Microsoft pauses free Windows 365 cloud PC trials after ‘significant demand’ • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft pauses free Windows 365 cloud PC trials after ‘significant demand’

#131

Post by znpy » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 9:27 PM UTC

jcelerier wrote: post #115

SCHiM wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ohhh man/woman. I'm a security person. I often work with my customers' central IT. I'm not going to have an opinion or judge you, but consider: You're giving people nightmares. I've seen it go very wrong (front-page news wrong). And then the threads commenting on "how incompetent can they be, blabla". I've worked with the people stressed, sad and disappointed that they got pwned because of shadow IT. It's a ticking t…

> You're giving people nightmares. I've seen it go very wrong (front-page news wrong). And then the threads commenting on "how incompetent can they be, blabla". I've worked with the people stressed, sad and disappointed that they got pwned because of shadow IT. It's a ticking time bomb. Who cares about front-page news wrong lol. Equifax was front-page news wrong, and there were 0 actual consequences for people in it.

I like your thinking.

Re: Microsoft pauses free Windows 365 cloud PC trials after ‘significant demand’

#132

Post by znpy » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

betaby wrote: post #29

cptskippy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you use a lot of contractor developers, being able to provision out devices for temporary work is powerful. A lot of time is spent provisioning machines, white listing ips, setting up VPNs, and getting the contractor to the point where they can work. In some cases I've seen it take 2 or 3 weeks to get a contractor up and running on a 6 month contract. Being able to give them credentials to a machine that's ready…

I still didn't get how bare Windows VM can speed up a new developer on-boarding. In all my jobs slowest part was always familiarization with a new build/deploy environment. OS/Laptop setup was always trivial and took 1-2 day max, even in orgs with 20k employees.

Lol not everyone is a developer.

This offering makes perfect sense to replace those dumb dell machines equipped with 4gb ram and a core i3 with even dumber machine and slash the local it team.

Think of thin clients, all over again.

Think of call centers.

Think of receptionists, or bank clerks that all they do is use internal web-based software, and print a pdf file.

No more hardware maintenance, just throw away the whole thing (the dumb terminal) and replace it with a new one, we'll send it in for repair later.

Re: Microsoft pauses free Windows 365 cloud PC trials after ‘significant demand’

#133

Post by znpy » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 9:35 PM UTC

bserge wrote: post #119

antaviana wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had Ethernet installed in all rooms at home. For some 800 euros (5 Ethernet outlets including the router) you get sub millisecond latencies to your router and your computer works wonders again. Installing an Ethernet LAN network is the best investment for anyone who works from home. Wi-fi really sucks in urban areas and soon even in rural areas because of the IoT crap.

You get Ethernet for Gigabit speed, not latency. 5x 30 Euro routers in Wireless Bridge mode would've delivered the same latency. And I could've done the wiring for 2/3 of the price, btw.

Ethernet will almost never have noisy neighbors problems though.

Also, if GP had laid cat-6 cables maybe they might upgrade switch and clients to 10gbit/sec Ethernet.

Re: Microsoft pauses free Windows 365 cloud PC trials after ‘significant demand’

#134

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 9:35 PM UTC

donmcronald wrote: post #10

> including one at the top end that includes eight vCPUs, 32GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage for $158 per month Why is it so popular? I can't understand the economics of it. Can someone explain? Why would I pay ~$10k over 5 years for something that's similar to the laptop I'm typing on which costed me $700 used? I know it's for businesses, but even then, does it come with tooling or something that makes management eas…

"Who the heck is buying these Vms that cost 5x real hardware."

Those with the ability to pay. The Microsoft sales force knows who they are and goes after them aggressively. There really isn't anyone like you in these targetted organisations who can question these decisions. Palms have been well-greased. Try to have an intelligent converstation with a Microsoft sales person. It is like you are talking to someone in a cult.

Re: Microsoft pauses free Windows 365 cloud PC trials after ‘significant demand’

#135

Post by handrous » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 9:39 PM UTC

glennvtx wrote: post #52

notthedroids wrote: post #16

Anyone else developing on a Mac/Linux desktop, and looking at Windows 365 to run/test/prototype windows applications?

Just use a vm, what is so hard about that? It would cost nothing.

