Micosoft Windows Server 2008 R2

SCVMM 2008 R2 and HyperV Clustering

In my last post you seen I was working on a project involving Windows 2008 R2 Server and HyperV Failover Clustering. I had some Physical Machines that I needed to do a P2V on and thought why not try the new SCVMM 2008 R2 that has just released. SO I got that downloaded and installed on one of my servers and when I added the 2 HyperV Servers it recognized right away that it was in a Cluster and set this up accordingly. I then clicked on the move the P2V wizard and away we went. It seen I was moving it into a Cluster and wanted to know if I want to make it high available and I selected sure. But the bottom line is if you are not using this now you should be really checking this out as it is a great tool to use to move your physical machines to the Virtual World. The rest of the time you can use your Failover Cluster Manager to manage your Virtual Servers.

Til Later just Roger

Windows Server 2008 R2 and Published Apps and Virtual Desktops P4

Takes note to self don’t be so self involved in projects and take time to write posts as you go here. That way not so much to spew in one sitting. Yea right as if that will happen. Mean while back at the ranch

Ok had everything configure like I thought it should be now and still not seeing my workstations in the RemoteApps Web Page or in the Programs list on my Windows 7 laptop. That is a cool feature of Windows 7 where you just point to a URL and it brings in your Published Apps and Desktop Pool. You configure this by going into Control Panel on your Windows 7 computer and then clicking on the RemoteApps and Desktop piece in there. So I logged into the Web Access and noticed that under configuration that it was still referring to Localhost so I changed this to my Connection Brokers Internal NetBios name and saved it and boom there was my Desktop Pool now showing in the Web Access. COOL!!!!!! Sorry moment of excitment there but I then went to my Windows 7 machine and went into the RemoteApps piece and hit update and bam there it was there also. Double dang COOL!!!!!!!!!! now I am cooking. Clicked on the piece and logged in and waited for the Virtual Desktop to spin up and start and waited and waited. Double Dang now what is happening so I went back to the document and read it again and found on the workstations I had to set a registry key for the remote connection to be made to it. Bingo did that and now they launch. WHEW!!!! finally I have it all functional. Another note to self read all doc don’t skim. There was more than that to this but I hate to type also so my words of wisdom is get the document and follow along that helps a lot.

Til later just Roger

Windows Server 2008 R2 and Published Apps and Virtual Desktops P3

Well momentary pause for head banging here as what did I do now to break the stuff. Time to read and I went searching and finally found a document called Deploying RemoteApp and Desktop connection Step by Step guide from MS. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2F5B9705-BC09-466E-882B-7227CBB39183&displaylang=en This helped, you can not install the Remote Desktop Connection broker on the same server as the Remote Desktop Session and Remote Desktop Virtualization Service and Remote Desktop Web.

So I spun up a Virtual Server in our HyperV Environment and installed 2008 R2 RC on it and installed the Broker and Remote Desktop Session Service for Redirection  on this server. I uninstalled the Broker from my host machine for the Remote App and Web Access and TS Gateway and the Virtualization service. Followed the document for setting up the broker and away I went the pieces I broke came back online and worked correctly now. Duh…… Takes note to self maybe read next time but then again where is the fun in that.

When I installed the Virtualization service it also will add HyperV but I had already configured and installed HyperV so I was good there and on the server so I installed 2 Windows 7 workstations into the HyperV on the TS Gateway, RemoteApps and Virtualization Server. One was a 32 bit machine and one was a 64 bit machine. I installed Office 2007 and the Live Communicator 2007 R2 onto the machines. These will be going into the Desktop Pool as they call this and the workstations all have to have the same software on them as this basically runs in a Pool as they say you might not login to the same machine each time.

Til Later Just Roger

Windows Server 2008 R2 and Published Apps and Virtual Desktops P2

OK got my server up and running and went through the normal drill and got the settings configured on the server for networking and name and domain joined and all of that fun stuff to numerous to mention but I am sure you all know the drill. But I thought ok what am I going to do for sure here you know maybe get a plan of attack or is this just dive in and go. Thought for a moment and just dove in and went and I first decided to add Remote Desktop Services(Terminal Services) they had me for a minute as I was looking for the Terminal Services option then remembered MS had renamed this to Remote Desktop Services.

