HyperVoria

I Want My, I Want My, I Want My Hyper-V TV

Kenneth van Surksum — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:23:00 GMT

Tony Soper We’ve published a new topic in the TN Library that lists new Hyper-V videos in LIFO order. Check it out at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee731912(WS.10).aspx

If you are interested in sorting these by number of views as of today:

VIDEO: Hyper-V Virtual Networks Overview

Kenneth van Surksum — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:25:00 GMT

An overview of Hyper-V’s Virtual Networks

VMware: Hyper-V turns Windows into DOS

Kenneth van Surksum — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:58:00 GMT

The trash talk in the Microsoft vs. VMware feud once reached Reggie Miller vs. Spike Lee heights. The two companies rarely passed up the opportunity to disparage, make fun of or even spread lies about each other.

But things had quieted down lately, and a lot of the more recent trash talk just rehashed old criticisms and insults. That is, until VMware issued its “Competitive News Flash” about Hyper-V R2, which compares “Microsoft myths” to “VMware realities.” (Hmm, where have we heard that before?)

Virtualized Infrastructure with Hyper-V from BriForum 2009

Bink — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:03:00 GMT

This is the slide deck from the "Hyper-V and System Center: How Good Can It Be?" presentation from BriForum 2009 in Chicago. It looks at the solution of Hyper-V R2 and the System Center suite (SCVMM, SCOM, SCCM and DPM - the latter two briefly) and exposes the good, bad and ugly.

Download: Hyper-V and System Center: How Good Can It Be? - BriForum 2009

Installing Virtual CD Software in a Virtual Machine

Kenneth van Surksum — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:18:00 GMT

Ben Armstrong: Like many Hyper-V users, I have created ISO images of most of my CDs / DVDs (and in the case of my MSDN software – have downloaded in ISO format to begin with). I then have these images stored on a file server.

It is possible to connect a CD ISO image on a file server to a Hyper-V virtual machine, as long as you are working in a domain environment and you are running the Hyper-V management user interface directly on the Hyper-V server.

Hyper-V How To: Test Hosts for Proc Compatibility for VM Migration

Kenneth van Surksum — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:31:00 GMT

In Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V R2, when a running or a saved state virtual machine is migrated to another virtualization server (also called “host”), the destination server may have a processor with a different set of features. An operating system or application that attempts to execute CPU features discovered when the virtual machine was started on a "source" machine, but not present on the destination (called "destination") machine, will cause a virtual machine migration failure.

Active Directory in Hyper-V environments, Part 6

Kenneth van Surksum — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:52:00 GMT

Virtualization offers huge benefits in flexibility, cost-effectiveness and eco-friendliness. It’s an easy business case to make to any IT department nowadays. After all, Gartner claims the cost of energy outweighs the initial purchase of an x86 server in its first three years. However, most virtualization projects aren’t legacy-free: To make a virtualization business case stick, often the choice is made to virtualize existing (physical) servers to virtual machines.

Hyper-V Management + Delegated Administration + SCVMM

Kenneth van Surksum — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:11:00 GMT

Ben Armstrong: A while ago I blogged about how to allow non-administrators to control Hyper-V. You do this by editing the Hyper-V authorization store. What I failed to mention at that time was that this method does not work if you are using SCVMM to manage your Hyper-V servers.

When you start using SCVMM to manage a Hyper-V server, SCVMM creates their own authorization store to be used by Hyper-V. As long as you only use SCVMM to manage your environment – this is fine. But if you want to continue to use the Hyper-V management tools, and want to allow a non-administrator to control Hyper-V – you can do this.

All you need to do is to is follow the directions in my original post – but instead of editing “\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V\InitialStore.xml” on the system partition edit “\ProgramData\Microsoft\Virtual Machine Manager\HyperVAuthStore.xml” on the system partition.

Then everything will work correctly.

Microsoft® Hardware-Assisted Virtualization Detection Tool

Kenneth van Surksum — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:06:00 GMT

Windows Virtual PC requires processors capable of hardware-assisted virtualization with AMD-V™, Intel® VT or VIA® VT turned on in the BIOS.

