Michel Roth -Thincomputing.net (All Content)

5 Free Remote Desktop Services in R2 Screencasts

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:28:02 +0000

In these videos, Partner Technology Specialist, Matt McSpirit, from Microsoft UK, walks through the different areas of RDS,

Part 1:RDS Session Host - Initial Installation & Configuration
Part2: RDS Web Portal- Initial Installation & Configuration
Part 3:RDS Connection Broker- Initial Installation & Configuration
Part 4:RDS Gateway - Initial Installation & Configuration
Part 5:RDP7 Deep Dive & User Experience

Watch them all here: http://edge.technet.com/Tags/Remote+Desktop+Services/

VMware View: Reset, Refresh, Recompose, Rebalance?

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:23:11 +0000

This article explains the difference between the terms Reset, Refresh, Recompose and Rebalance in context of VMware View.

Reset

A reset can be done by either the administrator or by the user if he has the permission to do that. This permission can be given to the user during the pool or desktop configuration. This is interesting for the user as a self service if something goes wrong with his VM. The option "Reset" in the View Administrator shows the following message when clicked.

This does explain what happens when reset the desktop! It just resets the Virtual Machine without shutting down the operating system properly like it does when clicking the reset option in the vCenter. The user session will be disconnected and all unsaved work will be lost.

The term Refresh and Recompose came with the first version of the View Composer into the game. Those to words describe two highly important functions of the Linked Clone technology uses in VMware View. If you are not familiar with the View Composer, here is a quick introduction. The VMware View Composer does use the linked clone technology what means that multiple virtual machine disks are based on one master image where they read from. They also have their own disk called delta disk where they write changes to. To create a linked clone pool you’ve to use a virtual machine, not a virtual machine template as you do with the traditional pool. This virtual machine has to be added to the Active Directory domain and be shut down before you create a snapshot of it. Linked Clone pools are based on snapshots but it only works if the virtual machine was shut down when creating it. During the desktop pool wizard setup you will be asked for the golden master image which is the virtual machine you’ve already prepared. In the next step the wizard will give you an overview of all snapshots of the virtual machine and you’ve to select one of them. When you’ve finished the pool wizard the View Manager / View Composer will start to create the pool. First a full clone will be provisioned from the snapshot you’ve selected to each LUN configured in one of the wizard steps. This is called the Replica image. After that it creates a thin one named source which is the first linked clone. This one is copied into each of the pool’s VM’s. For now it is very thin but it will growth when the virtual machine is running due to changes in the operating system and of course paging. All virtual machines will be personalized with hostname and more details through the Quickprep process when they start up. With the Recompose and Refresh functions you can now shrink the current VM again or re-create it with another Windows service pack maybe or just installed with some new security fixes installed.

Recompose

The Recompose action is done by the Administrator within the View Administrator interface. With this function the Administrator can change the snapshot within the parent VM or he can change to another parent VM. In both cases a new Replica image will be provisioned to all LUN’s configured with the pool.

Refresh

During the refresh the snapshot or parent VM isn’t changed. This action does only reset the delta disk to it’s initial state, to the source. This is be done to reduce the amount of storage used by the VM.

Both options are only available in a persistent automated linked clone pool and not in a non-persistent pool. To refresh a non-persistent pool all VM’s need to be re-created. A good option here is to delete the VM’s after first use and personalize them with roaming profiles and scripting or with a profile management solution like AppSense Environment Manager or RTO.

In a persistent linked clone pool all application data should be redirected to the user data disk which also stores the user profile because the data on drive C: will be lost when refreshing or recomposing the disk.

Rebalance

During this action all virtual machines will be rebalanced between the LUN’s to use the space efficiently.

More information about that is available in the VMware View Administrator Guide. For version 3.1 starting on side 119.

Source: http://www.thatsmyview.net/2009/07/07/reset-refresh-recompose-rebalance/

Common Causes for Long Login Times, and Their Solutions

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:21:40 +0000

Have you ever been in a rush to get something off your computer and you end up waiting for what seems like forever so your computer can login? This article helps explain slow logins.

Throughout my work over the years, I have run into this problem quite a few times and I have come to realize that it is not a trivial dilemma. The login process is different depending on the operating system and has changed with recent Windows 2008 server/Vista developments.

The first step in the login process for a 2003 server is with the Interactive Login Process explained in detail: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc780332(WS.10).aspx

Once you start looking at the referenced document, you start to understand that logging in is not really as easy as Ctrl + Alt + Del, type username and password, and you are done. This is just the starting point to a pretty complex task that will allow the user to login or not.

What could be slow then?

The first thing you should do is gather some information:

- Check if all your users experience slow logins, or whether it is just one specific user.

- Is this happening during certain hours of the day or all day?

- If you have Citrix, does an RDC login have the same problem?

- If it only affects a single user, I would start looking at the user profile to see if it is set as a roaming profile. If the profile is roaming, you could look at the size of the profile. To check a profile type (roaming, local, mandatory) and size, open the control panel, click on ‘System’ and the ‘Advanced Tab’, select ‘user profile’ and you will see the size listed for all profiles on the computer you are on. (You can also use triCerat free Profile Analysis found at http://www.tricerat.com/pat_dl. This tool will list all user profiles in your network and give you a good overview of their size, location and type.)

