Author: Adam Fowler

Windows Max Path Is Now A Lot Bigger

Posted on by Adam Fowler

The legacy 8.3 filename restrictions that came from the old MS-DOS days are (for the most part) long gone, but one of the other lingering legacy limitations is the 260 character limit.

Microsoft have a great article about how all this works and the reasons why. With Windows 10 anniverasry edition and Windows Server 2016, it’s possibe to get around the 260 character limit with some caveats. The new limit is 32,767 characters!

When researching this, I found quite a few articles that said how to enable the setting but didn’t really go into it any deeper, and my testing found that it’s not as simple as described. Enabling “Long Paths” doesn’t magically remove the limit, it enables longer paths in certain situations.

Firstly – enabling the policy itself. There’s a mix of information out there, and I’ve found some catches.

One of the mentioned methods of turning the feature on is to use Group Policy at Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Filesystem > Enable NTFS long paths. This doesn’t exist on my fully updated Windows 10 Pro install:

paths3No ‘Enable NTFS longs paths’ option?

I also checked on Windows 10 Enterprise fully patched, and the option was also missing. I found this similar option though, one level down:

paths4‘Enable win32 long paths’ option

The name and description are very similar. I then found this technet thread which agreed that they are the same setting.

After applying the setting and rebooting, I tested via Command Prompt to see how far I’d get:

The filename or extension is too long

I wasn’t very successful. “12characters” contains… 12 characters, so 18 folders * 12 characters = 216. Then add the slashes and you’re around 233 characters. Not quite the 260 limit, but close. Why wasn’t it working?

A few reasons; the app itself needs to support the new API calls to go beyond 260 characters, and I dare say Command Prompt hasn’t been touched yet due to the potential of breaking things.

What about Windows Explorer? This is where things got a bit strange. I couldn’t create a folder in that same path for the same reason, so I created a share on the very bottom of the tree, went to the share name and started creating more folders. I then went back to the original path to see if I could navigate all the way to the bottom, and I could:

path5Lots of subfolders!

22 folders called ’12 characters’ = 264 characters by itself, and I was then able to create a subfolder called “New Folder”. What’s strange about this is that Windows Explorer itself wouldn’t break the 260 character wall directly, but once it was passed, it was happy to read through and continue on further.

Back on the command prompt, it had let me navigate one folder further than before into the 19th, but wouldn’t delve any deeper:

path2“The full path of 12characters is too long”

What about PowerShell? That seemed to be very happy with the extra characters, so I made a complex script containing the lines “md 12characters” and “cd 12characters” many, many times. PowerShell happily went mad creating subfolder after subfolder, although the speed of subfolder creation went from ludicrous speed to very very slow as it ran.

Seeing what Windows Explorer would do, I was surprised that I’d hit a different limit:

paths6No more expand option

The ability to drill down further had gone. I could see 29 folders in the tree, and the 30th on the right hand pane, but couldn’t actually get into it. I also couldn’t create folders or files at that level or seveal levels up:

paths7Too long.

Back into PowerShell, I had to scroll to see beyond my current folder path!

paths8Lots of folders

I was also able to create files at that level. From this, if you’re going to use long paths in Windows Server 2016 or Windows 10, use PowerShell to manage your files!

This to me seems a good reason for Microsoft to not make Long Paths on by default. It should only be used for special cases, and a lot of things may break or just not support it. For example, if you’re doing a file level backup, will your backup software both read and write beyond the 260 character limit?

The best use case I can think of currently is having a location you can extract out long paths (maybe that came from a Unix box?) so you can adjust back down to the 260 limit, or get out the files you need. Microsoft always has pressure to look after legacy, and I can see the 260 character limit being around for a very long time.

Lenovo X1 Tablet Review

Posted on by Adam Fowler

A few months back, I reviewed the Lenovo X1 Yoga which was my pick of the latest X1 series of laptops (and still is). That doesn’t discount the other Lenovo offerings though, as they may be better suited to other people’s requirements more than mine.

One of those options worth looking at is the Lenovo X1 Tablet. At the time of writing, the Australian store is completely sold out of them, so they must be doing well :) Somehow I was still lucky enough to be sent one from Lenovo, and I’m glad they did.

20160926_171954Lenovo X1 Tablet Side On

The X1 Tablet is Lenovo’s take on the Microsoft Surface. A lot of ideas are borrowed, and then improvements on top. Let’s look at the specs first, then the form factor.