The HAV detection tool helps you check if the computer processor supports hardware virtualization. The tool also checks if this feature is enabled on the processor.

Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2 eBook Available as Free Download

Kenneth van Surksum — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:03:00 GMT

Oliver Rist, Technical Product Manager Windows Server Marketing: Thanks much to the Microsoft Learning and MS Press folks for such a fantastic giveaway. I remember getting the pre-cursor for this book, Introducing Microsoft Windows Server 2008, before I joined Microsoft and it was a huge help in getting grounded with the then-new OS. Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2 is a deep-dive work, that'll get you up to speed on how R2's new features and capabilities work, including Hyper-V and RDS virtualization, management, IIS and the new Web application platform and, of course, all the synergistic goodness between Windows Server and Windows 7. Free for a click, so don't miss out.

Setting up Hyper-V with a UPS

Kenneth van Surksum — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:59:00 GMT

Ben Armstrong: People have asked me how you go about setting up a UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) with Hyper-V. This is much easier than it sounds. The first thing to understand is that when you shut down the physical computer, the virtual machines will be automatically put into a saved state. Virtual machines that were running when the server shuts down will be started automatically when the physical computer starts back up.

Hyper-V How To: Free Tools for Hyper-V Management

Kenneth van Surksum — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:05:00 GMT

Free-as-in-beer Codeplex help for Hyper-V admins.

PowerShell Management Library for Hyper-V

A project to provide a PowerShell management library for Hyper-V

Hyper-V Web Manager

Hyper-V Web Manager (HVWM) is a web-based management utility for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V role. The web manager will eventually give you most of the functionality that is available in the Microsoft Management Console for Hyper-V.
The project is not an official Microsoft project and is not developed by Microsoft employees.

Hyper-V Server 2008 Local Management scripts / UI

Hyper-V Server 2008 is based on Server Core and has no local management possible. One must have a second machine (either Windows Vista SP1 or Windows Server 2008). This project intends to develop various scripts and put them together in to a small user interface for easier / local management of hyper-v server. Most of the functionality (except VM console access / Guest Install) achieved using Hyper-V Management MMC will be mimiced here.

Hyper-V Powershell Snap in

A Powershell snap-in to access and manager Hyper-V Servers (locally or remotely)

Hyper-V Machine Recovery Tool

Small tool to recover/import Hyper-V machines which were not exported. This will include snapshots related to the Hyper-V machine.

Meet the team behind codeplex in this C9 vid: http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Glucose/Hanselminutes-on-9-Inside-CodePlexcom/

More on VHD files

Kenneth van Surksum — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 14:41:00 GMT

James O'Neill: I’ve had plenty to say about the uses of VHD files on different occasions. They get used anywhere we need to have a file which contains an image of a disk. So from Vista onwards we have had complete image backup to VHD, we use VHD for holding the virtual disk to be used by a Virtual Machine (be it hyper-V , Virtual PC or Virtual Server – the disks are portable although the OS on them might be configured to be bootable on one form of virtualization and not another), and so on.

Hotfix needed to move R2 differencing disk to Windows Server 2008

Kenneth van Surksum — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 14:39:00 GMT

Ben Armstrong: A virtualization MVP recently bought this to my attention:

In Windows Server 2008 R2 there was a minor change to the format of differencing virtual hard disks. As a result you will need to apply an update to Windows Server 2008 if you want to move differencing disks from Windows Server 2008 R2 to Windows Server 2008.

You can download this update from here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971677

Note that this applies to Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 SP2 (not to Windows Server 2008 R2). If you do not have this update installed and you try to use a differencing disk created with Windows Server 2008 R2 you will receive an error message that states that the virtual hard disk is corrupted or unreadable.

Hyper-V Hotfix for "0x00000101 - CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT" on Nehalem systems

Kenneth van Surksum — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 14:35:00 GMT

We have just released a new hotfix for Windows Server 2008 R2 that address the issue that users were getting a bluescreen of death on Intel Xeon 5500 series processor-based computers with the following text:

0x00000101 (parameter1, 0000000000000000, parameter3, 000000000000000c)
CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT

You can download the hotfix from here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975530

Using Hyper-V without re-installing your world

Kenneth van Surksum — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:06:00 GMT

Question: I need to run a hyper-v virtual machine but Windows 7 is my production operating system. Do I need to re-build my machine?