- If the profile is large, that could be the cause of your slow login time. If so, see what in the profile is causing this. Is it a large file on the desktop or something similar? If you find anything, try to move that file out of the profile and see if this speeds up login (also consider using folder redirection to place those large files on the network instead of within your roaming profile, http://www.tricerat.com/blog/222).

- If the profile is small and it is still taking a long login time I would consider turning on logging of the user environment load. This log can show you in detail what happens during login, what file is taking long time to load, if DNS/WINS is slow or if your Group Policy loading is preventing the user to login fast and easy. This article tells you how to enable this: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/221833

- Login scripts may also be a cause of slow logins. I have been in contact with many companies over the years that do everything with login scripts: map network drives, assign printers, create registry keys, copy files, and more. This is okay when everything is working, but it is a nightmare to troubleshoot. I was recently speaking to a Citrix Consulting Engineer that had been visiting a customer with five-minute login times per user. He did some troubleshooting and found that it was the login script that took five minutes to run! They decided to investigate what the script was doing and find out if there were any way they could make it more efficient. After they reviewed the script, it turned out it accomplished almost nothing! Having a complex login script also causes a single point of failure because if the admin that wrote the script decides to leave the company or worse, it can be very hard to get a grip on the script.

As a summary of this little article, you could say that logins seem easy enough for someone that has not really investigated the process and its dependencies. triCerat can help you achieve a more efficient login process with Simplify Suite. The Simplify Suite can manage applications, printers, registry values, folder redirections, and drive mappings through easy drag and drop operations on one easy to use management console. The Simplify Suite also comes with support so you can ensure your investment is protected and admin independent.

Source: http://www.tricerat.com/blog/254

New Step-by-step guides available for Remote Desktop Services

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:20:17 +0000

There are new Step-by-Step guides to help you explore the new features of Remote Desktop Services included with Windows Server 2008 R2. This article mentions the list of the guides that are currently available.

What's New in Remote Desktop Services

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=131925

Installing Remote Desktop Session Host Step-by-Step Guide

Word document download: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=147293

Web version: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=147292

Deploying Remote Desktop Web Access with Remote Desktop Connection Broker Step-by-Step Guide

Word document download: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=131928

Web version: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=131927

Deploying RemoteApp Programs to the Start Menu by Using RemoteApp and Desktop Connection Step-by-Step Guide

Word document download: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=154799

Web version: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=154798

Deploying Personal Virtual Desktops by Using RemoteApp and Desktop Connection Step-by-Step Guide

Word document download: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=154800

Web version: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=154801

Deploying Virtual Desktop Pools by Using RemoteApp and Desktop Connection Step-by-Step Guide

Word document download: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=154803

Web version: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=154802

Deploying Personal Virtual Desktops by Using Remote Desktop Web Access Step-by-Step Guide

Word document download: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=147908

Web version: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=147909

Deploying Virtual Desktop Pools by Using Remote Desktop Web Access Step-by-Step Guide

Word document download: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=147907

Web version: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=147906

Deploying Remote Desktop Gateway Step-by-Step Guide

Word document download: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=142251

Web version: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=142250

Deploying Remote Desktop Licensing Step-by-Step Guide

Word document download: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=128418

Web version: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=141175

Source: http://blogs.msdn.com/rds/archive/2009/07/07/new-step-by-step-guides-available-for-remote-desktop-services.aspx

Windows Server 2008 R2 Core: Introducing SCONFIG

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:16:52 +0000

Introducing SCONFIG for Windows Server 2008 R2 Core Deployment. SCONFIG dramatically eases server configuration for Windows Server 2008 R2 core deployments.

With SCONFIG, you can easily set your system up, get it on the network so you can easily manage the server remotely. Rename your computer? Press 2 and you will be prompted to type in the computer name. Domain join? Press 1 and you'll be prompted for name & password.

Simple and fast.

With SCONFIG you can easily have a Windows Server 2008 R2 Server Core deployment setup in minutes. I should also mention that SCONFIG is also localized in almost 20 languages.

Tasks include: Domain join Rename Computer Configure Remote (Enable management via Server Manager, & PowerShell including properly configuring the firewall.) Configuring Windows Update Enabling Remote Desktop (in case you want to login remotely.) Configuring Networking (static vs. DHCP and for multiple NICs)

All you have to do is type sconfig at the command line.

Remember, the goal with a server core deployment is to get the server on the network so you can manage it remotely. With SCONFIG this is a snap. Now from another system you can enable roles, run PowerShell scripts, manage it using System Center, manage it using Server Manager from another server running Windows Server 2008 R2, or manage it using the free Remote System Administration Tools (RSAT) for Windows 7.

Source: http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2009/07/07/windows-server-2008-r2-core-introducing-sconfig.aspx

Wyse Launches Virtual Desktop Accelerator (VDA) To Deal With Latency on RDP/ICA Connections (?)

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:12:33 +0000

Wyse has launched the newest addition to the TCX famility of products: Virtual Desktop Accelerator (VDA). It should be able to imporve the user experience of RDP and ICA sessions for users connecting over a (pretty bad) WAN.