CPU

This has a Core m CPU – the 3 options are:

Intel Core m3-6Y30 Processor ( 900MHz 1866MHz 4MB)
Intel Core m5-6Y54 Processor ( 1.10GHz 1866MHz 4MB)
Intel Core m7-6Y75 Processor ( 1.20GHz 1866MHz 4MB)

The new mobile fanless CPUs are a lot better than they were a few years ago. Even the Apple Macbook uses them, and those CPU speeds are a base speed, not the turbo speed they’re capable of pushing to. Which one should you pick? Tough choice as the cost differences aren’t small, but apply the same logic you would as the ‘i series’ between i3, i5 and i7. Apart from a fanless design, you get a lot more bang for your buck battery wise.

Display and Screen

Just the one option here:

12.0″FHD+ IPS LED 2160×1440

20160928_15432812″ Screen

It’s a very high res which will more than meet your requirements for a 12 inch screen.The screen only comes in touch enabled, but you also get a nice pen to use. It’s similar to the Surface 3/4 pen, uses a AAA battery that can be replaced, and is nicer than the smaller pen that comes with the X1 Yoga:

20160927_085552-customBack: X1 Tablet Pen. Front: X1 Yoga Pen.

The Yoga X1 pen is smaller so it can discreetly fit into the laptop, while the X1 Tablet pen sits in an optional loop on the side of the laptop:

20160926_171934-custom

If you don’t like the loop, you don’t have to use it as it’s interchangable with a blank plate in the keyboard, which is a nice touch.

Memory and Hard Drives

The memory options are:

  • 4.0GB LPDDR3-1866 LPDDR3 1866MHz
  • 8.0GB LPDDR3-1866 LPDDR3 1866MHz
  • 16.0GB LPDDR3-1866 LPDDR3 1866MHz

If you’re doing anything beyond basic web browsing and Word/Excel type work, or like to have a lot of things open go the 8gb. 16gb should only be needed if you’re doing high end work.

Same with the hard drives. The default options are:

  • 128GB SSD SATA III
  • 256GB SSD SATA III

You can go all the way up to 1TB too.

If you don’t need a lot of local storage, you might be fine with the 128GB. You can always use an external hard drive or USB stick (USB 3.0 is very fast for read/write), but if you want to keep a lot locally on the device, go the 256GB.

Size and Weight

The tablet part by itself is 767g which is a lot lighter than any ‘i series’ laptop. The keyboard brings it up to 1.07kg which is still incredibly light. In comparison, the very light and thin X1 Carbon 4th Gen weighs in at 1.21kg.

Being a 12″ hybrid laptop the dimensions are quite small:

  • Tablet :
  • (mm) : 291.5 x 209.5 x 8.45
  • (inches) : 11.47″ x 8.25″ x 0.33″
  • Tablet + Keyboard
  • (mm) : 291.5 x 209.5 x 13
  • (inches) : 11.47″ x 8.25″ x 0.51″

20160929_094234-customX1 Tablet on a X1 Carbon Gen 1 on a ThinkPad P50

Battery

You’ll get a 2 cell Li-Polymer battery, which gives 10 hours of battery in tablet mode, and 5 hours in ‘productivity’ mode, which means the keyboard is attached. If that’s not enough battery life for you, then you’d better have a look at the Productivity Module!

Productivity Module  – 5 Hours Battery Life, HDMI™, OneLink+ and Full-size USB

Presenter Module – A Pico Projector Capable of 60″ Display from 2 Meters, Full-size HDMI™ (in/out)

Sadly these aren’t available in Australia (yet or at all?) but they both sound very cool. The productivity module adds another 5 hours of battery and a few extra connectors (including a OneLink+ dock connector which isn’t available otherwise). The projector also looks great, check out this clip from The Verge showing off the modules (I believe the 3D RealSense Camera has been abandoned):

Other Bits and Pieces

There is an optional sim slot for those people who want to be mobile and have internet access, which is discreetly hidden behind the stand. The keyboard is one of the standout parts of the X1 Tablet, where it’s as close as possible to the nice ThinkPad keyboard experience while being a thin and light addition. The keyboard attaches via magnets and pins, again similar to the Microsoft Surface. There’s also a fingerprint reader which can be used for Windows Hello, and an inbuilt camera/microphone.

