Microsoft invites Insiders to the next Windows 10 event on January 21st

Microsoft discussed the enterprise features coming with Windows 10 at a previous event and today invited Windows Insiders to learn about the coming consumer experience at an event on January 21, 2015. Coming from Redmond, this consumer-focused event is limited to press-only invites. However there is be a live stream promised for people to watch remotely. The details on the webcast will be shared in a later post closer to the event.
The senior leaders of the Operating Systems Group including Terry Myerson, Joe Belfiore, and Phil Spencer will talk about Windows 10 along with comments from CEO Satya Nadella. This upcoming event is being called Windows 10: The next chapter.

Microsoft’s Gabe Aul sent the following email with more details of the event to Windows Insiders in-sync with the Microsoft post.

Hello, Windows Insider –
It’s Gabe again, with more information on the latest and greatest for the Windows Insider Program. But first, I want to thank you again for all the great feedback we are receiving from Insiders – we continue to improve Windows 10 with your input. Keep the feedback coming!
Just a reminder – if you haven’t already installed Windows 10 Technical Preview, you can do it here. (If you are an IT pro, Windows 10 Technical Preview for Enterprise is here.) This is pre-release software, so check out Before you install to be sure it is right for you.

Windows 10: The next chapter (January 21, 2015)
We want you as an Insider to be among the first to hear today’s announcement about our January 21 event. We’ll share more about the Windows vision and the great features and benefits of Windows 10. We’ll be livestreaming portions of the event, and Blogging Windows will be carrying blog posts that you’ll want to see. Use the Insider Hub app (more on that below) and keep reading these emails to stay current – and mark your calendar!

The Insider Hub app
Included in the latest build (9879) is the new Insider Hub app. The Insider Hub is your one-stop shop for all the latest news and announcements regarding the Insider Program.
Going forward, there may be news items that will be shared only through the Insider Hub. So be sure to check it frequently for new information, including notices about new features ready for you to test drive. In the Insider Hub we’ll also post missions, for you to try out new features and then send us feedback.
The Insider Hub isn’t pinned to your Start menu/Start screen so you’ll need to find it (and pin it!). Open it at least once so you’ll receive notifications from the app on important news and announcements.

Info for IT pros
On November 20 we hosted an almost four-hour webcast through the Microsoft Virtual Academy – Windows 10 Technical Preview Fundamentals for IT Pros. During the webcast, we talked about the enterprise vision for Windows 10, as well as new features and enhancements coming in the UI, new security and identity features, new management and Windows Store capabilities, and deployment enhancements. The webcast is now available on the Microsoft Virtual Academy website.
And be sure to also check out the blog posts on Windows 10 apps, management, deployment and security, with links to TechEd Europe sessions and more on these topics:
Windows 10: A Store That’s Ready for Business
Windows 10: Manageability Choices
Windows 10: Making Deployment Easier
Windows 10: Security and Identity Protection for the Modern World

Info for app builders
App builders who are Insiders can develop applications that use AllJoyn capability in Windows 10 – download the SDK for Windows from the AllSeen Alliance. You can learn more at the MS Open Tech blog.
You’ll be hearing from me again in January – in the meantime, you can follow me on Twitter, and don’t forget to check out Insider Hub to stay in touch.

Microsoft releases KB3024777 to uninstall KB3004394 on Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2

Following Patch Tuesday this week, Microsoft pulled two updates that were causing problems. KB3011970 which addresses Silverlight and KB3004394 which addresses Windows Root certificates were both pulled after causing a variety of issues on Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 computers.

Given the issues reported in Microsoft support forums and elsewhere following KB3004394 caused false UAC prompts, Catalyst driver installation fail, error 2147023113 for Windows Defender, the inability to install additional updates, and error 8000706f7 for Windows Diagnostic tool, Microsoft requested customers uninstall the patch. To follow up on this recommendation, Microsoft released KB3024777 which is a very small update. The reason it’s so small is because it is just a wrapper for the command to uninstall KB3004394.
Alternatively to the new uninstalling update, you may script uninstalling KB3004394 with this line:

wusa /uninstall /kb:3004394 /quiet /forcerestart

The December Patch Tuesday has not been a good one for Microsoft. Several other updates are earning their share of complaints after causing various problems. KB2986475, an Exchange Server 2010 SP3 update rollup 8, was also pulled by Microsoft. KB3002339, a patch to .NET Framework 4.5.3 is hanging on install. ActiveX controls within Excel are reportedly experiencing issues after KB2553154 and KB2726958.

Regarding Windows Updates, 2014 has not had a good track record for Microsoft. Hopefully things will turn around in 2015 for the sake of home users and sysadmins alike.

Azure Active Directory Sync tool

What is Azure Active Directory Dirsync with Password Sync?  
Formerly known as Dirsync, this tool has been updated to allow for the synchronization of local Active Directory passwords to Azure Active Directory. in addition to the syncing of users, groups and contacts.  This new feature will allow for Same Sign In with Microsoft cloud services such as Office 365 Education powered by Azure Active Directory since the username and the password from local AD will by synced up to Azure AD.
 
