Kurt Shintaku's Blog

During Microsoft Ignite 2018, we announced the coming preview of “Windows Virtual Desktop”.

This is an new end-to-end cloud-based desktop solution that is orchestrated through Microsoft Azure.

Windows Virtual Desktop creates scalable Windows 10 or Windows 7 desktop experiences in the cloud.

• Administrators set up the desktop space from Azure Marketplace “Windows Virtual Desktop” (Not available yet – until public preview)

Creating a Windows Virtual Desktop deployment from the Azure Portal

• Delivers a “full desktop experience” or “collections of apps” or “one specific app”
  • WVD app delivery can be initiated on local desktops & “appear” to be local apps in the Start menu
  • Supports copy & paste to the app from the local desktop, as well as save/open local files & local printers
• Supports “VDI VM-based desktops” or ‘session-based desktops” – all in one
• Session-based i.e. Remote Desktop experience is WINDOWS 10 – not Windows Server. [Exclusive to WVD]
• Supports persistent or non-persistent desktops
• Supports custom VM images or gallery-based templates
• Support Office 365 applications in a multi-user environment (i.e. all the stuff that is hard or impossible to implement or manage)
• Outlook
• OneDrive
• Supports every VM type in the Azure Gallery available in the region selected

Windows Virtual Desktops can be implemented on an VM type/SKU available in the selected region

• Supports optimizing for performance or for cost efficacy:
• breadth mode for performance (spread new VMs/sessions across all hosts)
• depth mode to optimize for costs (use one host to capacity before using another)
• Support Azure Active Directory
• Automated domain join
• Multifactor authentication
• Conditional Access

Multifactor Authentication is supported in tandem with Conditional Access for Windows Virtual Desktops

• Licensing: (any of the following)
• M365 E3/E5
• M365 Business/F1
• Windows E3/E5

I’ve aggregated everything I’ve got around Windows Virtual Desktop into a single location – PowerPoints, documents, and references at the following share:

• INFO: Windows Virtual Desktop Resource Collection (PPTX, .DOC, Videos)
  https://aka.ms/wvdresources

If you’ve ever created a Personal view within Dynamics 365, you know that they can be very useful & big time savers.

But what if you need to delete/remove an personal view or hide a set of personal views that you don’t want to appear in the “My Views” drop down list? 

Here’s how:

1. Go to you list of opportunities or engagements & click on the filter icon in the upper right hand corner, also called “Advanced Find”. 
   A dialog box will appear.
2. Select the “Saved Views” button.
   A list of all existing “personal” views will appear.
3. Check the boxes to the left of each view you wish to deactivate of delete.  Deactivating will hide the view for use later, whereas Deleting will remove the view forever.
4. Select “Deactivate” or “Delete Saved View”.

If you’re interested in Office 365 & End-user Productivity Innovations – as announced at Microsoft Ignite 2018 – we have all the news summarized for you in a few locations:

• “THE BOOK OF NEWS” – ANNOUNCEMENTS AT MICROSOFT IGNITE 2018
  To help ‘keep up’ with all the announcements we made this week at our technical conference, Microsoft Ignite 2018, we released, “The Book of News” – a 27-page PDF that reveals all the announcements that we are made at the event with links for more information for each. The majority of the news is Azure focused however the last 4 pages are oriented around workloads like Office 365.  It’s downloadable below. (.PDF, 27 pgs, 433k)
  https://news.microsoft.com/uploads/prod/sites/507/2018/09/IGNITEBOOKOFNEWS-5ba95469d658b.pdf
• ONEDRIVE ANNOUNCEMENTS
  Are you focused on Microsoft OneDrive? Did you know all the Microsoft Ignite 2018 announcements specifically about OneDrive were summarized by OneDrive product group on their blog? It’s much more comprehensive than the Book of News.  Read it here:
  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-OneDrive-Blog/OneDrive-Announcements-at-Ignite-2018/ba-p/255201
• SHAREPOINT ANNOUNCEMENTS
  And the SharePoint team has the same.  Read their announcements from Ignite here:
  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-SharePoint-Blog/Build-your-modern-intranet-with-SharePoint-in-Office-365-Ignite/ba-p/255453
  
