December, 2008

Happy New Year

Hyper-V Step-by-Step Guide: Hyper-V and Failover Clustering

The Hyper-V role enables you to create a virtualized server computing environment using a technology that is part of the Windows Server® 2008 operating system. This solution is provided through Hyper-V. You can use a virtualized computing environment to improve the efficiency of your computing resources by utilizing more of your hardware resources.

The Failover Clustering feature enables you to create and manage failover clusters. A failover cluster is a group of independent computers that work together to increase the availability of applications and services. The clustered servers (called nodes) are connected by physical cables and by software. If one of the cluster nodes fails, another node begins to provide service (a process known as failover). Users experience a minimum of disruptions in service.

This guide shows you how to use these two technologies together to make a virtual machine highly available. You will do this by creating a simple two-node cluster and a virtual machine, and then failing over the virtual machine from one node to the other. Continue @ Source…

How to Trick System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) Prerequisites Checking

One of the software requirements for VMM is Windows PowerShell v1. If we try to install SCVMM Administrator Console, we could get this error in the prerequisites dialog:

“System Centercentre Virtual Machine Manager requires Windows PowerShell 1.0.“

We can see this error in two situations:

1. We have not installed PowerShell 1.0.
2. We have installed another version of PowerShell, let say PowerShell CTP 2.

BTW, we will have the same issue if we try to install Exchange 2007 Admin Tools while having PowerShell CTP 2 installed.

The workaround is very simple.
“Prerequisites Checking” is looking for a registry key named PID. The value for this key should be “89383-100-0001260-04309“.

We can create it manually, create file PSv1.reg. Here is a content of PSv1.reg:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell\1]
“PID”=”89383-100-0001260-04309″

Import the PSv1.reg, by running it, and ran the SCVMM installation again and the problem will disappear.

Now that the prerequisite phase is complete we can safely remove the created key.

Top Issues for Microsoft Support for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V

After a few months of supporting customers, Microsoft has enough case data to report on the top issues being reported for Hyper-V. The issues are categorized with the top issue(s) in each category listed with possible resolutions and additional comments as needed. Continue here

Resetting the Background Colors on Clients Computers by Using GPO

To control background colour on the client’s computer (XP) the custom ADM file (BGColor.adm) could be created. The BGColor.adm should be manually added to the network environment before start using it. Here is a content of BGColor.adm:

CLASS USER
CATEGORY !!category
CATEGORY !!categoryname
POLICY !!policyname
KEYNAME “Control Panel\Colors”
EXPLAIN !!explaintext
PART !!labeltext DROPDOWNLIST REQUIRED
VALUENAME “Background”
ITEMLIST
NAME “Normal” VALUE “0 128 128″
NAME “Black” VALUE “0 0 0″
NAME “White” VALUE “255 255 255″
NAME “Red” VALUE “255 0 0″
NAME “Brown” VALUE “128 0 0″
NAME “Yellow” VALUE “255 255 0″
NAME “Green” VALUE “0 128 0″
NAME “Sky” VALUE “0 255 255″
NAME “Brown” VALUE “0 0 255″
NAME “Blue” VALUE “0 0 255″
NAME “Dark Blue” VALUE “0 0 128″
NAME “Pink” VALUE “255 0 255″
NAME “Grey” VALUE “160 160 164″
END ITEMLIST
END PART
END POLICY
END CATEGORY
END CATEGORY

[strings]
category=”Custom Policy Settings”
categoryname=”Desktop BG Colour Changer”
policyname=”Change the background color of the client computer via GPO”
explaintext=”This policy sets the background color of the client computer”
labeltext=”Select Colour”

How to Enable (unblock) Windows Hot Keys (Windows Logo Key + M or Windows Logo Key + D)

To minimize all open windows Microsoft provides “Hot Keys”, like Windows Logo Key + M or Windows Logo Key + D.  All Hot Keys was disabled by old GPO. To allow using Windows Logo Keys the following steps should be enabled through GPO:

1. Go to: Administrative Templates \ Windows Components \Windows Explorer
2. Change “Turn off Windows+X hotkeys” settings to Disable

Note: Client’s computer should be restarted to start using Windows Logo Keys.

How to enable Windows Server Backup support for the Hyper-V VSS Writer

To be able use VSS based backups of Hyper-V VMs using Windows Server Backup, we need to add the following registry keys to register the Hyper-V VSS Writer with Windows Server Backup. WindowsServerBackup key is not created when we install the Windows Server Backup feature. We have to create this key manually.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT
\CurrentVersion\WindowsServerBackup\Application Support\{66841CD4-6DED-4F4B-8F17-FD23F8DDC3DE}

When the keys listed above created, we also need to create a String Value with the following parameters / settings:

Name: Application Identifier
Type: REG_SZ
Value: Hyper-V

When backing up virtual machines, we must select all volumes where VM related files is present, because Windows Server Backup only supports volume based backups.

For more information about Hyper-V virtual machine backups, take a look on the KB958662.

Understanding Microsoft Virtualization - Free eBook

This is the book for IT professionals who want to learn more about the latest Microsoft virtualization technologies, including Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5, Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization, and Microsoft Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. The book also examines other virtualization-enabling technologies from Microsoft including Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services, Roaming User Profiles, Folder Redirection, and Offline Files.

Download (14.4MB PDF)

Managing Virtualization with SCVMM and Powershell

Take an inside look at Hyper-V and System Center Virtual Machine Manager from an architectural and experience a real world view. See how SCVMM and PowerShell can help you manage your virtualized environment seamlessly. The session comes complete with live demos of real life scenarios, and even a look at SCVMM managing a VMWare ESX!

Source: www.microsoft.com 

Hyper-V Remote Management Configuration Utility

HVRemote reduces the manual configuration steps needed for Hyper-V Remote Management down to one or two commands.

It can configure Full installations and Server Core Installations of Windows Server 2008 with the Hyper-V role enabled, plus configure Microsoft Hyper-V Server. It runs across all locales and it doesn’t matter if the server is domain or workgroup joined.

It can configure Vista SP1 and Server 2008 configured with the Hyper-V Remote Management tools. Again, doesn’t matter if the client is domain or workgroup joined.

Basic commands (see documentation for more information)

To grant or remove a user access permissions:

• hvremote /add:domain\user or
• hvremote /remove:domain\user

To display current settings: hvremote /show
Get some help: hvremote /?
Add firewall exception for MMC: hvremote /mmc:enable (Client Option)
Allow anonymous access to Distributed COM: hvremote /AnonDCOM:grant (Client Option)

Download HVRemote @ Source