Where can I get the new Dirsync with Password sync bits?  
You can grab the latest version of Dirsync here or it is available in the Office 365 portal under ‘users'  and then Dirsync.

What if I am federated and using ADFS and want to switch to Dirsync with Password Sync?
You will need to convert your domain from federated to managed.  Using the
convert-msoldomaintostandard –domainname foo.edu –skipuserconversion $false –passwordfile c:\password.txt 
Azure AD cmdlet.   See here on TechNet for more details.  Note: the password file is for dumping all users temporary passwords into.


How can I tell if it is configured correctly for Dirsync with Password Sync?
You should see event ID 656 and 657 in your application event log to show that it is syncing the password hash to the cloud.

 

What are the advantages of Dirsync with Password Sync vs. ADFS?
There are a couple of advantages of using Dirsync with Password Sync over using ADFS 2.1 with Dirsync:

1) A single server is needed vs. redundant and scaled out ADFS servers.
2) No dependency with on prem hardware/data center – if Dirsync with Password Sync server dies – just replace it. There is no impact accessing cloud services with an onprem outage because the identity is a managed identity in Azure AD vs. a federated identity using ADFS 2.1.
3) No complex ADFS architectures – No ADFS Proxies, load balancers, certificate management are required. It keeps the deployment less complex with fewer moving parts.


What are the disadvantages of Dirsync with Password Sync vs. ADFS?
ADFS 2.1 with federated login provides true Single Sign On (SSO) with Office 365 where as Dirsync with Password Sync allows for Same Sign On which implies users will be prompted for credentials when accessing Office 365 even in domain joined scenarios.  ADFS 2.1 also allows for better access control based on IPs, etc.

How to create a Windows 7 / 8 Bootable USB flash drive

The fastest way for me to do this considering the machine does not have a DVD drive is to create a bootable USB flash drive with the Windows 8 installation files on. The process is pretty straight forward, but does require a little command line work.

a, First of all, you will need to download the ISO image of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview.

b, You will need to extract the files from the ISO image, so my preferred tool is SlySoft’s Virtual CloneDrive. This is free and easy to use. What it allows you to do is mount the ISO file as a drive. This will be needed later.

c, Now to format your USB flash drive. Keep in mind that this will erase all of the files on your USB flash drive, so you might want to double check it for important data before proceeding. Your flash drive should be at least 8Gb (especially if you are installing the 64bit version of Windows 8)

Plug in your USB Flash drive if you have not already done so.
Start a Command Prompt as an administrator (click the Start button and type CMD, right-click on cmd.exe and select “Run as administrator" and accept the UAC prompt, assuming you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7)

Type diskpart and then press ENTER For each line, type the parts on BOLD and press ENTER after each entry, the notes are for reference only
DISKPART> list disk (note: this will list the disks on your system. Typically look for the one that matches the capacity of your USB flash drive)
DISKPART> select disk x (note: x is the number for your USB flash drive you obtained from the list command above)
DISKPART> clean (note: this will erase your USB flash drive)
DISKPART> create partition primary (note: this will create a new primary partition on the USB Flash drive)
DISKPART> select partition 1 (note: this will select the partition you just created)
DISKPART> active (note: this will set the new partition as active, which identifies it as a valid system partition)
DISKPART> format FS=NTFS QUICK (note: this will perform a quick format on the USB Flash drive)
DISKPART> assign (note: this will assign a drive letter to the partition)
DISKPART> exit

d, Now we need to put the boot files from the ISO image you downloaded earlier on to the USB Flash drive. You will need to mount the ISO image using SlySoft’s Virtual CloneDrive. To do this, right-click on the ISO image you downloaded (i.e. Windows8-ConsumerPreview-64bit-English.iso) and select “Mount”. If you do not see the “Mount” option, it may mean that the Virtual Clone Drive (or similar) tool is not installed. Once you have selcted “Mount”, a drive letter will be assigned to the ISO image. Make a note as to what drive letter has been assigned to the ISO, in my case drive “F:”.
Next, you will need to start a Command Prompt as an administrator (click the Start button and type CMD, right-click on cmd.exe and select “Run as administrator" and accept the UAC prompt, assuming you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7).
Navigate to your ISO drive, in my case “F:” and type the following:
cd \boot (thanks Ron T for pointing this out)
bootsect /nt60 y: (note: where y: is the drive letter assigned to your USB Flash drive – this will copy across the boot files)

e, Lastly we will need to copy the installation files across from the ISO image to the USB Flash drive. To do this, type the following:
XCOPY X:\*.* Y:\ /E /J /H (note: where x: is the drive letter assigned to your ISO image and y: is the drive letter assigned to your USB Flash Drive)
You should note have a Windows 8 Bootable USB flash drive.