• MICROSOFT STREAM ANNOUNCEMENTS
  The streaming technology that comes with Office 365 had some great innovations announced as well.
  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-Stream-Blog/What-s-new-in-Microsoft-Stream-Ignite-2018-announcements/ba-p/260334
• WINDOWS 10 DEPLOYMENT ANNOUNCEMENTS
  The legendary Michael Niehaus (PM for Windows Deployment) has written up a summary of all the important sessions with news in them that folks involved with Windows 10 deployment should review, along with a synopsis.
  https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/mniehaus/2018/09/29/a-recap-from-microsoft-ignite-2018/
• MICROSOFT 365 ANNOUNCEMENTS
  If you have responsibility for the Microsoft 365 suite, this may be a good summary for you to review, or you can go directly to some of these other sites for more in depth coverage:
  https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/auspartners/2018/09/28/microsoft-365-announcements-from-ignite/
• TEAMS ANNOUNCEMENTS
  https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-365/partners/news/article/from-ignite-what’s-new-in-microsoft-teams
• VIRTUAL DESKTOP – INTRODUCTION
  https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-365/partners/news/article/announcing-windows-virtual-desktop
• SECURITY ANNOUNCEMENTS
  https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-365/partners/news/article/security-innovation-puts-microsoft’s-experience-to-work-for-customers
• GENERAL PRODUCTIVITY ANNOUNCEMENTS
  This includes announcements about Office for Mac, Search, LinkedIn integration, administration for Microsoft 365, design tools for Office products, GDPR compliance technology, etc.
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2018/09/24/10-new-ways-for-everyone-to-achieve-more-in-the-modern-workplace/

Kick-start your cloud expertise with free, multimedia training for IT Professionals

Tech Academy unifies Microsoft’s learning and readiness platforms for IT Professionals and Developers into a single place. Use our curated Learning Pathways to kick-start or advance your Microsoft cloud expertise with always-up-to-date content or search across thousands of learning materials.  

• TRAINING: Microsoft Tech Academy
  https://academy.techcommunity.microsoft.com/

Tech Academy delivers content from 26 different training resources from Microsoft, including:

• Microsoft Virtual Academy: https://mva.microsoft.com/
• Microsoft Ignite On Demand Sessions: https://myignite.microsoft.com/videos
• Microsoft Hands-on Labs: https://www.microsoft.com/handsonlabs/selfpacedlabs
• Technet Virtual Labs: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/virtuallabs/bb467605.aspx

If you’re a Microsoft Edge user and you’ve ever seen the “Did you mean to switch apps?” dialog box to the right while joining a Microsoft Teams meeting, you know that clicking “YES” for every single Teams meeting you want to join gets a little tedious.

This is how to disable the “Did you mean to switch apps?” dialog box for any future Microsoft Teams meetings that you want to join:

1. Open Internet Explorer (Click START and type “Internet Explorer” and hit ENTER)
2. Copy the Teams URL from one of your Teams meeting into the Address field of Internet Explorer and hit ENTER. You can copy this URL from an appointment will look something like the URL below. A dialog box will appear.

   https://teams.microsoft.com/dl/launcher/launcher.html?url=%2f_%23%2fl%2fmeetup-join%2f19%3ameeting_YzBhMzJlOTktZjdlYi00ZDViLWEzZTgtZjJiOWFiMTBjZjI3%40thread.skype%2f0%3fcontext%3d%257b%2522Tid%2522%253a%252272f988bf-86f1-41af-91ab-2d7cd011db47%2522%252c%2522Oid%2522%254a%2522709e9cb4-f42b-4ee0-85bd-8a40f9e5dc9b%2522%257d%26anon%3dtrue&type=meetup-join&deeplinkId=72add30e-7013-4307-a4d9-b1368d2c5b75

3. Uncheck the box labeled, “Always ask before opening this type of address”.
   
4. Click the “Allow” button.

That’s it.  From now on, all Teams meeting links that you click will bypass the “Did you mean to switch apps?” dialog box and take you straight into the Teams application for your meeting.

———–

(Hat tip to TechSpeeder to for the original general guidance for this solution)

Microsoft Azure Stack is now available to order for Azure Government customers.

It was just a few months ago we shared our plans to integrate Azure Stack with our government-only cloud offering so agencies can benefit from a truly consistent hybrid cloud approach across identity, subscription, registration, billing, backup and disaster recovery solutions, and the Azure Marketplace.

Read more at the Azure Government blog:

• Announcing Azure Stack for Azure Government customers to enable IT modernization and tactical edge scenarios
  https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/azuregov/2018/08/13/announcing-azure-stack-for-azure-government-customers-to-enable-it-modernization-and-tactical-edge-scenarios/

Looking for a summary of all the security & compliance features & administrative capabilities within Microsoft Teams?

Check this documentation library out:

• INFO: Overview of Security & Compliance in Microsoft Teams
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/security-compliance-overview

JUST PUBLISHED!
Azure AD Customers should check out these detailed Azure Active Directory deployment plans to help you quickly deploy 9 frequently used AAD capabilities.

