@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Today I was called communist for shopping at Walmart.

Lol what?

Here's a real example.

I'm renting. I love the area we're in. There are other areas where we would enjoy living as well that are exactly the same.

I'm paying under $3K a month for rent. It's a large condo, 3BR 2Bath, wonderful area, 4 pools 4 hot tubs, awesome view, great location, great & quiet neighbors, great community.

Renting other places around here are similar priced, many are a few hundred $ more for now, but still in range.

We'd like to buy a house in our current area, or another area we like, and pretty much keep our current standard of living as we are in this condo, but in house form.

If we did that, the minimum mortgage payment we're looking at MINIMUM is $6.5K, that is with dumping a bunch of cash as a down payment... note that the $6.5K does not include insurance, PMI, taxes, closing costs, etc.

So you see, renting and owning a home is not the same thing. Just because I choose to rent, doesn't mean that I automatically will rent the same kind of house that I would want to buy. So it's just not logical to me to compare them like that. Typically, you rent to save money. Sure, I could rent a house for $8K a month, but wtf would I do that? I'd rather buy! Except, I don't want to buy, because I need the freedom to be mobile and choose where to live and not be stuck... I don't want to throw all my money into a house and live paycheck to paycheck and be forced to sell at the next higher bubble than is currently to make anything.

Yeah, we could move to a cheaper area, but we don't want to. There's no point because we just don't want to give up what makes us live happy and looking forward to the next day/weekend/time off, etc.

I'd rather keep renting, and saving money, and investing money, that I'm not throwing into a house that I may or may not get back plus more later, if life works out perfectly for home ownership. I'm very likely to move as well, need that freedom, while saving! We can't time our life according to the house, we need our housing to work for us.

@Dashrender said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

How are these investment groups making any money buying all of these houses and then renting them all

It's not guaranteed that they do. Look at some recent examples of companies over paying for homes and getting screwed. It happens a lot. It's also not only about making money for them on the house, it's about holding money. There's so many loop holes in the system that it is a way to legally launder, avoid other things such as taxes, etc.

That said, when you can buy homes with cash, it is less likely to be a liability. They avoid PMI, mortgage, interest, not living in the home so aren't tied to it, much easier to time the market to buy and sell, etc. They tend to immediately find renters because these home are usually move in ready. If not, they have other plans.

@Mario-Jakovina said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

@Obsolesce House is definitely an asset.
The most typicall form of asset.

(Look at any balance sheet, and real estate is always in assets, where else would it be?)

Mortgage is liability.

https://biesingerfirejourney.com/house-asset-or-liability/

https://www.richdad.com/what-are-assets-and-liabilities

https://medium.com/the-investors-handbook/is-a-house-an-asset-or-a-liability-5c57ca3190bb

https://www.clevergirlfinance.com/blog/is-a-house-an-asset/

https://www.foreignersfinances.com/is-a-house-an-asset-or-a-liability/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-your-house-an-asset-or-a-liability/

I can keep going if you want.

@Jimmy9008 a house is not automatically an asset. In most cases when buying a house with a mortgage, it is considered a liability. It can take a long time to become an asset, if ever at all.

@scottalanmiller said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

@Obsolesce said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

@Obsolesce said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

Additionally, had you put 202K into an index fund in 2005,what would it be worth today?

Looks like gains of nearly $400K (s&p index fund) after adjusted for inflation, nearly $600K without.

So basically a loss of ~$400K comparing the two unadjusted numbers.

Assuming 17 years with zero maintenance or repairs or other overhead.

Can't forgot about closing costs and taxes, there's that too.

We keep it simple, vanilla PC through Autopilot if possible, or set up PC with work or school account. In either case, sign in with Okta account and Intune takes over... Config, compliance, policies, remediations, required apps, settings, etc. Typically from opening box to end user working in less than 15 minutes without IT ever having touched the device at all.

@Obsolesce said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

Additionally, had you put 202K into an index fund in 2005,what would it be worth today?

Looks like gains of nearly $400K (s&p index fund) after adjusted for inflation, nearly $600K without.

@Dashrender said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

@Mario-Jakovina said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

This source (and others) says that prices of houses in US have risen more then 100% percent in 20 years, so it is much faster then inflation:

This is pretty much true here in NE, but that's mainly during/post pandemic - leading up to the pandemic, it might have been around 30% more than I paid...

Bought my house in 2005 for $202K, today 'valued' at $380+

As for my actual income - it's been raising around 1%/year

Curious, over the last 20 years, how much interest have you paid? How much in insurance? How much in maintenance and repairs? How much in upgrades and add-ons? How much in other things? How much did you miss out on because of not wanting to move for better income being held back by a house? What about after adjusted for inflation?

Additionally, had you put 202K into an index fund in 2005,what would it be worth today?

@DustinB3403 said in Windows SDK to build an MSI:

@Pete-S said in Windows SDK to build an MSI:

@DustinB3403 said in Windows SDK to build an MSI:

Hey all, long time since I've posted. To summarize the ask is anyone familiar enough with Windows SDK to build an MSI out of an EXE? Hoping for a crash course on this.

The software vendor provides only loose instructions to building an MSI, but it's all for SCCM and not SDK.