Wyse VDA addresses limitations of existing data centers, which are currently constrained by proximity. Today, an application or service, hosted and delivered from data centers is typically within 100-300 miles of the end-user recipient. Without this proximity, the user experience suffers from network latency, packet loss and other inefficiencies found in longer networks. Because of these issues, businesses are forced to maintain multiple data centers to handle all geographies. Wyse VDA virtually eliminates these geographic constraints by accelerating network protocols up to three times in order to greatly enhance remote end-user productivity and experience in virtualized settings.

Wyse Virtual Desktop Accelerator will accelerate popular virtualization architectures such as Citrix® XenApp™, Citrix® XenDesktop™, VMware View and Microsoft Terminal Services.

Wyse VDA addresses challenges faced by companies attempting to use cloud computing or virtual clients located around the globe but find the user experience unacceptable due to network distance. Working without specialized hardware, Wyse VDA complements existing remote desktop protocols, including Citrix® ICA®, Microsoft RDP, and VMware View ,accelerating the experience to LAN-delivered levels. By reducing the impact of network latency, Wyse VDA eliminates the sluggish performance often associated with virtual desktops connected to remote data centers or public clouds. Remote users will, for the first time, experience the same level of network quality as local users. These benefits also extend to local geographies, whether end users are located only a few miles from a data center, are in the next state or the next country. Latency and packet loss inefficiencies are mitigated without any impact on end user experience. Wyse VDA also can help enterprises with business continuity and in disaster recovery scenarios. In standard operation scenarios, end users are located close to the data center. With Wyse VDA, if those data centers are in a disaster situation, the enterprise can easily connect the effected end users into alternate data centers without compromising their experience. Wyse VDA does not interfere with the security and encryption of the underlying remote display protocols. Wyse VDA works standalone or as a compliment to existing hardware WAN accelerator solutions adding value to customer deployments by providing acceleration specific to remote desktop protocols.

Source: http://www.wyse.com/about/news/pr/2009/0708_VDA.asp

Virtualization Personalization ? RTO Software and Appsense

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:03:01 +0000

Allowing roaming profiles (with user customizations allowed) resulted in long logon times and frequent corruption of profiles – requiring a manual reset to a mandatory profile and the loss of all customizations. Enter hybrid profiles.Over the course of the last few years, the issue of profile management has expanded in scope and definition. Instead of just being a “Citrix problem” it is now also a problem for people who roam from laptops to several always connected desktops and who expect their customizations to follow them. One tough case is the user who makes a customization on his laptop while on an airplane, and then logs on next on a connected workstation and makes a conflicting customization, and then logs on with the laptop again. Addressing issues like this is why Symantec has recently licensed the RTO Software Virtual Profiles product and is now marketing it as Symantec Workspace Profiles to its customer base of enterprises with fat client desktops. As VDI has started to take hold, it has become apparent that VDI implementations suffer from the exact issues that have always plagued XenApp – users want to customize their hosted virtual desktops, but if they do they get slow logon times and profile corruption. This problem has also expanded beyond just the management of the profiles themselves, into what AppSense calls “User Environment Management, i.e., the separation of all of the data that characterizes the uniqueness of the user and the users’ applications from the underlying operating system and the applications themselves.

Source: http://www.virtualizationpractice.com/blog/?p=382

An Actual New Way To Deploy 1000's Of Desktops In Under An Hour: DistriBrute

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:22:56 +0000

Remember my article about using BitTorrent to solve omnipresent deployment problems Well, as it turns out the guys behind DistriBrute are the same guys as the guys I wrote the article about. This is some impressive stuff.DistriBrute is the world’s first peer-to-peer (P2P) desktop deployment product especially developed for business use. Using the P2P protocol DistriBrute can perform at previously unreached speeds, eliminating the need for decentralized distribution servers. DistriBrute provides you with a centralized, efficient, stable deployment environment that maximizes the capabilities of your current infrastructure.

DistriBrute is an add-on to a current desktop management system, but can also be deployed as a standalone product. It distributes a Windows™ operating system, drivers and applications in an extremely effective and efficient manner.

With DistriBrute you can size down your current desktop management system to a centralized configuration, eliminating the need for local distribution servers. DistriBrute uses peer-to-peer (P2P) technology, which means that every desktop acts as a client and server. Operating System images and application packages are transmitted over the WAN only once and are then shared between the desktops on the LAN. Desktops share data fragments using a tit-for-tat method with each desktop giving and taking data fragments. This results in great advantages: Huge performance increase in data distribution. Eliminates the need for distribution servers. Efficient use of all available resources. Desktops can be powered off sooner. Saving on hardware energy usage for desktops and servers. Centralized management and thus simplifying the desktop management environment.

They have a free download avaialble that allows you to test DistriBrute. The release of the most brutal OS deployment system is a fact. Check the download area for a trial version that can be used on 25 nodes for one year.

