Putting my VB6 Windows Apps in the Windows 10 Store
hanselman.com
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This seems to be because the converter needs virtualisation support, which isn't included in the Home edition. But it wasn't clear to me whether a £100 upgrade to Win10 Pro would be enough to permit me to run it, or whether I'd need to have Win10 Enterprise which doesn't seem (?) to be a thing a person can just go out and buy.
(Something very 90s about all this worrying about the base OS licence level stuff.)
http://wincom.blob.core.windows.net/documents/Win10CompareTa...
On there it indicates that Hyper-V comes with Pro or above. So basically only Windows 10 Home doesn't seem to have it.
Still very confusing...
Or any of the free alternatives that do the job just as well (or better) but don't require a special license version to run.
VirtualBox and KVM/VirtManager come to mind, both work for free, VirtualBox will run on Windows computers, and both work on Linux machines. There are many others too.
I have both and have used both, and while VirtualBox is a servicable product and is free, it does not "work as well" in my experience as HyperV.
Notably, even before Docker For Windows Beta, a hand-built Docker HyperV instance was notably faster than the VBoxHeadless variant.
I'm not sure why paying money for a good virtualization package is bad. Certainly on the OSX side VMware is a truckload more stable and light years better at supporting any sort of task that has a display requirement.
I was lucky in that there were new builds to download (I don't use it often), but the answer for each of the forum threads was "wait".
On a tangent, this win10 box is my gaming box, and I haven't changed any of the settings regarding updates - it's just stock win10 stuff. Which is amusing when win10 gives you the "we're rebooting, you can either do it now or in 15 minutes" bit (different to the 4-hour delay option). I've come back from dinner to find the machine freshly rebooted. :)
So basically, if you want to do windows development you have to give up the alternatives
What? You can run Windows guests on Virtualbox.
Take a spin through group policy and you'll notice that many of the hated features of Win 10 can not be modified on pro and home.
I am an individual, I don't have access to Windows Enterprise. It is very weird that Microsoft won't even take my money. If they make pro a spyware/adware filled locked down OS, at least they should make enterprise available, for a small premium, to the customers who wish to opt out.
Obviously, I cannot refer to my sources, else people would lose their jobs and more.
If their idea that what customers are really after is a OS filled with ads, they are running into a wall with both feet on the accelerator.
They'll utilize Windows Update.
And I'd use Linux for my desktop OS if it was at all suited to running on modern laptop hardware with:
1. Good battery life. Within 5% of what the targetted OS can deliver.
2. Good external display support (at least as good as windows, you plug it in and your projector/external monitor/video capture device works).
3. Good support for the common high density displays that laptops bundle now.
4. Without substantial configuration effort and the promise that my computer will NEVER brick its own update mechanism because it can't be bothered to sweep year old kernel images.
And having just tried AGAIN (again again again again x10) to get a Linux laptop working on 2 year old hardware *marketed as designed for linux, it failed.
I don't really care what excuses everyone offers. These are entirely reasonable requests and for most hardware, no desktop Linux will meet them without radically lowering your standards.
So yeah, I have to pay more for a competent experience. Too bad the Linux world refuses to deliver a free one, but I suppose that's because it's lots of effort.
Which is also why I don't mind paying for Windows it itself. But I do not want an OS with ads and telemetry.
And it is highly ironic that Microsoft is distributing "signature" hardware that was meant to be free from the adware and spyware that the PC makers were installing by default, only for the windows team to embed this adware and spyware in windows 10 itself.
I am afraid you and the industry are at an impasse. You have no platform available to you that is both competent and does 0 telemetry.
Given the absurd price pressures on software, I don't know how any of us can ship things at scale with competitive cost without extensive telemetry.
> windows team to embed this adware and spyware in windows 10 itself.
This kind of language is both inflammatory and somewhat inaccurate. Windows 10 and even the Edge browser are _not_ Spyware and drawing a false equivalence here only serves to muddy the discussion.
Basic telemetry on use is not spyware. The Windows Store live tile is NOT adware and can be removed from the start menu if you find it's tiny window onto store promotions (something entirely relevant to a store app) to be offensive.