Thanks

Why not convert the exi (as it is) to msi file without building it as an msi?
There are wrappers and converters out there that will do it.

Or are you looking for special customization of the msi files?

The exe has no options at all, I did try a wrapper but it failed to work. So I figured might as well go down the road that's been paved..

What options are required?

@DustinB3403 said in Windows SDK to build an MSI:

@Pete-S said in Windows SDK to build an MSI:

@DustinB3403 said in Windows SDK to build an MSI:

Hey all, long time since I've posted. To summarize the ask is anyone familiar enough with Windows SDK to build an MSI out of an EXE? Hoping for a crash course on this.

The software vendor provides only loose instructions to building an MSI, but it's all for SCCM and not SDK.

Thanks

Why not convert the exi (as it is) to msi file without building it as an msi?
There are wrappers and converters out there that will do it.

Or are you looking for special customization of the msi files?

The exe has no options at all, I did try a wrapper but it failed to work. So I figured might as well go down the road that's been paved..

You've tried those like /verysilent and such?

@DustinB3403 said in Windows SDK to build an MSI:

Hey all, long time since I've posted. To summarize the ask is anyone familiar enough with Windows SDK to build an MSI out of an EXE? Hoping for a crash course on this.

The software vendor provides only loose instructions to building an MSI, but it's all for SCCM and not SDK.

Thanks

Why can't you install the EXE? Why does it have to be MSI?

@JaredBusch said in Hyper-V 2012R2 unable to add boot device:

@Obsolesce said in Hyper-V 2012R2 unable to add boot device:

@JaredBusch

Does deleting the DVD drive, applying that, then adding it again get it listed?

It did not add it to the list.

But when I first click New DVD drive, the Firmware changes to say boot entry changes pending.

but nothing is changed in the end.

Very weird.

Do you have enough free space to duplicate the disk and attach it to a new VM? Not sure if that'll work, might be worth testing with a test VM and disk with same OS.

@JasGot said in Hyper-V 2012R2 unable to add boot device:

@Obsolesce Where? Can you circle it?

Go create a gen1 VM, look at the settings, then look at Jared's screenshot. It'll be 1000% clear.

@JasGot said in Hyper-V 2012R2 unable to add boot device:

@JaredBusch Is the VM Gen1 or Gen2?

Look on the Summary tab at the bottom of Hyper-V Manager when the VM Server is highlighted.

You can easily see it's Gen2 by the settings window in his screenshot.

@JaredBusch

Does deleting the DVD drive, applying that, then adding it again get it listed?

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

I'm in Houston. Getting some work done before turning in for the night. Long, but good, day of travel.

How long you going to be in Houston?

@WrCombs said in Task Schedule Failed:

@Obsolesce said in Task Schedule Failed:

@WrCombs said in Task Schedule Failed:

SO Iknow whats causing the issue, I'm just not sure how to fix it.

Windows 11 device, Task is scheduled to start a program

c:\program files (x86)\Parent Director\Subdirectory\program /switch1 /switch2 /switch3 

It shows Last Run results 0x4 Which I find out means "System can't access path/file"

I Changed user, and tried running it again (different admin user) no change, same status.

I go to CMD to see if I can path to it - Can't find path specified - tried writing it a different way (with spaces, without spaces)

Having a hard time understanding why it can't run this program - it's needed to import sales into a different system every day.

The owner of the software suggested making sure DotNetFramework 4.5 or higher was installed and repair it. which it is, 4.8 is installed currently.

Any ideas how I can resolve this?

Export the scheduled task as xml so we can get a clearer picture of what it is. Clean it up before posting.

what do you mean "clean it up before posting" ?

As in censor sensitive info before posting it publicly.

Having the xml export of the scheduled task will show us exactly all configured options and settings of the scheduled task.

And yes, it would have shown that you were missing quotes in the command / paths.

@WrCombs said in Task Schedule Failed:

SO Iknow whats causing the issue, I'm just not sure how to fix it.

Windows 11 device, Task is scheduled to start a program

c:\program files (x86)\Parent Director\Subdirectory\program /switch1 /switch2 /switch3 

It shows Last Run results 0x4 Which I find out means "System can't access path/file"

I Changed user, and tried running it again (different admin user) no change, same status.

I go to CMD to see if I can path to it - Can't find path specified - tried writing it a different way (with spaces, without spaces)

Having a hard time understanding why it can't run this program - it's needed to import sales into a different system every day.

The owner of the software suggested making sure DotNetFramework 4.5 or higher was installed and repair it. which it is, 4.8 is installed currently.

Any ideas how I can resolve this?

Export the scheduled task as xml so we can get a clearer picture of what it is. Clean it up before posting.

@JasGot said in How Do You Replace Active Directory?:

@scottalanmiller said in How Do You Replace Active Directory?:

Just use local accounts. It's so easy that you can manage the whole environment for less effort than maintaining AD.

Curious.... How are you enforcing password changes at the local PC for users?

If you are using corporate identities for employees on corporate owned devices, there's no need for local user accounts. You can use, for example, Okta/Azure AD/etc as your identity provider along with MFA with Azure/Okta/Duo/etc and the users can use their corporate provided identities to log on to their devices. Using that method there is no need to do anything there locally on the device.