Source: http://www.distribrute.com

Using vWorkspace With Private Certificates Part 1: The Quest vWorkspace Windows Client

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:21:41 +0000

Part of the extensive feature set of Quest vWorkspace is the ability to allow anyone access to vWorkspace hosted applications regardless of their location or client device. To make sure that everyone is able to securely use vWorkspace hosted applications, Quest vWorkspace ships with a SSL Gateway to secure (encrypt) all vWorkspace related traffic.

The Quest SSL Gateway uses a server certificate to secure all vWorkspace related traffic. As you probably know, due to the nature of any certificate infrastructure, the ROOT CA needs to be trusted on the client for the connection to be securely established. In production environments this poses no problem at all since commercial certificates are typically used of which the corresponding ROOT CA typically is already automatically trusted.

In POC or test environments however, commercial certificates are used less often. Quest vWorkspace is perfectly able to deal with these so called “private certificates”. To use private certificates with the Windows vWorkspace client, the corresponding ROOT CA of the private certificate needs to be trusted on the client. If the client machine is a member of the Windows domain that the ROOT CA is in, then the certificate is automatically trusted. But what if you are connecting from a Windows client that is not in the same domain as the ROOT CA is? In that case, the ROOT CA needs to be trusted by the client (manually). Since obtaining and importing the ROOT CA certificate can be somewhat of a difficult task for the average user, Quest vWorkspace Web Access has the ability to help out here.

One of the features of Quest Web Access is the ability to host any kind of download (next to the vWorkspace client). One way to make it very easy for users to trust the ROOT CA of the Quest SSL Gateway server is to host the ROOT CA certificate on the Quest Web Access download page.

Source: http://blogs.inside.quest.com/provision/2009/07/06/using-vworkspace-with-private-certificates-part-1-the-quest-vworkspace-windows-client/

New Sysinternal Tool: ProcDump v1.0:

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:19:31 +0000

This new command-line utility is aimed at capturing process dumps of otherwise difficult to isolate and reproduce CPU spikes. It also serves as a general process dump creation utility and can also monitor and generate process dumps when a process has a hung window or unhandled exception.

More new and updates sysinternals tools:

New Webcast: Case of the Unexplained 2009 Watch Mark’s top-10 rated TechEd session and third installment of the Case of the Unexplained, where he shows how to use the Sysinternals tools like Process Explorer, Process Monitor and Autoruns to solve problems with real-world cases as examples.

Autoruns v9.51 This fixes a bug with the Run As Administrator functionality on 64-bit Windows 7, a copy-to-clipboard bug where part of a line’s content was truncated, and is updated to show Windows 7 Sidebar Gadget configuration.

VMMap v2.1 VMMap now shows process private byte and working set usage in the process picker, shows the size of the displayed strings in the strings dialog, and fixes a bug with automatic .vmp file association and running the 32-bit version on 64-bit systems.

PsExec v1.96 This release fixes a bug where remote command-line output was not displayed when the target system was 64-bit Windows XP.

ProcDump v1.0: This new command-line utility is aimed at capturing process dumps of otherwise difficult to isolate and reproduce CPU spikes. It also serves as a general process dump creation utility and can also monitor and generate process dumps when a process has a hung window or unhandled exception.

Source: http://blogs.technet.com/sysinternals/archive/2009/07/01/new-tool-procdump-v1-0-updates-autoruns-v9-51-vmmap-v2-1-psexec-v1-96-book-released-windows-internals-5th-edition-released-webcast-case-of-the-unexplained-2009.aspx

Using Multiple Monitors in Remote Desktop Session

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:16:34 +0000

One of the cool new features in R2 Remote Desktop Services is the exponential multimonitor support that allows you support up to 16 monitors in a R2 or Win7 RDP session!

Multiple monitor support for Remote Desktop Services allows users to open a Remote Desktop connection expanded across all the monitors on the client computer regardless of the client monitor configuration. With this feature, the user can fully utilize all the monitors connected to the client computer for the Remote Desktop connection thereby providing extra desktop space and an almost seamless experience with the client desktop that is much improved over “Span mode”.

This feature will be part of Windows 7/Windows Server 2008 R2 release and works for connections to another client machine (physical or VM), or a Remote Desktop Session Host. How to use Remote Desktop Multimon feature:

To use this feature, you must: Connect using the Remote Desktop Client 7.0 (mstsc.exe) available initially on Windows 7/Windows Server 2008 R2. Enable Multimon using one of the three methods described below: a. Click “Use all monitors for the remote session” in the client (mstsc.exe) window. b. Use the “/multimon” switch on the mstsc.exe command line. c. Add “Use Multimon:i:1” to the RDP file. Connect to a computer running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2. How does it look?

Currently this feature displays the remote desktop on all the monitors available on the client computer. It can handle any client monitor configuration supported by Windows.

How is this different from “Span” mode?

Span mode, introduced in Vista, allows the remote desktop to span across all monitors on the client as long as the monitors are arranged to form a rectangle. The remote session created when using span mode is still a single-monitor session. With multimon support, each monitor on the client machine is viewed as a distinct monitor in the remote session. Due to this fundamental difference, span mode has some restrictions that true multimon does not:

1. The primary monitor must be leftmost.

2. The set of monitors must form a rectangle (i.e. identical vertical resolution, and lined up in exact straight line).

3. The total of the resolutions must be below 4096x2048 (ex. 1600x1200+1600x1200 = 3200x1200).

With true multimon support, the client-side monitors can be arranged in any order and can be of any resolution.