Answer: Absolutely not.

If you are running Windows 7 today, there’s no reason to tear down your machine, re-partition your drive, and reinstall your world. Instead, you can simply install Windows Server 2008 R2 into a .VHD file and make it bootable. After that is accomplished you can choose the OS you want when you power up your machine. The following steps are the simplest way (currently) to do this. It really doesn’t get any simpler.

Citrix attempts to lure VMware customers, even if they adopt Hyper-V

Kenneth van Surksum — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:00:00 GMT

In July VMware attempted to win those Virtual Iron customers left in the cold by Oracle with an aggressive discount program.

Now it seems that VMware has to defend against a similar move from Citrix, which launches today the Open Door program.

The rules are simple:

The Project Open Door promotion will be effective worldwide from October 1 – March 31, 2010. Customers who decommission five or more VMware vSphere 4 or VI3 servers and replace them with XenServer or Hyper-V plus the Citrix Essentials solution, receive the following:

A free five incident support pack (5 by 8 hours) for every five servers converted

A voucher for six hours of online training for every five servers converted

Free migration tools for seamlessly transferring virtual machines from VMware to XenServer or Hyper-V

Why Hyper-V virtual networks are less secure than physical networks

Bink — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:05:00 GMT

When you think about a virtual switch, do you envision a black or dark-blue box that consumes 1U or 2U at the top of server racks? That ever-present device from Cisco, 3Com or Juniper creates the networking fabric within which your IT infrastructure communicates. Built into its network hardware is a mature Internetwork Operating System that enables the complex routing, switching and access control that users have come to expect from production networks.

Yet any vision of a virtual switch that exactly mirrors a physical one is only fantasy with today's technology. The virtual switches within virtualization platforms such Microsoft's Hyper-V might resemble their real-world counterparts, but virtual switches today provide only a subset of the capabilities of physical servers.

That lack of functionality can be a problem for organizations that make assumptions about virtual network security. Simply put, virtual networks are not physical networks, and they need special attention to be secured properly. First and foremost, Hyper-V's virtual switches are "Learning Layer 2" devices, which means they route their packets based on Media Access Control addresses. It also means that Hyper-V's switches don't understand and can't process the more-advanced IP-based routing and access-control features commonly found in today's Layer 3 switches. In essence, an access control list (ACL) can't be applied to an internal Hyper-V virtual switch using current technology.

Hyper-V's virtual switches are also limited because they lack support for third-party monitoring and enforcement of virtual network traffic. Once traffic leaves a physical network and enters Hyper-V's internal virtual realm, it disappears from any external intrusion prevention or detection systems.

Thus, a Hyper-V networking environment requires a few workarounds to duplicate the high levels of security found in some physical servers.

Continue At Source

Cloning Hyper-V Virtual Machines the Right Way (Part 1)

Kenneth van Surksum — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:07:00 GMT

Although it is relatively easy to make a clone of a virtual machine, the cloning process is less than intuitive. This article series shows you how to avoid disaster by creating a virtual machine clone in the proper way.

You have probably heard that server virtualization products such as Hyper-V make it easy to clone virtual server images or to move virtual servers to new hardware. However, if you ever actually tried to build a server image and then clone it, you might have been surprised by how non intuitive the process actually was.

Hyper-V How To: Download Free Win7 VHD

Kenneth van Surksum — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:58:00 GMT

The free VHD program now includes Windows 7 free-as-in-beer VHD for your testing, hobby and POC pleasure.