These include:

• Single Sign-on
• User provisioning
• Multi-factor Authentication
• Conditional Access
• ADFS to Pass Through Authenticaiton
• ADFS to Password Hash Sync
• Seamless SSO
• Self-service Password Reset
• Azure AD Application Proxy

Get the plans here:

• DOWNLOAD: Azure Active Directory deployment plans
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/fundamentals/active-directory-deployment-plans

Do you have a Windows Mixed Reality headset?  Is your computer domain-joined or tied to a Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) patch server, instead of using Windows Update? Does this error message look familiar to you?

"Before we can setup Windows Mixed Reality, your administrator will need to enable it for your organization"

HOW TO MANUALLY INSTALL WINDOWS MIXED REALITY ON WINDOWS 10
Here’s the steps I put together to get Windows Mixed Reality working past the aforementioned error message: (I used the Samsung HMD Odyssey" on my 15” Surface Book 2 w/ 16GB)

1. I downloaded the 1.4GB package for Windows 10 1803 located at http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/9/3/9934B163-FA01-4108-A38A-851B4ACD1244/Microsoft-Windows-Holographic-Desktop-FOD-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~.cab
   …to a TEMP directory.
2. I opened up a CMD window as Administrator by right mouse clicking CMD from the START button and selected "Run as Administrator".
3. I ran the following command:

   dism /online /add-package /packagepath:c:\temp\Microsoft-Windows-Holographic-Desktop-FOD-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~.cab
   

4. The package add took a several minutes. It ended with "The operation completed successfully".
5. I verified that "Windows Mixed Reality" got added to SETTINGS – Apps – Managed Optional Features
   (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/application-management/add-apps-and-features)
6. I rebooted with the headset still attached. Upon logging in, Windows Mixed Reality setup kicked in again – but this time after going through controller set up and boundary setup, the Mixed Reality Portal appeared.
7. I verified that SETTINGS –> Mixed Reality now appears.

INSTALLING VALVE’S “STEAM”, “STEAMVR” & “WINDOWS MIXED REALITY FOR STEAMVR”
For those of you looking for more than what the Windows Mixed Reality store provides in terms of a VR software catalog, here’s instructions on how to get Windows Mixed Reality headsets working with Valve’s Steam catalog of software & SteamVR. (tl;dr: You have to install 3 things – one of which is a bridging technology called "Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR" that has to be downloaded, in addition to Steam & SteamVR)

• https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=5608-UPAH-6427
  

Anyone that’s been working with Microsoft technology & agreements for a while knows that Volume Licensing agreements that have “license maintenance” or “Software Assurance” (Microsoft’s terminology) also have certain value-added benefits.

These benefits are called “Software Assurance Benefits” (SAB) and come with consulting services credit, training vouchers for use with CTECs, eLearning subscriptions,etc.  One of these beneftis is “24×7 Problem Resolution Support incidents”, which provide the user with the ability to call in for technical support on an issue.  These are valuable and are worth upwards of $500 per incident.

WHY or WHY NOT USE SAB 24×7 PROBLEM RESOLUTION SUPPORT (PRS) INCIDENTS
If you have nothing else, SAB PRS incidents call into Microsoft Professional Support and open Professional Support incidents which can be a godsend – however Professional Support isn’t the highest level of support one can get.

If you have a Premier Support Agreement with Microsoft however, this is the highest tier of support and your experience will always be better calling in to Premier than using Professional Support.  The technical level of support personnel is higher in Premier, responses are faster through Premier, etc.

If you have a Premier agreement, you are generally better off converting/transferring your SAB PRS credit INTO your Premier agreement which your Premier representative can assist you with.

HOW DO I USE 24×7 PROBLEM RESOLUTION INCIDENTS?
You will first need to be an authorized 24×7 PRS benefit user which is assigned by the Software Assurance Benefits administrator.

Once you’re authorized, you need the SA Access ID which is stored in the Volume License Service Center (VLSC) portal at https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/servicecenter/. (Be sure to use Internet Explorer 11 or Edge (Chromium) with IE Compatibility enabled.  VLSC can not be run in Chrome, Firefox ro Safari)  VLSC administrator or SAB administrator are the only ones that can obtain this ID.

Once you have the SA Access ID and are provided permissions to use the PRS benefit, getting support can be accomplished in a few ways.  The easiest is to initiate a support ticket by going to:

• https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/sasupport

Alternatively, you may be able to get through over the phone by dialing:

• 800-936-5700 or
• 800-642-7676

In both cases you will ultimately provide the SA Access ID to open the ticket.