Since a span mode remote session is essentially a single-monitor session, if a window in the remote desktop is maximized, it spans across all the monitors. With true multimon support, a window will only maximize to the extent of the containing monitor.

If an application queries for the number of monitors inside a span-mode session, it will find only one monitor, whereas it will find as many monitors as are actually present on the client system when using true multimon RDP. This difference can change the behavior of applications such as PowerPoint. Remote Desktop Multimon configuration properties.

Source (with screenshots): http://blogs.msdn.com/rds/archive/2009/07/01/using-multiple-monitors-in-remote-desktop-session.aspx

Review: Immidio AppScriber

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:14:39 +0000

Small review of Immidio AppSubscriber (Immidio is Login Consultants' software branch). The idea of AppScriber is self-service application provisioning.

AppScriber provides a web portal with a list of available applications. AppScriber is application delivery technology independant.

The idea is nice. Many application delivery technologies use Active Directory to assign applications to users. Immidio AppScriber makes application group membership a web-based self-service for the user. Cool and no helpdesk required.

The downside of the solution 1.0 is the imposibility to selectively display a set of applications to users. If such feature is provided in the future, you will probably have to create additional security groups in Active Directory to determine what users can see what applications in the AppScriber portal. And if we do that, we are back to where we began .

Another option is to make a website per department. Each website contains its own set of applications available for the users. This option does require to create applications more then once.

Currently Immidio AppScriber might be a good solutions for simple organisations who allow all users to use all applications, but give them some self-control over the availability of aplications on their workspace.

Immidio AppScriber Express Edition is free and allows you to manage max. 10 applications. A Retail Edition allows you to manage an unlimited amount of application for a predefined number of users.

Source: http://bobkous.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/review-immidio-appscriber/

FlexClones or Deduplication?

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:16:14 +0000

If you have a NetApp box and if you are thinking FlexClones or Deduplication then this article is for you. Especially if you are thinking about this in a VDI context.

I’ve discussed this topic before, but I felt like it was a topic that needed to be revisited again. Storage admins need to know how their choices in storage technologies may or may not impact virtualization efforts, and this particular choice—leveraging pointer-based snapshots or deduplication—is particularly important.

A number of times over the last few months, I’ve run into situations where NetApp’s FlexClone technology was being heavily pitched to customers interested in deploying, or expanding their deployment of, VMware Infrastructure.

Source: http://blog.scottlowe.org/2009/07/03/republished-flexclones-or-deduplication/

Michel Roth (Re-)Awarded 2009 MVP For Remote Desktop Services

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:43:07 +0000

I have been re-awarded as an MVP for Remote Desktop Services. I am honoured and thankful and want to thank everyone that made this happen.

This was the happy email: " Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2009 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in Remote Desktop Services technical communities during the past year."

I hope to be of service to the community this year as well.

Thank you!

Reclaiming unused VMDK space with storage thin provisioning

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:41:26 +0000

Storage thin provisioning can save space on a VMware Virtual Machine Disk File (VMDK), but reclaiming that space requires the use of tools described in this article.

I have experimented with Virtual Machine Disk Format (VMDK) thin provisioning since the beta release of vSphere 4.0 as I don't have much storage space to spare.

Before we get into the nuts and bolts of what I discovered, here's some background on thin provisioning. Normally, when a 50 GB VMDK is created, it immediately eats up 50 GB of disk space on the Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) volume. Since application owners often demand more space than they truly need, there is a lot of expensive storage area network (SAN) disk capacity dedicated to these applications that will never be used. When you thin-provision a VMDK, storage is not allocated to the VMDK unless it is actually used. As long as only 10 GB of the allocated 50 GB disk is used, only 10 GB is claimed.

Once the disk gets filled with data, the 50 GB that was claimed is used, which is very logical. But it is not possible to delete the data and reclaim this deleted space at storage level. Once a thin-provisioned disk grows, it won't shrink. This is not because of limitations on storage or vSphere level but because storage and vSphere don't receive the information that those blocks are empty. Windows does not delete a file when you delete it; it just updates the master file table and registers that block X to Y is now again available for writing, but the space isn't emptied. This is why neither vSphere nor storage knows that the block can be reclaimed.

Some storage vendors, however, have worked on special drivers that can interact with the guest operating system and tell the storage that it can reclaim some blocks when the guest deletes files.

Source: (login required but recommended reading) http://searchvmware.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid179_gci1360516,00.html

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 Beta 2 Released

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:40:35 +0000

Microsoft last week announced the availability of beta 2 of Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010.

The toolkit is part of Microsoft's "Solution Accelerators" series of free tools for customers and partners deploying Microsoft products. The beta can be downloaded from the Microsoft Connect site, but it requires signup for a free Windows Live account first.

This beta release particularly supports the deployment of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, according to Microsoft's team blog. Beta 2 also supports "Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP" deployments. !-- Template Id = 2593 Template Name = Banner Creative (Flash) - In Page --

The toolkit offers "fully automated zero touch installation deployments" when used with System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Service Pack 2 beta, which was released earlier this month. Those without System Center Configuration Manager can still use the toolkit with Windows deployment tools for "lite touch" installation deployments, according to the blog.

