I know most of you won’t care about this, but if you own one of HP’s marvelous little servers this is useful information.

I have two of these devices in my office. They are reminiscent of the old HP Home Servers, except much more solidly built. They are quiet, have four easy-to-access SATA drive bays, and at a list price of approximately $350 are quite affordable. If you’re a patient buyer it’s possible to find this model or its successor, the ProLiant MicroServer N54L, on sale for under $300. (I paid $250 each for mine, in 2012.)

For the past year, one of my microservers has been running Windows 8 (acting mostly as a media file server) and the other has been running Windows Server 2012 Essentials, performing backups and acting as a business file server and remote gateway.

After the RTM releases of Windows 8.1 and Server 2012 Essentials R2 became available, I tried upgrading both machines—and failed miserably. The upgrades went OK until the first boot, after which the system hung and refused to complete installation. I applied every update I could find, with no luck. So even as I upgraded every other Windows device in sight, these two remained stuck on last year’s software.

As it turns out, I wasn’t alone. This thread on Microsoft’s support forums turned up multiple examples of people who had been burned by the issue. I found some more on Twiiter, and lots more in this thread on the Home Server Show forums.

The problem was related to the built in network adapter on the microserver, whose firmware was giving the Windows updaters fits. And the only way to complete the installation was to disable the network card and replace it with an external adapter in one of the server’s two cramped expansion slots.

So, good news: there’s a fix available now, in the form of a firmware upgrade from HP.

If you have one of these servers, download the System ROMPaq Firmware Upgrade for HP ProLiant MicroServer (For USB Key-Media) and copy it to a local folder. Run the executable file SP64420.exe, plug in a blank USB key (it doesn’t have to be big), and launch the HP USB Key Setup Creation Utility. You can then boot the server from that key to flash the firmware.

I can confirm from personal experience that this works. And I should probably write up my experiences with both hardware/software combos someday..

Next week, I’ll be up in Redmond participating in a live Microsoft Virtual Academy event:

What’s New in Windows 8.1 for IT Professionals Jump Start

November 14, 2013

10:00am-5:00pm PST

If you’re an IT pro responsible for deploying Windows in your organization, I encourage you to tune in. I’ll be asking some Microsoft experts about some hot-button topics—security, mobility, and manageability—as they apply to Windows 8.1.

Thanks to the miracle of live demos, you’ll have a rare opportunity to see a lot of these technologies in action without having to build your own test infrastructure.

If you want a preview of some of the topics we’ll be discussing, I encourage you to download my latest ebook, Introducing Windows 8.1 for IT Professionals. It’s free, and available in PDF, Mobi (for Kindle), and EPUB formats.

Got a burning question you want me to ask? Please send it along, either in the comments of this post or via the contact form at the top of the page, and I’ll do my best to make sure it’s covered.

Disclosure: I’m being compensated by Microsoft for my appearance in this event. As always, however, all opinions expressed are my own, and there are no restrictions on what I can say or ask.

Someone asked me today whether the Mail app in Windows 8.1 is going to get a major upgrade. It was pretty clear that my associate didn’t enjoy using that app with his Surface RT.

That conversation inspired me to reread this Engadget review:

There’s no other way than to come out and say it: we are extremely disappointed in the … email app. So much so, in fact, that … mail support may be the largest factor in killing its status as a productivity device. Don’t get us wrong, the application is just fine for anyone who wants to do light email, but it lacks the power and convenience that frequent-emailers require.

That was just one of several “severe issues about the device.” So, which gadget were they talking about? Maybe not the one you think.

Oh well, I’m sure the big update a year after the original release will fix things.

Recently I bought a case from Dell for my Latitude 10 tablet (a very nice little device, by the way).

As I was throwing out the little bits of paper that came with it, I stopped at one that had a small holographic sticker affixed to the top of it with a scratch-off label, like a lottery ticket.

The paper included instructions (in 12 languages) telling me to “scratch out the coating to get the security code” and then go to www.t3315.com and input the code.

OK, I’ll play along.

All righty, then.

I think that’s Dell’s way of telling me to step away from the computer and enjoy the holiday weekend.

A bit of humor in the Tumblr Terms of Service:

You have to be at least 13 years old to use Tumblr. We’re serious: it’s a hard rule, based on U.S. federal and state legislation, even if you’re 12.9 years old. If you’re younger than 13, don’t use Tumblr. Ask your parents for an Xbox or try books.

As legal documents go, this one is particularly clear and well written.