Yes, there have been a few inappropriate decisions on MS's part (notably offering overt ads over the free lockscreen art program). These are bad, but have been apologized for and rescinded. They do not constitute an OS that is "Adware and Spyware." Thank you.
As for the data collection (enabled by default), I am sorry, this is nothing short of spyware. Quoting the EFF: location data, text input, voice input, touch input, webpages you visit, and telemetry data regarding your general usage of your computer, including which programs you run and for how long..
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/08/windows-10-microsoft-b...
And that's in top of making it more difficult to change the default browser which users have to do manually instead of the browser being able to do it for you. This is really mean.
If Microsoft gets offended by their software being called spyware and adware, then they'd better not do it in the first place.
> As for the data collection (enabled by default), I am sorry, this is nothing short of spyware. Quoting the EFF: location data, text input, voice input, touch input, webpages you visit, and telemetry data regarding your general usage of your computer, including which programs you run and for how long..
This definition is politically motivated to classify nearly every Mobile Application, Webpage, and desktop application and OS besides Linux as "spyware."
"I am sorry" but that's an outrageous definition.
> If Microsoft gets offended by their software being called spyware and adware, then they'd better not do it in the first place.
I am not a Microsoft employee nor do I own stock in the company. I am just tired of any conceivable rhetoric being reached for to try and discredit the fact that Linux has overwhelmingly fallen behind on performance and quality besides competitors in the desktop space. What's more, it's now being threatened in the server space.
Linux's only mass success stories exist because of an impressive amount of enterprise funding which utterly eclipses any open source efforts prior. These themselves are littered with analytics signals which people use to further guide the use of linux, and all "consumer facing" variants of Linux have a store, have small adds, etc.
If that's what it takes to get a competent OS for consumer hardware, then the Linux community is at least partially to blame for failing to provide a credible alternative.
You may continue to excuse such incompetence with flowery and vibrant rhetoric about how what's yours is yours (even though the reality is much more complicated). I got bored with it 10 years ago.
At the same time, the OS will be made free-for-download, not just upgrade, since they have already made the bulk profits from sales. Focus will shift to spreading their base product, the OS, to everyone and live off of services they provide within their ecosystem. All products, enterprise and otherwise, will move towards a SaaS structure, where they will attempt to push pre-made packages onto customers big and small alike. Office 365 was the pilot.
I don't miss Windows at all.
FWIW i found a much cheaper pro license (around €40, iirc) by using some product comparison sites. Basically, even though it's 2016 you can actually buy software from webshops the way you'd order hardware or shoes, and many of these shops also sell Windows 10 Pro licenses. Somehow, they're often much cheaper than what MS sells in their own store. Completely nuts if you ask me, but ok. All you get after you pay is a text file with a license code, but that's also all you need.
I still think it's insane that MS, who so badly want developers to come back to their platform, force you to be on Pro for a lot of useful stuff (including running the WinPhone emulator (!)). This disqualifies nearly all nice laptops you can buy at a good price point, unless you subsequently go through the trouble of manually finding, buying, and entering a Pro license like I did.
If anyone from MSFT is reading this: fix this! I can't walk into a store, buy some nice cheap Asus convertible, and just start coding Windows Mobile apps, and that's stupid. Your OS is getting better again, WSL is promising, we all love how badass you've been with cross platform .NET and VS Code and getting Node.JS to work great on Windows, but you're really scaring people away here.
http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&doc...
Second I did not touch the legal aspect, just stated what the EULA contains and that it might be enforced by technical means. The law has its differences all over the world, so let's not go down that rabbit hole.
Here is another (regional) EU court result concerning exactly OEM Microsoft licenses, Microsoft didnt appeal further.
https://www.usedsoft.com/assets/Law/usedSoft-PM-Urteil-LG-Ha...
http://www.guytechie.com/articles/2010/2/25/how-slp-and-slic...
That's not to say there aren't ways around that, but it might be on a different level than just selling an OEM license.