Beta 1 of the toolkit was released in January. The new beta contains a few improvements over the last version of the toolkit, such as centralized tools, "flexible driver management" and the ability to use the PowerShell command-line environment for automation. Users can script any task in the Deployment Workbench using PowerShell.

More detailed descriptions of the new capabilities in beta 2 are described in Michael Niehaus' blog here. Niehaus has been profiling beta 2's features on a daily basis, starting with his June 26 post.

Testing and feedback for Beta 2 will run through July 19, 2009. Microsoft is planning to launch a release-to-Web version of Deployment Toolkit 2010 approximately 60 days after the Windows 7 product release. Since Window 7 will be released on Oct. 22, expect to see the final deployment toolkit product appear around Dec. 21 or so.

Source: http://redmondmag.com/Articles/2009/06/30/Microsoft-Deployment-Toolkit-2010-Beta-Released.aspx

Windows 2008 Terminal Services RemoteApp user or group filtering

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:39:23 +0000

The most wanted feature for Windows 2008 Terminal Services is RemoteApp user filtering. You don’t want all users to see all applications on the web portal. This feature will probably be released in Windows Server 2008 R2 but till then, you are out of luck. This article helps.

I am going to describe how you could publish certain application to specific users or groups via RDP files.

To control published applications you could deploy: MSI files via GPO or or simply inform end users about RDP files they need to run

MSI approach works OK in the domains but in case you do not have a domain or you do not know how to configure group policies you will have to use RDP files. Distributing RDP files to your users might be a tricky business as these change over time and it might be too complicated to make sure everyone has the latest version.

Source: http://www.terminalserviceslog.com/blog/index.php/2009/06/30/windows-2008-terminal-services-remoteapp-user-or-group-filtering-part-1/

Introducing Remote Desktop Connection Manager

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:28:16 +0000

In Windows 2008 R2, MS added a new MMC snap-in called Remote Desktop Connection Manager (SBMGR.msc on the Connection Broker machine). This Remote Desktop Connection Manager UI tool is available on a Remote Desktop Connection Broker server. It allows the administrator to easily configure and organize RemoteApp and Desktop Connections (RADC) resources.

The end users can then access these resources with familiar methods such as Web Access and RADC. These resources include RemoteApp programs and virtual desktops. Virtual desktops include virtual machines in virtual desktop pools and personal virtual desktops.

With this useful, easy-to-use UI tool, an administrator can: Configure settings for virtual desktops, such as redirection settings, Remote Desktop Gateway settings, common/custom RDP settings, etc.) Create a virtual desktop pool Assign a personal virtual desktop to a user Easily diagnose configuration issues - The snap-in provides a report of your latest deployment status. It will flag misconfigurations with a red cross or warning sign, and also provide appropriate links to the documents/properties pages/wizards to correct the misconfigurations Make RemoteApp programs from a RemoteApp source available to users Create a client configuration file for RemoteApp and Desktop Connections to distribute to users

Source (with screenshots): http://blogs.msdn.com/rds/archive/2009/06/29/introducing-remote-desktop-connection-manager.aspx

Configuring Terminal Services Gateway using WMI

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:27:15 +0000

This article is about WMI and Terminal Services Gateway. You can find a way to manage your TS Gateway server remotely by using WMI. Here I describe two methods, to add and to remove a Resource Authorization Policy (RAP).

All code blocks are picked from proof-of-concept demo and they do not represent "in production" state of the code.

Background Employees that are away from the office premises are in constant need of accessing internal resources. Letting people to access their own office computer gives most familiar feeling while being away. Opening such a connections from the Internet some measures to secure, manage and handle these connection were needed. To do this without burdening the administrators, an automatic service that does the Terminal Services Gateway configuration for the end-user was developed. This article shows a way to manage one part of TS Gateway server configuration. Using the Code System.Management namespace needs to be added before the code works. Also the methods expect you to have a user gorup on your server. Name of the group in this case is 'RAP_TEST'. If you are part of a domain or if you have an active directory service running, you can use 'DOMAINUserGroup' like groups as well.

Source: http://www.dabcc.com/article.aspx?id=11002

Loose RDP7 vs ICA tests

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:25:54 +0000

Ideally what should happen when designing a Desktop Virtualization Strategy (in my opinion) is start with the Success Criteria that the design needs to meet as defined by the business units/stakeholders/users, and if they are unsure or don’t know, then the best way to think about this is to strive to provide a User Experience that is *indistinguishable* from a normal PC.

Which is why the first part of designing the solution should be deciding on the Remote Protocol that is needed to meet the Success Criteria? If you only need to supply standard Office Apps then RDP will likely be fine If it’s Office Apps plus some Video with some USB devices then you may find that you can get away with RDP plus one of the RDP enhancements like TCX, etc. If it’s Office Apps plus some Video with some USB devices and you need to make this work over something less than a 10Mb LAN with a possibility of anything greater than 150 – 200ms latency then you may want to seriously consider ICA as the only viable choice. Now if you have demanding users that require a true PC like experience regardless of how it’s done then there are a number of choices like RGS (from HP), PCoIP (from Teradici), SPICE (from Redhat?), etc. however as you start to examine the pro’s and con’s of each one you may find that each one of these may bring further limitations to yuor design? The key takeaway from this is that you can have either a good user experience *OR* low bandwidth – not neccessarily BOTH?

