Presenting at Citrix User Group, London 2018

Delighted to be taking up my first session at the Citrix User Group, London conference on legacy app migration based on my blog  on MSIX "Promise of a new world to migrants (apps)".

Title           : Promise of a new world to the migrants (apps)

Date/Time : 18th Dec @ 14:00

Duration   : 45 mins

Venue        : Societe Generale, 41 Tower Hill, London

Presenting at E2EVC, Greece

Greaing up for my second E2EVC event where I'll be taking up two joint sessions on 3rd Nov; one with Tim Mangan on "MSIX for Enterpirse" at 12:30PM and the second one with Remko Weijnen on Cloudhouse's solutions for "MSIX and Azure Migrate" at 3:15PM.

Presenting at AppManagEvent 2018, Netherlands

Looking forward to my first AppManageEvent! I'll be taking up a session on 12th Oct. 

Session Title : Get 8 years headstart on MSIX and Azure Migrate

Date, Time : 12th Oct @ 11:15 - 12:00

Venue : Mission2 Hall, Media Plaza, Jaarbeurs Utrecht

I'll be covering details on Cloudhouse's MSIX solution and Azure migrate (server migration) with some live demos. Please do join my session if these topics are of your interest. Also make sure you check the agenda (here) for other interesting sessions on MSIX and security by industry experts like Tim Mangan. 

I am looking forward to watching award winning presenters Paula J and Sami Laihoon on the stage; to get tips on improving my presentation skills :)

See you there!

Priya.

Presenting at MS Ignite on MSIX PSF

It's a big day today as I'll be joining Andrew Clinick on stage for a live demo on MSIX PSF. I'll be fixing a VB6 incompatibility issue on Win10 by using MSIX's Package Support Framework integrated with Cloudhouse's product.

Do join us for the session if you are at Ignite. Below are the details

Date/Time: 26th Sept 18, 12:30 - 1:45PM
Session: MSIX - Accelerating Windows 10 and App Deployment
Location: OCCC W314, MS Ignite, Orlando.

Looking forward to it!

Priya Saxena.

Presenting at Ignite on Azure Migrate

My first Ignite!

Here I am in Orlando, awake at 4 in the morning. I tried to go back to bed, but my body clock isn't used to US time zone yet. So, thought of publishing a blog.

Today and tomorrow I'll be taking up few joint sessions organized by Azure team along with my sales engineer Shane Doyle. I'll be demonstrating server apps migration from 2003 to 2016 using Cloudhouse's product. Apart from this, we will also be talking about issues and solutions involved in server app migration.

If interested please join us for the session. Below are the details.

Date/Time: 24th Sept 2018, 6:15 - 6:45PM
Session: Azure Migrate classroom
Location: Applications and Infrastructure quadrant.

(Repeat session)

Date/Time: 25th Sept 2018, 5:30 - 6:00PM

Session: Azure Migrate classroom

Location: Applications and Infrastructure quadrant.

Looking forward to meeting you all!

Priya Saxena.

Is PSF for me?

MSIX's Package Support Framework was released yesterday. As this is an initial blog, I am penning down some points to touch base on basic questions around PSF

1) Who is PSF for?

2) Who can create PSF fixups?

3) What skills are needed for developing compatibility fixups?

4) Where is this technology likely to lead few years down the line?

I am sure many of you must be having these questions in mind. Having worked on a very similar product at Cloudhouse, I'll try to answer some of the basic questions to give you a quick start on the skills needed to try your hands at this new framework. I am sorry for disappointing those of you who were expecting a technical blog. We will dig into the tech details in subsequent posts.

As always, a disclaimer first. These are my personal views based on my experience and don't reflect the opinion held by Cloudhouse or Microsoft.

Continue reading full post here.

Priya Saxena.

MSIX PSF - Promise of a New World for Migrants (Apps)

At MS Build 2018 (on 8th May), MSIX was launched with a promise of the new world (Win10) for the old legacy apps. I was one of the few partners who got a first-hand session from MSIX developers at a 2-day summit in Redmond before Build conference. At Build, the Windows team disclosed details of MSIX components including the Package Support Framework (PSF).

In this blog, we will take a closer look at what was revealed during the session at Build 2018 and do a technical dissection to see what this might lead to in future. I'll be interpreting PSF based on my experience of working with a similar software. So, few things might seem to be as if I am reading between the lines. As PSF isn't released yet, this write-up will touch base on basic concepts only. Once it gets released, I'll post subsequent blogs getting into details.

DISCLAIMER :

First, a disclaimer; although my day to day job involves working on similar tech at Cloudhouse and I work very closely with Microsoft's MSIX team; blogs published here don't reflect the opinion of Microsoft or my employer. I've launched this website as a community initiative to share my views and spread the word about MSIX PSF. Hence I'll be penning down my knowledge and experience on fixing legacy apps without violating my NDA. 

Now let's discuss the "What.. Why.. and How" Stuff.

Please continue reading here.

Priya Saxena.

Azure Sphere - New Kid On The Block

WHAT?? Microsoft's own Linux distribution!! That's music to my ears. Who would have thought that Microsoft will launch its own Linux distribution? In this blog, I am penning down few thoughts which struck my mind as I was wondering what might have made them take this step. I am no expert in this, so just bouncing my thoughts from a beginner's perspective.