Especially since MS provides a variety of testing-oriented virtual machine images.

I could see this if you needed better performance than that, I guess, or were developing on a machine that has trouble running x86 Windows very well under any circumstances (ARM).

Re: Microsoft pauses free Windows 365 cloud PC trials after ‘significant demand’

#136

Post by greggyb » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 9:40 PM UTC

CountDrewku wrote: post #102

notthedroids wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I would have to pay $100-$200 for the software subscriptions for my Windows VM (windows license, office) it gets close? Especially if Microsoft is also throwing in some hardware so my local computer is taxed less? Of course streaming a cloud desktop introduces its own problems (latency, unreliability, etc) but also advantages (portability, reproducibility, etc)

You don't really need to pay to license windows if you're just using it for testing.

Not sure on Windows licensing, but their major enterprise software such as SQL Server and SharePoint are free for dev use cases. When installing you have to provide a license. You can select a "Dev license" option, which gives you access to all the Enterprise Edition (or whatever name they're calling the full-featured edition) features for free for dev.

Re: Microsoft pauses free Windows 365 cloud PC trials after ‘significant demand’

#137

Post by tester756 » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 9:50 PM UTC

count wrote: post #114

tester756 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If AWS started offering resources for free, then they'd have to pause it within 4h since announcement and I'm pretty optimistic I think

...they offer a ton of stuff for free.

within boundaries

Re: Microsoft pauses free Windows 365 cloud PC trials after ‘significant demand’

#138

Post by orf » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 9:51 PM UTC

tester756 wrote: post #104

Shadonototro wrote: post #98

Azure can't scale? I can't imagine this happening with AWS, what a horrible PR

If AWS started offering resources for free, then they'd have to pause it within 4h since announcement and I'm pretty optimistic I think

Their free tier is well supported and pretty generous.

Re: Microsoft pauses free Windows 365 cloud PC trials after ‘significant demand’

#139

Post by candiodari » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 10:01 PM UTC

reacharavindh wrote: post #70

donmcronald wrote: post #10

> including one at the top end that includes eight vCPUs, 32GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage for $158 per month Why is it so popular? I can't understand the economics of it. Can someone explain? Why would I pay ~$10k over 5 years for something that's similar to the laptop I'm typing on which costed me $700 used? I know it's for businesses, but even then, does it come with tooling or something that makes management eas…

I don’t need it, but I can understand why this gets traction. Enterprises can essentially give out a tightly controlled windows client to anybody that needs it, even if they are running a Mac. Severely restrict Windows without taking away liberties of the computer that the employee has. An employee can simply login to their Windows workspace and continue work regardless of their their thin client(s). Update windows w…

But I don't get it. I've helped out with security at a bank, and one of our big problems was persistent and very advanced efforts by malicious actors to compromise endpoints.

I've seen Trojans that would detect keypresses that look like bank accounts, take a screenshot and put it on top, replace the bank account number and then, seriously, detect with ocr on the confirmation page where the replaced account was and replace it there too. And these were made to steal amounts like 2k euro, maximum. I mean I guess that's still 2k euro * 1000 or so victims, but still (they do it this way because of 2FA, the customer must confirm on a second device, the little irritating calculators, the transaction)

Everything depends critically on endpoint security. You cannot make this work securely. I mean a simple Trojan could simply fake a logout, then transmit the screen + keypress control to an attacker.

And I would add: your enterprise security is not just dependent on a device you don't control, this also represents a "get out of jail free" card for malicious insiders. If they just make sure to have 4-5 viruses installed on their home machine, whatever they did in the company machine is excused ...

Re: Microsoft pauses free Windows 365 cloud PC trials after ‘significant demand’

#140

Post by CountDrewku » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 10:12 PM UTC

notthedroids wrote: post #109

CountDrewku wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't really need to pay to license windows if you're just using it for testing.

Because Microsoft permits testing without a license? Or because you believe, in practice, Microsoft will not assert its intellectual property rights against someone who is only testing? (I am personally OK with the first, not the second.)

Functionally you can use it indefinitely without licensing and only have cosmetic issues in the form of a watermark and some inability to change appearance.

Whether this breaks their tos is a bit gray....