Desktop Virtualization today:

So my opinion is that currently there are two front runners out there today marketing, selling and deploying Virtual Desktop Solutions: Citrix XenDesktop VMware View

I know there are others of note, but generally these are the two main leaders today who are spending the most in Marketing trying to own the top spot in this area, and who both not only have a Solution and a Broker but also a Hypervisor that provides the grunt at the back end. However to a certain extent both of these solutions are fundamentally flawed in that neither of them *currently* have (or support) a Remote Protocol that delivers what I would refer to as a High Quality User Experience that is available today.

Side note on “High Quality User Experience”:

So far most of what I have seen in the field is examples of “Desktop Virtualization” that have been designed by IT for IT – not for the business or users. In some instances it has come as quite a shock to those designing the Solution that one or all of the various Stakeholders, Business or Users not only want the ability to view Training Video’s, but actually have the audacity to demand it as a Criteria of Success for the project? And USB redirection for their Blackberries too!

Bottom line, if your planned Desktop Virtualization solution does not include MultiMedia and USB as a measure of success then there is a good chance it’s fundamentally doomed? At the very least include some scope for a Phase 2 that will expand the project to include this and plan for it up front?

Yes VMware has announced a partnership with Teradici to develop PCoIP for VDI instances of View, (VMware does support HP’s RGS in View, but only to BladePC’s and BladeWS’s) but this appears that it will be based on a H/W PCIe card that will be capable of supporting 32 and 64 VDI instances from the hosted end, so there are some limitations like having to use Servers that can support PCIe cards, but the real kicker is that these cards won’t be available until mid-next year?

Yes Citrix has HDX, (re-Marketed term covering the ICA Protocol ) and although they have now started releasing the HDX-Flash add-on there is still no sight of the HDX-3D? For the life of me I can’t understand what is holding up Citrix on this, if it is really as good as it’s supposed to be then they should be releasing it now while they can beat VMware to the punch.

How to create a portable ver. of RDP7:

So with this in mind I looked a bit deeper at the RDP7 side of things to see what differences there were? First thing I noticed was that it’s still referred to as Ver. 6.1.7100.0 (this is Ver. 7, right?), and after some quick googling the next thing I came across is that it is relatively simple to take a copy of the MSTSC.EXE and save it to a folder on another machine and run this version (you will also need a copy of MSTSCAX.DLL and a folder beneath this named “en-US” and in this you’ll need a copy of MSTSC.EXE.MUI and MSTSCAX.DLL.MUI)

Once you have this accomplished you’ll be free to run the RDP7 Client to connect to either your Windows 7 or Server 2008 Host and see what differences there are. Essentially all of the differences are covered under the post: Aero Glass Remoting in Windows Server 2008 R2 but I must admit I was quite surprised at how well it was able to cope with a DiVX avi of Kung Fu Panda, the picture was really sharp and defined, the audio appeared to stay in synch and it didn’t appear to consume much more than 4 – 500Kb/s. When it came to Flash this again had good definition and sharpness – but there was lot’s of gaps in the playback – so on Flash it still scores a miss?

Source: http://www.techagility.info/2009/06/planning-a-desktop-virtualization-project-it-might-be-worth-making-sure-you-investigate-if-the-business-needs-a-remote-protocol-that-can-deliver-a-high-quality-user-experience/

Dual Boot from VHD Using Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:48:56 +0000

Boot from VHD is a new technique for installing and maintaining operating system environments. Unlike virtual machines, the operating system that is running from a “boot from VHD” environment is using the actual hardware instead of emulated hardware.

his means a developer could easily use WPF and the full GPU processing power of a high end graphics card. In another scenario, this technology makes it easy to setup and run Windows Server 2008 R2 with the Hyper-V role, thus supporting 64 bit virtualization workloads.

The Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) is the container for the installed operating system. Because everything is inside a single file, there are a number of benefits that can be realized for data center server environments, as well as managed desktop environments. The following article dives into the technical details of implementing two operating systems. Both are installed in a VHD file and can easily be booted by selecting the preferred environment at power on. This could easily be scripted and automated.

The Installation Foundation – Windows PE

The Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE) has been updated for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. One of those improvements is the ability to use a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) file as the target for an installation of the operating system (OS).

This has some interesting implications. Booting from a .VHD file that contains an entire OS seems rather magical. I mean think about it. You go to look at a hard drive and there’s a single file but Windows Server 2008 R2 is installed inside it. This would certainly simplify the ability to boot your servers on a completely new environment with little effort. This is going to turn change management on its ear.

The same is true for the desktop OS, Windows 7. You can install Windows 7 inside a .VHD file. Again, the OS is installed inside a single file and thus makes it rather easy to move or change out and bring up a completely different version of the environment. This will make test environments for developers super easy to construct and test discrete sets of applications or components.