So I select RDS and oh my more options now what. I had to select from Remote Desktop Session Host, Remote Desktop Virtualization Host, Remote Desktop Licensing, Remote Desktop Connection Broker, Remote Desktop Gateway, Remote Desktop Web Access. So I picked everything except for the Licensing. Bad move but more on that later this was a test so who carried at that point until I fully understood how things works and what I really wanted. The install went pretty quick of the services and the normal rebooting proceeded and when the server came to the desktop I went to configuring the TS Gateway and adding Apps for the Remote Apps everything I have normally done on a regular 2008 server for these functions. Talked to Randy and got a SSL Cert for the Gateway and published it up with ISA and testing proceeded and things worked as expected. So I thought now what is this Virtual stuff so started to read and found I could setup and publish a Virtual workstation. Cool so I followed the documentation on the server to do this and all of a sudden nothing workie anymore and I could only connect by the /admin switch to the server. What the heck did I do now.

Til later just Roger

Windows Server 2008 R2 and Published Apps and Virtual Desktops P1

I know I haven’t posted much lately as I have as my wife’s says been ignoring her even and diving into the Windows 2008 Server R2 RC and Windows 7 RC and getting lost into whatever world I go to when I get something new to learn. Hmmm wonder what she means by that.

But anyways as I mentioned earlier I had upgraded my Vista Laptop to Windows 7 RC and it has been rock solid and has been responding faster than the Vista did. Or it could be from the sleep deprivation of all I have done the last week and I am running slower.

I talked with our Internal Network Admin and said hey Randy you know that spare blade we have? Can I use that for the 2008 R2 RC Server as I have some ideas for it. We have a existing 2008 Server TS Gateway in use and I wanted to give the Windows 2008 Server R2 RC a spin. But he had no problems with it so away I went.

The install is pretty straight forward just like 2008 Server but they have made some visual changes by adding some pretties to the screens graphics wise but installed pretty much the same. I was installing Windows 2008 Server R2 RC on a HP BL 465c Dual QC 36 Gig of RAM  and this is running on our HP c3000 Enclosure. More to come

Til later just Roger

Upgrading Vista SP1 to Windows 7 RC

I seen that Windows 7 RC was available so I thought what the heck why not. I had tried the Beta2 version and seen no problems with it at that time. I had also been in on the Vista Beta when that came out from start to finish so it wasn’t like I was a gluten for punishment or anything. Vista was not that bad I had it on my laptop from the beta on and I got along fine with it.

But as a added precaution I did whip out my trusty Shadow Protect and backed up my laptop none the less. Plus I have a backup on my Virtual Home Server so I was double covered there. When I first tried running the Win 7 it did not like the HP Protected tools.  So I went in and tried to remove them and on one of them I was getting the “Error 2738 could not access VBscript run time for custom action” Ok been down this road before and wouldn’t you know it, it was the same exact error I got when I tried to take this HP nx9420 laptop from XP to Vista. At least that was consistent. What I did to correct this problem was re register the VBScript.dll and I did this by running the command prompt in Administrator mode and then typing regsvr32 vbscript.dll and that was that.

So ran the install again and this time it blew by this Stop and away we went. I was concerned that drivers might be a issue (flash back to Vista) but upon completion everything worked. It did take me about 2 hours from start to finish on this but the Upgrade from my perspective was smooth. I am going to take my other machine I have and install the 64bit version on this and will see how a clean install goes time wise.Plus I will be doing my test server with 2008 R2 Server and running HyperV on it so more on that also. I see there is no upgrade path from XP to Win7 I am still out on that if it is a good thing or not.  I am expecting it to be pretty quick so we will see. I have to run now my granddaughter is having her first dance recital so I better be there but more on the rest later.

Til later just Roger

Windows 2008 R2

Have you checked out Server 2008 R2 Beta yet? I downloaded it today and have been working on getting it installed. There are 2 things that I am interested in with this build and that is the new features for HyperV and the new features available for the Terminal Services or as MS now calls it Remote Desktop Services. It looks like they have tied some of the TS Stuff in with the new Windows 7 client OS so this will be cool to see where that goes as I have clients now using the TS gateway and the TS Remote Apps.

Also I am intrested in the Live Migration in hyperV as we are moving into this heavily with some of our customers should be interesting to see where this all goes for sure. Back to some more playing with the Public Beta I downloaded and will let you know what I think.

Til later just Roger