Windows 7

Windows 7 RC to Windows 7 RTM Upgrade.

Ok the title is misleading because the offical line is that you can not upgrade from Windows 7 RC to the RTM which is true kind of. I know if you call in with problems you would probably have a hard time getting support if you did that. But for those of you really wanting to try this if you do pop in your DVD and see what you get. You will get a error that this won’t happen Format and reload like a good little worker bee.

But for those of you who like to push and really have a hard time taking no you can’t do that for a answer the answer is with a little hack you can make the Windows 7 RC to Windows 7 RTM work. My favorite network Admin Randy found this little hack you do and things will go. I did the same thing with a Windows 2003 Server to SBS 2003 Server upgrade when I accidently ran the wrong version of  CD on the Source machine Prepping the Forest and Domain and had the wrong AD Version. That was a matter of editing the ini file that does the version check. Same thing here.

Copy your Windows 7 TRM install DVD over to a folder on your Drives and then go into Sources and Edit the cversion.ini and change the MinClient value to 7000. Also note that you can only upgrade to the Windows 7 RTM as that is what the RC installed. So if you are feeling like taking a chance here you go knock yourself out but if it causes problems you are on your own. That is why I have a backup of my original Vista machine before I upgraded to Windows 7 RC and now upgraded my laptop to the RTM. It worked for me and it worked for Randy but there is always that time that it won’t.

Til Later just Roger

Windows 7

Well I have been running Windows 7 now for about a month and have not had one bit of problem with the OS. My laptop is more responsive even when I have many apps or RDP Sessions open it just keeps going. How has your experience been? I am liking what I am seeing with this and for any of you that went through the Vista Beta you know how much fun was had by all there as some machines worked very well and some had some problems but that was usually because of not enough memory in the computer.

Til later just Roger

Windows 7 and Virtual PC and XP Mode Beta Part 2

Well I didn’t find a program that don’t run on Vista or Win7 but I did install Connectwise within the XP Mode Beta and then launched the shortcut off my Start Menu and had the application run on my Win7 laptop seamlessly with no problems. I like the idea of how this works and the possibilities it opens up for customers and IT alike. This all ties in with the Windows 2008 R2 and how they are integrating or getting TS and HyperV to play nicely together and complement each other with the Published Desktop Pool and other options.

Til later just Roger

Windows 7 and Virtual PC and XP Mode Beta

Have you downloaded the Virtual PC and XP Mode Beta yet? Well now that the big weekend is winding down and my family got done with everything they thought I needed to do because I had been gone all week. I have time to play with this and I like what I see so far. Basically the premises is that if you have a program that will not run on Vista or Windows 7 but XP you can install the program onto the XP Virtual and the application will be published to the start menu of the the Windows 7 machine and run as part of the desktop on the Windows 7 machine. So far so good as I got this setup and will be finding a application that has issues running on a Vista machine and will see how it works. More to come

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