The fine print:

Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V is required to use this virtual machine
In addition to the system requirements for Windows Server 2008 as described in the release notes, a 64-bit system with hardware-assisted virtualization enabled and data execution prevention (DEP) is required.
It is also recommended to ensure that you have a clean install of x64 edition of Windows Server 2008 to be able to use the Hyper-V technology. Prerequisites, installation steps, OS recommendations, and known issues of Hyper-V can be found here
Like all the free VHDs, this one expires in 90 days
Like all free VHDs, windows validation is required

Steve Ballmer interview

Bink — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 19:22:00 GMT

As you know Steve Ballmer was in The Netherlands last week to launch Windows 7, right after the keynot in The Hague he went to Rotterdam" to record a TV show "Nova College Tour" at the Erasmus University. The show has a host and students as an audience, both ask questions.

Again very interesting to hear and see Ballmer. In the show they talk about his early life, competiters, his goals in life and more.

The show just aired, but is already online:

(it starts in Dutch, but as soon as Ballmer appears its English with subtitles.

http://cgi.omroep.nl/legacy/player?/ceres/nps/rest/2009/NPS_1145923/bb.20091011.asf

Explaining the Hyper-V authorization model, part five

Kenneth van Surksum — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 19:11:00 GMT

This post describes a change to the authorisation model in Hyper-V for Windows Server 2008 R2. If you recall from part one, I mentioned that there are 33 operations defined in AZMan for Windows Server 2008, and 34 operations for Windows Server 2008 R2.

Clustered Hyper-V Upgrades from Server 2008 to Server 2008 R2

Kenneth van Surksum — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:58:00 GMT

Symon Perriman: We’ve just published documentation describing the upgrade path for clustered VMs on 2008 Failover Clusters to 2008 R2 Failover Clusters. Hyper-V Upgrades: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957256

This complements our other migration documentation to get you to Windows Server 2008 R2.

·         General R2 Migration Guide: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc730990.aspx

·         Migration from R2 RC to R2 RTM: http://blogs.msdn.com/clustering/archive/2009/09/02/9890272.aspx

o   This has other steps and recommendations for many clustered resources.

·         DHCP Migration from 2003 or 2008 to R2: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee460952(WS.10).aspx

Hyper-V How To: Understand Security Auditing

Kenneth van Surksum — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:32:00 GMT

Tony Soper: Read the Windows Server 2008 R2 security auditing resources below – and you’ll be up to speed:

Advanced Security Audit Policy Step-by-Step Guide
This step-by-step guide for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 demonstrates the process of setting up an advanced audit policies infrastructure in a test environment. During this process, you will create an Active Directory domain, install Windows Server 2008 R2 on a member server, install Windows 7 on a client computer, and configure two advanced audit policies.
Which Versions of Windows Support Advanced Audit Policy Configuration?
This page provides information about the versions of Windows that support advanced audit policy configuration and special considerations that apply to various tasks associated with auditing enhancements.
Planning and Deploying Advanced Security Audit Policies
This document explains the options that security policy planners must consider and the tasks they must complete to deploy an effective security audit policy in a network that includes computers running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2.
Security Audit Policy Reference
This reference provides information about the auditing settings available in Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 and the audit events that they generate.
Auditpol
This page provides syntax and examples for using the Auditpol command-line tool, which can be used to display information about and performs functions to manipulate audit policies.
Security audit events for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista
Security Monitoring and Attack Detection Planning Guide
This guide describes how to plan a security monitoring system on Windows-based networks.
How to use Group Policy to configure detailed security auditing settings for Windows Vista-based and Windows Server 2008-based computers in a Windows Server 2008 domain, in a Windows Server 2003 domain, or in a Windows 2000 domain
This article describes how to use Group Policy to configure security auditing settings for Windows Vista-based or Windows Server 2008-based computers in a Windows Server 2003 domain or in a Windows 2000 domain. Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 let you manage audit policies at a more detailed level by using audit policy subcategories. This article describes a procedure that administrators can use to deploy a custom audit policy that applies detailed security auditing settings for computers that are running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008.

Using Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 SP1 with Hyper-V

Kenneth van Surksum — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:27:00 GMT

In this article, you will learn about Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2007 SP1, and how it can backup Hyper-V configuration information and virtual machines. In addition to reviewing DPM 2007 SP1’s functionality, you will understand how to update Hyper-V and virtual machines for backup using DPM 2007 SP1.