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Microsoft no longer allows admins to block Windows Store access in Win10 Pro

zdnet.com

221–230 of 251 posts

Re: Microsoft no longer allows admins to block Windows Store access in Win10 Pro

#221

If Microsoft wants SMBs to use Enterprise then make the Enterprise edition more easily available to SMBs, don't try to force them to move to it by making petty little changes to make their life more difficult. I can go on the Google Apps website right now and buy myself seats with a few clicks and a few minutes. If I want to buy Windows Enterprise licenses it will take weeks, cost an unclear amount (at the onset), an…

They don't want you any more. When you're ready to spend big bucks on Azure, please let them know.

I'm pretty happy spending small bucks on Azure... though, I'm less inclined to be stuck with windows, there are aspects I do prefer...

Re: Microsoft no longer allows admins to block Windows Store access in Win10 Pro

#222
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I recall correctly they want to get people on their 365. Not a good plan unless you trust Microsoft completely, of-course these kind of moves don't help their argument.

Sometimes, but significantly often, when I click on an email in the Outlook 365 web app, nothing happens. The display pane goes blank-white. There is a noticable delay when I click to focus on the search bar, and often I have to retype because I click and go to start typing in my search term and lose the first few characters. Almost always, when I search for an email in the Android app, it just hangs and even if I le…

Unfortunately, it isn't just the web app... using full on outlook really sucks compared to Outlook + Exchange a decade ago. I understand it's more about distribution and scale, but it's annoying that your unread counters can't even stay properly synced.

Re: Microsoft no longer allows admins to block Windows Store access in Win10 Pro

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Linux it only really needs to reboot for kernel updates. If you don't update your kernel often, then you could do updates every day and not have to reboot at all. At home I run Arch Linux, and I do updates almost every day. Usually my uptime can easily be measured in weeks. At work I have Windows 7 on my laptop. I have to restart my laptop twice a week at a minimum, because every tiny fucking update requires a re…

Windows 7 is almost 7 years old though. Just the other day I noticed that my Windows 10 machine updated its video driver without having to restart. Things have definitely improved since Windows 7.

Windows 7 actually has that ability, too! I even think that change came with the new graphics driver model (WDDM) in vista.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Display_Driver_Model...

Re: Microsoft no longer allows admins to block Windows Store access in Win10 Pro

#224
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

User control is, by definition, security. The goal of security is to keep control in the hands of the owner. To remove control in the name of security is at best deceptive and self-defeating.

No. The user might use his control to make his computer less secure. Then it does't have security. And in real life, most user do exactly this when they have the option easily available. Most viruses spread through user control. Users choose to run programs which are viruses. Users choose to not upgrade their insecure software. Those are pretty much the main ways viruses spread.

You start off by saying "The user might use his control to make his computer less secure" which is true. But just two sentences later you claim "users choose to not upgrade their insecure software" which is obviously false. They might but the might not.

I could argue the same way and claim that removing user choice might make the computer less secure e.g. by forcing updates to an insecure version, installing backdoors etc. In the real world, this is exactly what happens. Therefore removing user control makes computers less secure. Now do you agree or do you think that my argument is deeply flawed?

Re: Microsoft no longer allows admins to block Windows Store access in Win10 Pro

#225

If Microsoft wants SMBs to use Enterprise then make the Enterprise edition more easily available to SMBs, don't try to force them to move to it by making petty little changes to make their life more difficult. I can go on the Google Apps website right now and buy myself seats with a few clicks and a few minutes. If I want to buy Windows Enterprise licenses it will take weeks, cost an unclear amount (at the onset), an…

> People want to give Microsoft money, but Microsoft is intent on making the entire thing as painful as possible and their licensing as obtuse as possible.

This.

I don't know if this is still the case, but a few years ago I bought an MSDN subscription, and it took weeks. I could never figure out why they made it so difficult, nor why they forced me to go through partners. Just add a subscribe button on your own website, let me pay and be done with it. How you handle distribution is not my business (and I reckon distribution is not an issue anymore, since I think nobody chooses to have CDs delivered instead of downloading what they're interested in).