Firstly, why Linux kernel? Why not Windows core?

MSIX - First look and my two cents!

Finally, the suspense around MSIX has come to an end! Since its announcement on Windows Developer Day in March; there were many speculations around this new file format (including one by me). I was among very few technology partners who were invited to attend a 2 days packaging summit at Microsoft last week. We got a really detailed first-hand briefing by the MSIX developers. Now that it has been presented at Build2018 yesterday, I am free to write my thoughts on it in the public domain. So, here I am penning down few points which caught my eye along with my 2 cents worth of opinion on where it will be successful and which areas need a little more thought. Let's get started with some good news first.

MSIX - The Newly Crowned King [Part2]

This is the second and final part of the series "MSIX - The New Land Registry System". Let's continue our journey from where we left in Part1; covering rest of the story 

• Starting with a short introduction to AppX
• Touch base on AppX, UWP and Windows Store issues
• Move on to The Rebellion phase;
• The negotiations phase where authorities had to relax strict rules to satisfy rebel's demands; 
• The Cops (or rather "The Secret Agents" as they kept changing their name Project C / Centennial / Desktop Bridge / Desktop App Converter), 
• Find out where did the cops fail 
• Finally, The Rise of MSIX

We will end this blog with my forecast on the newly crowned King - MSIX. 

There are lots of things to cover in this part so the blog will be a little lengthy. But I'll try to keep it as short as possible (yeah, I don't like lengthy blogs either). For those who want to read these topics in detail, I'll provide relevant links to Microsoft's website. Right, so let's get started with AppX first.

MSIX - The New Land Registry System [Part 1]

In this blog series, I am penning down very crucial technical issues which lead to MSIX using a land registry system's analogy. Yeah, I know this sounds silly but I like comparing technology with day-to-day systems as the human brain's logic always remains the same. In this first post (part 1), we will discuss the issues with old style MSIs which lead to a new way of containerizing applications. In my next post (part 2), we will explore what challenges this new approach possessed and how it eventually evolved into MSIX.

LinWin Experiment 1 : Virtualized WSL Launcher

In this blog, I am going to pen down my first experiment with Windows Subsystem for Linux where I virtualized WSL's launcher component. I'll start with summarizing my WSL learning (with links to Microsoft's site) and then take you through the setup and how I ended up virtualizing WSL launcher. I am yet to analyse it fully, so I'll be posting followup blogs as I move on with my experiments. I would really like to get feedback from those who experimented with WSL earlier. I've used tools like APIMonitor, WinDbg, ProcessHacker and Cloudhouse's Virtualization engine while trying these experiments.

WSL in a Nutshell

Windows Subsystem for Linux is a feature released in 2016 by Microsoft to run Linux binaries natively on Windows 10. I've written this blog while doing some experiments on WSL to summarise key points which I've learned. These are taken from Channel 9 videos where Microsoft's WSL team members have explained the concepts clearly. Also, Jessie Frazelle's blog is a good read to understand the internals. 

What's Next.. "Cosmopolitan OS"?

A disclaimer first; this is a debatable blog as I am penning down my views on what I see is needed in future operating systems. These are my thoughts on the capabilities an OS should have and is inspired by Microsoft's WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) feature. I am open to differing views, so feel free to share your opinion on this.

Let's start with an analogy (I am sure you might have guessed it by looking at the title). Just like a cosmopolitan city is the one where people coming from different cultures and countries live and work together; we aren't far from the time when an operating system will be able to accommodate applications coming from different operating systems (i.e. built for other OS). An operating system where all the applications can live and run on the same kernel. I termed it as a "Cosmopolitan OS".

"MSIX" - Yet another installer format? Wait, there is more to it!

The fact that you are reading this blog says that you must have installed at least one application in your life or at the least witnessed a techie hitting his keyboard and swearing at his screen while dealing with the installation/deployment nightmares!

While installing, did you ever wish that your installer could...

• Automatically resolve dependencies and make it compatible with the OS on which the app is getting installed?

• Wrap your app in a sandbox to deploy it securely?

• Fix OS-specific issues to migrate old apps to latest versions of OS?

• Generate a "Windows Store" ready application from your existing app by fixing non-compliant features?

• Make your application ready to work on any device?

• Had all the "cool" features of today's containers and virtualization technologies?

Yes, all that is possible now! At Cloudhouse we are inventing new ways to generate "intelligent MSIX containers" using our Application Virtualization technology to give your applications best of both worlds.

Reinventing the Installation Paradigm

What's Next.. "One App"?

Yeah, I hear you! That’s a confusing name “One App”, what would that mean? Sorry I didn’t find a better title (after reading this blog, you might be able to suggest a better one). A disclaimer first, this is a debatable blog, as I am questioning the very basis of the software industry. Different people might have different opinions on this and I am open to differing views and ideas.

16 Million Reasons To Fail!

The plan didn’t work. Windows 10S is dead!

Quite a few of us who used Windows 10S would have predicted that it won’t survive for long time, soon after its launch (I was one among them). Most likely “S Mode” too will be gone soon! I don’t want to sound like a critique and really hope I’ll be proven wrong this time, but something doesn’t seem right in Microsoft’s current strategies. All the recent initiatives like UWP, Windows Store, Win 10S (now S Mode) have been struggling to click in the market. Ultimately all of these will have to be rethought to accommodate the market demands.