Dates back to at least XP with Windows. The string that was checked in XP was very simple and later versions were digital certificates. Windows 10 OEM (started with 8 iirc) use per machine fingerprinting and have individual keys.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Locked_Pre-installation
System builder licences are fairly cheap but the EULA for them state that they are for putting on a new machine and selling that hardware on, if your building a machine for yourself you need a standard licence.
As for the cheap licences found on sites such as Kinguin. Speculation is a number of keys on these sites come from stolen CC's. Buy keys from legit sites with stolen Cc, sell the codes on Kinguin/G2A. Legit store is hit with charge back once CC holder realise they had their card has been used. It's been a fairly regular complaint in the indie games industry http://tinybuild.com/g2a-sold-450k-worth-of-our-game-keys
Right after that, my Fortune 250 bought a Select Agreement, and a sales rep came in to explain it and answer questions. I asked why the best price the company could buy Office 95 for was $400, when I could buy it online for half of that, and she explained that it was illegitimate. She explained that it HAD to be. Microsoft simply did not sell that software any cheaper than an A-level Select Agreement (or whatever it was).
I didn't have someone's copy of a CD with a hand-scrawled black marker label. I had an actually-stolen physical product. I realized I couldn't trust anyone online, really. Selling it for half price, with the cable, instead of, say $20, was the key to making it look legitimate.
It was the last of a lot of straws. After this, I made Linux my desktop OS, and ran it for 19 years, till I switched to Mac a few years ago.
Literally the first time I've heard someone say that about the recent state of Windows outside of Microsoft PR.
Sure, there have been some "1 step forward 2 steps back" moments, but in total the general reaction from actual users have been quite positive.
Personally, for me it's just Windows 7 with better looks and great touch screen support. I know no better OS with decent touch screen support. I really like using the touch screen. You Macbook people don't know what you're missing (but I guess that OLED touch-bar thing is going to get you halfway there, pretty cool).
My laptop is basically an iPad Pro but with a much more powerful OS (for stuff like development, especially).
* Signing packages is not necessary for normal Store distribution. Skip this step.
* Devs must work with Microsoft to get their Centennial apps in the Store right now, it's not a free for all
* There's a swath of users that can't use Centennial apps right now due to a bug that will bugcheck the box.
* Package Win32 apps and throw them in the Store
* You get package update, flighting, analytics and feedback hub integration for free
* Clean install/uninstall due to virtualized file-system/registry writes$84 a year, and as low as $67 a year if you go multi-year.
Microsoft sure knows how to keep the cash flowing.
FWIW, there are some counterexamples. There is a turn-based strategy game (think Master of Magic meets H&MM) called Age of Wonders, that originally shipped in 1999, targeting Win95/98 and WinNT 4.0 - a rare case, that, most games from that era didn't even bother with NT. I still play it regularly, and the amazing part is how it not just works on Win10 machines today, but works amazingly well. For example, it can handle pretty much any random resolution (including tablets in portrait mode and other weird corner cases), and it actually scales its UI up and down accordingly.
The most interesting part is that it does do things that were normal back then but which are no-no now, like putting savegames directly into its install folder, or saving settings under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. But because they did them in a straighforward, non-hackish way, things like Vista's and later registry and FS redirection all work great, and the game doesn't even notice it at all.
I bet it could be easily packaged into the Store, if they wanted to.
These two things are not unrelated. Windows from 2k onwards has been based on the NT line (I remember Windows 7 is internally NT 6.1, I imagine 10 is similar).
Right now, apps are manually reviewed by Microsoft to mitigate abuse. How this works in the open-for-all configuration has yet to be seen.
You can see some of the nuances of full trust apps via https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/porting/desktop... .
Once it's available for everybody, what's stopping people from uploading things they don't own?
You can also create a "flight group" consisting of your test team and only push out more broadly when your internal QA passes. Check out https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/publish/package... for details.
Windows Apps are a joke. Have you seen the "new improved" windows explorer app that just landed in insider builds? Its a frickin phone app Microsoft expects you to use on the desktop.