One thing that is not well known is how easy it is to create the initial .VHD file and install the operating system into it. The supported and documented ways are geared towards very well defined support scenarios. You can see the supported scenarios in the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK). Most people have been reluctant to take the time to learn this because it involves the use of imagex captures and applies.

Source: http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2009/05/22/dual-boot-from-vhd-using-windows-7-and-windows-server-2008-r2.aspx

Creating Virtual Hard Disks with Windows Virtual PC

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:47:40 +0000

Existing Virtual PC 2007 users who start using Windows Virtual PC may be startled by the lack of an obvious “Virtual Hard Disk wizard”. But do not fear, the virtual hard disk wizard is still there – it is just hidden. Or more accurately – it has been placed into more appropriate workflows.

The first place where the virtual hard disk wizard appears is when you are creating a new virtual machine. If you select to Create a virtual hard disk using advanced options in the new virtual machine wizard you will seamlessly transition into the new virtual hard disk wizard..The second place where the virtual hard disk wizard appears is from the virtual hard disk settings page, if you click on the create button.

Now, you may be wondering what to do if you want to create a virtual hard disk that is not associated with a virtual machine? The answer is that you do not use Windows Virtual PC! With Windows 7 virtual hard disk management is now part of the core operating system. You can create virtual hard disks using either Disk Management or DiskPart.

Source (with screenshots): http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2009/06/26/creating-virtual-hard-disks-with-windows-virtual-pc.aspx

WYSE TCX Flash Redirection

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:45:25 +0000

THis article shares some more information about Wyse TCX Flash Redirection software (still in BETA).

When it comes to Thin Client computing there are several questions that typically come up. The big one is usually “What about video performance?”. Video performance was typically subpar or “choppy”, how choppy usually depending on what protocol (ICA or RDP) you were using. WYSE responded with it TCX Multimedia Redirection software which significantly improved video performance by redirecting the processing associated with certain video files to the local client.

Now with the advent of more and more flash content in web pages and web apps, “What about flash video performance?” is becoming a much bigger concern. Yet again WYSE is answering the call with its new TCX Flash Redirection software (still in BETA). Whereas TCX Multimedia redirects video files to the local client, TCX Flash redirects flash video. Now your end users can watch YouTube videos all day at work with minimal irritation and stop calling the help desk to complain.

Source: http://calfo.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/wyse-tcx-flash-redirection/

Beware The VMware Core Tax & More

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:42:23 +0000

Interesting article about / against VMware and the way their licensing incorporates cores vs CPUs...

We'd like to again offer congratulations to AMD on the release of their new 6-core Opteron ("Istanbul") processors. As Bryon mentioned, Hyper-V R2 goes hand in hand with these new processors with support for AMD's Rapid Virtualization Indexing, advanced power savings with Core Parking and, of course, more cores means compute resources to run more virtual machines. In fact, two factors that have fueled virtualization have been the rise of 64-bit (x64) computing and the rapid growth of multi-core processors.

Bring On The Cores

Even an entry level laptop these days is dual-core. On desktops, the news is even better. I saw an ad in the paper a few days ago for a very powerful HP desktop system with an AMD quad-core processor and 8 GB of memory that runs Hyper-V like a champ for $600. Well, the news is only getting better. Our partners at AMD and Intel are continuing to ratchet up the core counts and if you've been reading any of the popular tech sites around the web you may have read that we'll soon be seeing processors with 8+ cores per processor. That's a tremendous amount of compute power. In fact, with all this compute power, you're going to be more inclined to virtualize than ever. This is great news for our customers who are trying to lower cost.

However, one question that has hit our inboxes recently has been, "Does Hyper-V have a core tax?"

Source: http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2009/06/28/Beware-the-VMware-Core-Tax-and-More.aspx

IGEL's new Linux Universal Desktop firmware

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:41:28 +0000

IGEL Technology today launched its new Linux Universal Desktop firmware adding important new power management, multimedia and virtualization functionality to its Linux-based thin client range.

IGEL Technology today launched its new Linux Universal Desktop firmware adding important new power management, multimedia and virtualization functionality to its Linux-based thin client range. New Power management functionality allows Linux users to switch their IGEL thin clients onto Standby and back on in seconds, eliminating long boot times. Traditionally thin clients use 51% less power than traditional PCs and this functionality will help save customers even more on power costs and time. The new functionality also brings IGEL’s Linux-based IGEL one, UD2 and UD3 thin clients in line with upcoming Energy Star certification for thin clients.

In addition to the power management functionality, IGEL has also included in its firmware integration of the VMware View 3.1 client, which can deliver IGEL Linux users a full virtualized desktop experience. The new VMware client adds support for Multimedia acceleration and USB redirection and IGEL is one of the first thin client vendors to integrate the new client into its firmware and to receive VMware certification.

IGEL has also added support for multimedia acceleration and USB redirection to its Citrix ICA 11 client, ensuring IGEL Linux thin client customers using Citrix XenApp or Citrix XenDesktop can enjoy the full multimedia benefits of Citrix HDX technology.

Source: http://www.realwire.com/release_detail.asp?ReleaseID=12854