Again, this was a few years ago. I hope by now they have fixed this process, because it was completely broken.

Re: Microsoft no longer allows admins to block Windows Store access in Win10 Pro

#226
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds of the time when I wanted to get a license for a piece of software and they only offered training courses for teams coupled with a software license. I chalked it off as being outside their customer target group.

Which software was that? Sounds very "enterprise".

It wasn't enterprise, but the company is nice to the community otherwise, so I don't want to name them here. They just didn't seem to have single-developer target as part of their sales process.

Re: Microsoft no longer allows admins to block Windows Store access in Win10 Pro

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm slightly confused...you think the multiple users RDPing into it will cause an increase in cost if you go 100% legit? The price of the windows OS is priced into the Azure hosting costs. Windows vms are a bit more expensive than linux ones for this reason.

Remote Desktop on Azure is a bit of a licensing nightmare. See this [1] old blog post: > Effective January 1, 2014, Volume Licensing customers who have active Software Assurance on their RDS User CALs are entitled to RDS CAL Extended Rights, which allow use of their RDS User CAL with Software Assurance against a Windows Server running on Windows Azure Licensing costs for Remote Desktop Services (not Azure RemoteApp)…

Exactly right - you only get 2 admin RDP licenses with Azure Windows VM. More users requires running RD License Host and using either user or device RDS CALs (not to be confused with Server access CALs which ARE included with Azure cost). Further, extended rights enablement seems (to still) requires an active SA contract.

To make matters worse (and this is unclear) you can only do RDS User CALs in Active Directory mode, but must use Device RDS CALs in workgroup mode, making an install scenario where a couple of users just want to share a desktop app (quickbooks, for example) a freaking nightmare.

In essence, it seems that RDS licensing is currently targeted only at hybrid deployments (e.g. you're taking your RDS from on-premises to hybrid via SA/Extended Rights).

As of this summer, it should be possible to also use RDS via SA/ExRights on AWS, which, ironically, costs materially less than Azure for a Windows Server license on top of decent hardware+ssds.

Oh, and because its microsoft, every single possible combo of user/device/rds/sa/whatever licenses carries its own SKU. After this "exercise" I know far more than i ever wanted to about Microsoft licensing :(

Re: Microsoft no longer allows admins to block Windows Store access in Win10 Pro

#228
post #46
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft is a huge organization with tens of thousands of employees. We have no idea what was communicated between this commenter and the sales person. At some point you have to kind of step back and realize that you're responsible for your outcomes and not blame everything bad that happens to you on others. Searching Google with "startup microsoft" or "startup pricing microsoft" would have been enough effort to fig…

The fact that you have to go to Google to search to find Microsoft pricing, and have to already have the knowledge that they have special "startup" pricing is a failure on Microsoft's part.

I still can't find accurate Microsoft pricing with my Google-fu. It's ludicrous!

Re: Microsoft no longer allows admins to block Windows Store access in Win10 Pro

#229
post #143

If Microsoft wants SMBs to use Enterprise then make the Enterprise edition more easily available to SMBs, don't try to force them to move to it by making petty little changes to make their life more difficult. I can go on the Google Apps website right now and buy myself seats with a few clicks and a few minutes. If I want to buy Windows Enterprise licenses it will take weeks, cost an unclear amount (at the onset), an…

What's the rationale for not selling windows enterprise licenses on amazon? What's so special that it requires an official reseller?

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft no longer allows admins to block Windows Store access in Win10 Pro

#230
post #143

If Microsoft wants SMBs to use Enterprise then make the Enterprise edition more easily available to SMBs, don't try to force them to move to it by making petty little changes to make their life more difficult. I can go on the Google Apps website right now and buy myself seats with a few clicks and a few minutes. If I want to buy Windows Enterprise licenses it will take weeks, cost an unclear amount (at the onset), an…

What's the rationale for not selling windows enterprise licenses on amazon? What's so special that it requires an official reseller?

If Windows Enterprise Licenses were on Amazon then Microsoft could not maximize how much money they make on Windows Enterprise Licenses. They rely on the information asymmetry to charge you as much as they think they can get out of you.
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