A blog covering Azure, Hyper-V, Windows Server, desktop, systems management, deployment, and so on …
The RC (final test) builds of Win7 and W2008 R2 are officially available via MSDN and TechNet as of this morning (a day earlier than expected). They’ll be available to the general public next week (probably).
I said “the” release candidates. Looks like there won’t be a second RC release. If an RC lasts for around 2 months then when would MS RTM? There’s a big conference in July in New Orleans: WPC 2009. After that you have TechEd EMEA in Berlin in November.
SP2 for Office 2007 was released a few days ago – I missed the news because I’m snowed under with work. You can read about the improvements. That page also has some pre-installation reading that you should go through.
The Irish Windows User Group will be running two events over the next 2 months. The details are below. Note that anyone outside of Ireland or not near these venues can still attend online using Live Meeting. We’re also planning to host the recordings on a new Microsoft TechNet Ireland portal.
Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Deep Dive (This Thursday)
At TechDays for IT Pro’s 2009 there will be some sessions on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. This will include some information and demonstrations on the new version of Hyper-V. However, due to time constraints, we won’t have time to get into the deep details of how and why things work.
Aidan Finn (C Infinity) will be talking about the new technologies that will be included as part of Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. This includes new functionality and improvements in performance thanks to cooperation between Microsoft and their hardware partners.
Dave Northey (Microsoft Ireland) will be doing some demonstrations of the technology in action, including the much anticipated Live Migration.
Who’s Speaking?
– Aidan Finn – C Infinity
– Dave Northey: Microsoft Ireland
When and Where?
07:30 until 10:00 on April 30th.
Swift Suite 2, Radisson SAS Royal Hotel, Golden Lane, Dublin 8, Ireland (Near St. Patricks Cathedral)
Registration
You can register for the event here: http://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=137699.
Anyone who registered for the event using the old event system does not need to re-register.
Online
The Dublin event on April 30th at 07:30 GMT will be web cast using Live Meeting. You will need to install Live Meeting to watch. The entry details are:
Attendee URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mvp/join?id=H73KPG&role=attend
Meeting ID: H73KPG
Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services (aka Terminal Services)
Windows Server 2008 R2 sees Terminal Services being expanded and rebranded as Remote Desktop Services. MVP Alex Yushchenko will be once again presenting for the Windows User Group and sharing his wealth of expertise and experience. And be sure to check out his own event that is running in Dublin, PubForum.
This presentation will cover the following:
– New features of Remote Desktop Services (previously known as Terminal Services) in Windows 2008 R2
– Migration from W2003 or W2008 to R2
– VDI – Virtual Desktop Architecture built-in
– Application Delivery, TS Web Access, Session Broker & Load Balancing and Licensing
– Powershell in Remote Desktop Services
– Virtualization of Terminal Server?!
– How to get the most of Remote Desktop Services and maybe even replace your Citrix farm and save costs
About Alex Yushchenko
Alex Yushchenko a.k.a Dr.Conti is a worldwide recognized Virtualization and Server Based Computing expert. He is a Microsoft Terminal Services MVP and Citrix CTP of which there are only about 25, worldwide. With over 10 years of experience in the application virtualization field he often attends Microsoft events as part of “Ask the Experts” team across the globe and is regularly presenting on application virtualization related topics. He is also founder and organizer of European Wide Virtualization and Application delivery Event called PubForum.net in Dublin in June this year. Alex holds a M.Sc. Degree in Information Technology.
Where and When?
May 20th Wednesday
Galway – 9.30 – 12.30: Days Inn Hotel
Cork – 18.30 – 21.30: Rochestown Park Hotel
May 21st Thursday
Dublin – 9.30 – 12.30: Microsoft Atruim Building Block B
Belfast – 18.30 – 21.30: Wellington Park Hotel
Location details on the event registration pages.
Registrations
There is no fee for attending the event. You can register for each individual event:
May 20th Wednesday
Galway – 9.30 – 12.30
Cork – 18.30 – 21.30
May 21st Thursday
Dublin – 9.30 – 12.30
Belfast – 18.30 – 21.30
Online
The Dublin event on May 21st at 09:30 GMT will be web cast using Live Meeting. You will need to install Live Meeting to watch. The entry details are:
Attendee URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/usergroups/join?id=6PC9BQ&role=attend
Meeting ID: 6PC9BQ
I’m back in Ireland but I won’t be posting too much this week. While I was away in Virginia, sales built up a good load of business for me to get cracking on. I’ve also got a Hyper-V presentation to prepare, 2 photography presentations to give and some writing with a deadline to do.
Work comes first so I’ll get back to the blog ASAP.
I just read about a very new application compatibility slash desktop virtualisation solution that will be available as a free download addition for Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate. The solution is called Windows XP Mode. It will be a version of XP Service Pack 3 that runs in a virtualisation solution similar to Virtual PC. This means that you have a way to run XP applications on Windows 7 just in case they won’t run on Windows 7 natively, even with the shims available from the application compatibility toolkit.
We all know how annoying it is that important configuration items are being hidden behind layers of GUI in Windows, e.g. how long did it take you to first find TCP properties in Vista? I’ve been using “NCPA.CPL” to get there quickly for the last couple of months. Here’s a list of them that was posted after I had networking issues on Win7 Beta during a presentation at Minasi Forum 2009 yesterday – Explorer crashed, I had to reboot and the wifi network I had been on wasn’t appearing in the available list.
You have to be quite careful about choosing what metrics to monitor when checking out the performance of Hyper-V. Not is all as it first appears. This article explains how to and what to monitor. Of course, if you have OpsMgr 2007 SP1 this becomes a whole lot easier.
Ben Armstrong has posted an article explaining why a virtual machine might go into a “Paused-Critical” state. Quickly, it’s because Hyper-V is protecting a VM with a dynamic expanding or a differencing VHD (virtual hard disk) runs out of space to expand on the physical storage. Importantly, Ben also says:
“Due to a bug in the current version of Hyper-V – it will file warning messages and place the virtual machine into paused-critical even if the virtual machine is using fixed size virtual hard disks, and the drive that is storing the disk runs out of space for some other reason”.
The annual MinasiForum conference has wrapped up and the last stragglers have just returned to the hotel from dinner. Today we had Joe McGlynn talking about SBS 2008 and James Summerlin talking about SQL Reporting Services. I had the last (rescheduled) session on Windows 7 for digital photographers. Yesterday we had (Dynamics MVP) Curt Spanburgh talking about cloud computing/SaaS, (deployment MVP) Rhonda Layfield talking about the latest NetMon and Mark Minasi talking about W2008 Active Directory. We also tried something new: 3 mini sessions with new speakers which included DR/business continuity, a home lab and how to install MacOS onto a non-Apple computer.
I got some more photography done 🙂 I’m leaving tomorrow afternoon and making my way back to wet Ireland. We’re already planning next year’s conference and I can’t wait to return.
I’ve seen some misleading information about Hyper-V logical processor or CPU numbers support. Some people are taking the operating system edition, e.g. Enterprise or Data Center numbers and applying them to Hyper-V. DO NOT DO THIS. The actual support is 32 Logical Processors or Cores, e.g. 16 Dual Core or 4 * 6 Core CPU’s. Here are the limitations for Hyper-V R2.
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Credit: WChomak