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Windows on ARM on Apple Silicon – An Open Conversation

Windows on ARM on Apple Silicon – An Open Conversation

Microsoft has never sustained Windows on any platform besides x86. What would make Windows on ARM succeed where others have failed? I first wrote those words almost 11 years ago in Jan. 2011, and restated them then in May of 2012, before Windows RT (Oct. 2012-Jan. 2016) had even shipped. The program to make Windows run on ARM (code-named “LongARM”) began in the Windows Core OS team… it must be nearing 20 years ago, when Longhorn was an overweight, out…

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On dancing pigs and ACLs

On dancing pigs and ACLs

Earlier today, I saw this tweet go by, and it resonated loudly: I replied with the following: Throughout the day, it’s gnawed at me a little bit, pondering if there is a law that would encompass this. Everything from Fitt’s Law to Hick’s Law, and then my mind wandered to Felten and Schneier’s quotes about the dancing pigs. I circled back to my earlier tweet, where I noted that this phenomenon perfectly reflects a desire path, applied to computer security….

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Welcome to the PC Malaise Era

Welcome to the PC Malaise Era

It has long been said that from 1973 to 1983, the American automotive industry was stuck in a rut that is now referred to as the Malaise Era. This period of time, marked by some of the most underwhelming, gutless, depressing cars ever to come out of the United States, was bookended on the frontside by the energy crisis and the need for manufacturers who had focused purely on displacement and horsepower to shift their thinking to focus instead on…

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Office on Windows. The Standard.

Office on Windows. The Standard.

Whether we’re talking Office or Windows, I’ve often encountered situations where open source advocates will stand, pitchfork in hand, and denounce the evil and cost of Microsoft software, and the ill intent of Microsoft. Sure, The Firm does everything they can to keep customers on the proprietary rails of Office and Windows. But there’s more to it than that. Organizations spend a lot on Office. That’s painfully clear to me, due to our work educating businesses on Microsoft enterprise licensing….

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Thoughts on my Nintendo Switch

Thoughts on my Nintendo Switch

A little over a week ago, I purchased a Nintendo Switch. We can perhaps call this impulse closure, but not an impulse buy. I can’t count how many times I walked by the device at stores, seriously contemplated it, and walked on, having walked totally through a logic tree that had it sitting on my shelf, unplayed after some initial joy. Perhaps we’ll get to that point, and perhaps it will arrive sooner than I’d like. But for now, I’m…

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A tenancy to overreact

A tenancy to overreact

I’m often accused of being pedantic. This isn’t something new – my brother used to call me “Perry Precise”, and would intentionally say things incorrectly to set me off. So maybe it’s not all my fault?  My day job is writing about Microsoft technology – primarily Microsoft’s identity and systems management servers and services. But I also write about licensing, and co-present our Microsoft Licensing Boot Camps every other month, around the country and once per year in London. A…

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A blog post a week for a year

A blog post a week for a year

The other day, I pondered deleting my blog entirely. But I realized a couple of things that made me reconsider: Even though my day job is writing, I really do enjoy writing on my own, for fun. I’m not terribly artistic – so writing of any kind is more or less my creative outlet. As my 45th birthday approaches, I find myself reflecting, and sort of missing the challenge that the Honolulu Marathon presented to me – it was a…

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It doesn’t have to be a crapfest

It doesn’t have to be a crapfest

A  bit ago, this blog post crossed my Twitter feed. I read it, and while the schadenfreude made me smirk for a minute, it eventually made me feel bad. The blog post purports to describe how a shitty shutdown dialog became a shitty shutdown dialog. But instead, it documents something I like to call “too many puppies” syndrome. If you are working on high visibility areas of a product – like the Windows Shell – like Explorer in particular, everybody…

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Measures <> data

Measures <> data

“The reason why businesses love measures is because they mistakenly believe that measures are real, hard data.” Karen Phelan, author of “I’m Sorry I Broke Your Company.”