It Note is for my own protection - click for a larger view

Details are rather scarce at the moment. The letter indicates that more information is available from http://www.microsoft.ca/licensing, but there isn’t even a full article present, just the following text:

Government Open License Program Announcement
On June 1st, 2010, Microsoft is launching the Government Open License program in Canada, which will reduce the cost of Open Licenses for Government organizations by approximately 20 percent. This new Volume License Program will also provide flexibility to Canadian Government organizations as customers will now have a viable option to procure licenses from their reseller of choice at competitive prices.

Eligibility
With an initial purchase of five or more licenses, customers can acquire products as needed over the term of their agreement. Government organizations will also have to meet the eligibility definition requirements in order to qualify for the Government Open License Program: English – French.

For more information, or to find a Microsoft reseller near you, call the Microsoft Resource Centre at (877) 568-2495.

I called the number listed, and the lady I spoke with said that she had information that was passed to her, but she was unsure if she was allowed to give it out. What did tell me wasn’t any different than what the text above said – qualifying Government organizations (definitions of ‘qualifying’ vary depending on if you are part of the government or how much funding you receive if you’re a contractor).

So in short, if you meet Microsoft’s definition of a Government organization in Canada, you can now obtain software at a 20% discount.

Click ‘Continue Reading’ for the wall-of-text!

To start, we need to get a little background out of the way. When you buy a retail copy of Windows, you get a Retail disk with a Retail key. You put the key in and life is usually good – Windows activates online and you’re done. Occasionally, maybe due to a hardware change, Windows refuses to activate online and instead makes you call in. You follow the steps, punch in the numbers, and you’re done. Pretty simple.

However, when it comes to a computer with Windows pre-installed by a major manufacturer, things are a little different.

You see, to make things easier for the average user, Microsoft added a feature called ‘System Locked Preinstallation‘, or ‘SLP’. To summarize the linked Wikipedia article, Microsoft provides Manufactures with a set of OEM Product Keys. The manufacturer then gives you these keys on the COA affixed to your computer and an installation disk with a generic Product Key pre-entered. When you do the install, Windows checks the Product Key, and if it finds an OEM SLP key, it looks for a Digital Certificate that the manufacturer embedded in the BIOS. When it finds the cert, it ‘activates’ without going online.

The problem I have is that I rarely (read: never) use the manufacturer-provided Windows installation disk, mainly to avoid the crap they put on them (‘free’ trials of Norton Antivirus, crapware, etc…). As such, with Windows XP I’d use a generic System Builder OEM disk, or with Windows Vista/7, just a generic Retail disk (with Windows Vista, all the SKUs are on one disk, and Windows automatically detects which edition to install based on your product key. Windows 7 disks also have almost all SKUs present, but you need to edit/delete a file first to access that feature).

When using a generic disk, the SLP process no longer applies, and you have to put in the Product Key that is on the COA attached to your computer. Although the key will enter fine, it won’t activate online. This is because although it’s a valid OEM key, it’s technically never supposed to be used, as the OEM-provided installation disk will use a different, generic key. As such, you need to call in to Microsoft’s Product Activation line in order to activate the key on your COA.

Now comes the fun part. I recently received a bunch of new Dell systems and went through the telephone activation process as usual. Everything worked perfectly. Then today, I had to re-install Windows Vista Business on a year-old laptop. After the installation, I put in the product key and went to the telephone activation line. After punching in the verification numbers, I heard this:

We’re sorry, but we were unable to validate your installation ID. Please hold while we transfer you to a representative.

So, I waited on hold for a few minutes was greeted with the following:

Agent: Thank you for contacting the Microsoft Telephone Activation department. Can I start with the first block of numbers on the activation screen?

Me: Yes, they’re XXXXXX.

Agent: Okay, is the second block YYYYYY?

Me: Yes.

Agent: Perfect. And what product are you trying to activate?

Me: Windows Vista Business Edition.

Agent: Okay. Please enter the following numbers in to the activation screen. <insert numbers here>

Me: Okay, it activated.

Agent: Thank you!

What the hell? He used the numbers I entered in to the automated part of the phone system, so I didn’t type them wrong, and he didn’t ask me the usual questions (“How many computers is this installed on, et al…”), so why did the automated activation fail? Have they changed the process? Am I going to have to go through this every time? Should I just say ‘screw it’ and only order VLK product keys instead and tell the OEMs to not bother with Windows anymore?

Find out the answer to these questions and more…well, probably never. [/end rant]

Oh, 'Downloading' message, how I hate thee.

I wasn’t really bothered by it until a few of my users started reporting the same problem. I had a look in to it, and after a lot of fiddling, came across two Microsoft Knowledge Base articles that eventually led me to a solution.

An Office program is slow or may appear to stop responding (hang) when you open a file from a network location

The program stops responding when you try to open or to save a file in an Office 2002 program, in an Office 2003 program and in an Office 2007 program

By adding the registry value from the first KB article linked above (EnableShellDataCaching), and by removing the Group Policy object that was creating a persistent drive mapping and replacing it with a login script (below) to map the drive, I haven’t had any further reports of the problem.

REM Login Script – Paste these lines in to a batch file, and add that .bat file to a GPO

net use z: /delete

net use z: \10.0.0.100share

Today, for example: I just purchased six new Dell Optiplex workstations and ghosted my standard image on to them. Would Windows automatically activate after I entered the correct product keys? No way. Instead, I was forced to activate each machine, one-by-one, over the phone.

So, what do you do to speed the whole process up? Here are a few tips:

• Mute your phone. The voice recognition system that Microsoft uses has trouble telling the difference between your voice and background. Mute the phone to avoid the problem altogether.
• As soon as you her the disembodied voice start to ask if you are in front of your computer, press ’1′ on the keypad. Don’t worry about interrupting – she doesn’t care.
• You should now be prompted to read off the numbers from the Activation screen. Remember that your phone is muted, and use the keypad to enter the numbers instead – it’s faster this way, anyways. Also, you can start entering the numbers as soon as she starts asking for the next block. Again, don’t worry about interrupting. I usually let her get as far as ‘And—’ when she tries to say ‘And block #2?’
• After you enter in the last block, let her talk. She’ll likely ask you ‘How many computers have you installed this copy of Windows on?’. As soon as she starts to ask the question, press ’1′ on the keypad.
• If you did it all right, she should happily say ‘Verified!’
• Once she starts giving instructions, press ’1′ on the keypad to skip them.
• As she reads out each block of numbers, once you’ve got them typed in, just press ’2′ on the keypad to make her start reading the next block. If you miss something, press ’1′ to have her repeat the last box.
• If you’ve typed the numbers in correctly, Windows should activate now!

Also, something to ponder – why does everything she say end in a question, even when not appropriate? Food for thought?