x64

New Sysinternals Release Disk2VHD

Anything from Sysinternals is worth a look, I have never used Disk2vhd, but im sure it works like a charm. Remember not to make your VHD bigger than 127GB as Virtual PC cannot handle and will not work with VHD’s of that size. Also Disk2vhd runs Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP1, and higher, including x64 systems. Read the full article here.

Run it from live.sysinternals.com

Insert from Sysinternals

Disk2vhd is a utility that creates VHD (Virtual Hard Disk - Microsoft’s Virtual Machine disk format) versions of physical disks for use in Microsoft Virtual PC or Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs). The difference between Disk2vhd and other physical-to-virtual tools is that you can run Disk2vhd on a system that’s online. Disk2vhd uses Windows’ Volume Snapshot capability, introduced in Windows XP, to create consistent point-in-time snapshots of the volumes you want to include in a conversion. You can even have Disk2vhd create the VHDs on local volumes, even ones being converted (though performance is better when the VHD is on a disk different than ones being converted).

Windows Server 2003 Performance Advisor and Data Collector Sets

As I am sure some people know about this installable gem, I am also sure that not everyone does. Its called “Windows Server 2003 Performance Advisor” Here is an insert from Microsoft’s website…

“Microsoft ® Windows Server ™ 2003 Performance Advisor is the latest version of Server Performance Advisor, which is a simple but robust tool that helps you diagnose the root causes of performance problems in a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 deployment. Server Performance Advisor collects performance data and generates comprehensive diagnostic reports that give you the data to easily analyze problems and develop corrective actions

Microsoft ® Windows Server ™ 2003 Performance Advisor provides several specialized reports, including a System Overview (focusing on CPU usage, Memory usage, busy files, busy TCP clients, top CPU consumers) and reports for server roles such as Active Directory, Internet Information System (IIS), DNS, Terminal Services, SQL, print spooler, and others.”

This application was deemed so useful that it was built into Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, it can be found by going to the control panel, then clicking on “Administrative Tools”, “Reliability and Performance Monitor”, then “Data Collector Sets”. You can then create a new “Data Collector Set” using templates under “User Defined” If you would like to see how they are configured and work, check out Petri’s article “Performance Monitoring the Easy Way”.

The link to download Performance Advisor is here. Also I am providing a link to Perti’s site that explains how to use the app, click here. Is it x64 compatible you say? My answer is yes.

Let me know if you found this blog useful!

NS