20160926_172009-customBack of the X1 Tablet

20160926_172039-customSide on

20160926_172204-customX1 Tablet display on top of the ThinkPad P50

20160929_094151-custom-customX1 Tablet Keyboard

Thoughts

I was first put off by the ‘m series’ CPU, but after using it and doing a bit of research, it’s a LOT better than I expected. It didn’t feel like I was using a slower chip at all. The form factor is quite nice, 12″ is a good portable size and the kickstand is very sturdy and secure, and lets you adjust smoothly to whichever angle you like (it doesn’t click in certain angles only). The keyboard has a design that lets you raise it from being flat which gets even closer to a chunky keyboard feel, and is even backlit. The Trackpad is of high quality as per usual in the ThinkPad series.

This is a really good ‘take into meetings’ device for note taking, and if you had the projector module it could add a lot of value for small presentations. It is powerful and useful enough to be your device that does ‘all the things’ too without feeling like you’re using a tablet with a keyboard addon (looking at you, iPad). A lot of people like the 12″ screen form factor with the tablet hybrid mode, and this is the best style of it I’ve seen so far (I was never a fan of the old Thinkpad Helix).

If you don’t need as much CPU grunt, and want a highly portable device that covers a lot of different situations, I’d definitely recommend this laptop/tablet/hybrid.

Intune – Couldn’t Enroll your Device

Posted on by Adam Fowler

We started having issues with new enrolments to Intune. Nothing had changed that we were aware of, but registering a new device brought up the error “Couldn’t enroll your device. You can try again or send the error information to your IT admin in an email.” iOS or Android, didn’t matter:

screenshot_20160922-180510Intune Enrollment Error

After testing multiple accounts and multiple devices, I logged a call with Office 365 support, and eventually we worked out that for my account, I didn’t have a license applied. Intune sits under our Enterprise Mobility Suite package:

licenseIntune License is “Off”?

After checking other users, I found that everyone was in this ‘Off’ state. Weird, because we hadn’t done this, and Intune licensing was being managed by a group via Azure AD as per these instructions. That configuration was still in place too when I checked. I decided to do the logical thing and ‘turn it off and back on again’ – so I disabled the assignment on that page, then re-enabled the same group with the Intune license.

After then going back to the Office 365 User search, I found that all the users had now changed to ‘on’ again. The only recent event in the last few weeks was a renewal of our licenses, so I wonder if something happened in the back end as a part of that?

Anyway, if you see the ‘Couldn’t enroll your device’ message when using the Intune Company Portal app, make sure the user has their Intune license enabled!

Installing Azure AD Connect Heath ADDS on Windows Server 2012

Posted on by Adam Fowler

After trialing Azure AD Connect Health for Active Directory Domain Services on a single box, I thought it was time to roll out further. It’s easy to do on a Windows Server 2012 R2 box, but older servers need a few more steps.

The Azure AD Connect Health Agent Installation guide mentions steps for 2008 R2, but nothing for vanilla 2012.

I thought I’d try the same patches, which included Windows Management Framework 4.0 through the installer file Windows6.1-KB2819745-x64-MultiPkg – but ran into a problem when trying to install:

0x80096002Windows Update Standalone Installer
Installer encountered an error: 0x80096002
The certificate for the singer of the message is invalid or not found.

I tried several things to get around this, none of which worked (including adding the Windows Identity Foundation 3.5 role and running “wuauclt /resetauthorization /detectnow“.

An obvious statement was given to me by a colleague of “Isn’t WMF 5 out already?” – which yes, it was. I downloaded Windows Management Framework 5.0 which installed fine first time, then allowed the Azure AD ADDS install to complete after a reboot (a reboot WAS required).

This should also apply to Azure AD Connect Health AD FS Agent (what a mouthful) and Azure Active Directory Connect Sync.

Skype For Business 2016 – Flashing Active Call Window

Posted on by Adam Fowler

After rolling out Skype for Business 2016 with Enterprise Voice as part of the Office 2016 suite, we discovered a weird UI issue. This is nothing but a display problem, but can still be a little distracting and annoying!

On a certain call type – incoming PSTN calls – the little active call window would flash. This took some testing to realise, as logically there shouldn’t be a corellation with how a call got to your Skype for Business client, and a display issue with a call window; but it was repeatable time and time again, on multiple PCs with different logins.

I then found a Technet thread on the issue, but this was for the older Skype for Business 2015 client, which is pretty much a reskinned Lync 2013 client. That patch wasn’t applicable to Skype for Business 2016.

I then decided to log a Microsoft Premier case, which was rather quick and after showing them the problem and waiting a few days, they came back to say the problem was planned to be fixed in the Skype for Business 2016  – December 2016 patch.

We’ll see what happens in December and I’ll update this post, but in case others discover this issue, it’s not you and you’ll need to wait a few months :)