July 2010

User State Virtualization

July 31, 2010 // 2 Comments

What the hell is USV? It’s simple; it’s using technologies to unbind user data from the PC. You’re talking about features like roaming profiles, redirected folders and offline files. Believe it or not, most companies I encounter have not done this. For them, a PC repair is [...]

Notable Changes in SP1 Beta for Win7 and W2008 R2

July 30, 2010 // 0 Comments

There are a number of notable changes in the Service Pack 1 beta for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. You might not have heard it, but they do go beyond Hyper-V. There is a document you can read with all the details. Here’s the highlights for the server OS: Hyper-V Dynamic [...]

Burton Group Versus Hyper-V

July 30, 2010 // 1 Comment

This morning I read an article on Network World that I thought I’d write about. It reported a claim by the Burton Group (yes; them again) where it was claimed that: You should virtualise Exchange You should not use Hyper-V to do it: because it does not have ordered virtual machine [...]

Linux Integration Components 2.1 RTM

July 30, 2010 // 0 Comments

You wanted 4 virtual CPU’s in a Hyper-V Linux virtual machine? You wanted clock sync and host shutdown sync? Now you got it! Ben Armstrong has just blogged that the version 2.1 integration components (or services if you are a VMM head) are released. Mike Sterling is the man in [...]

Volume Activation

July 29, 2010 // 0 Comments

Thanks to being in the hosting business for the past 3 years and doing short term contracting before that, I’ve never had to deal with the nightmare that is Microsoft volume activation. My new role requires I understand it, and it crops up plenty in an exam I’m preparing for. KMS, [...]

Deploying Microsoft RemoteFX for Personal Virtual Desktops Step-by-Step Guide

July 28, 2010 // 2 Comments

“This step-by-step guide walks you through the process of setting up a working personal virtual desktop that uses RemoteFX in a test environment. Upon completion of this step-by-step guide, you will have a personal virtual desktop with RemoteFX assigned to a user account that can connect by using [...]

Free Vizioncore Management Pack for VMware

July 28, 2010 // 0 Comments

Matt McSpirit has posted about Vizioncore releasing a new and free management pack for monitoring VMware using Operations Manager 2007 R2. That’ll shake things up a bit! Technorati Tags: Operations Manager,Virtualisation,VMware,System Center Please follow and like [...]

Back on the Certification Trail

July 27, 2010 // 0 Comments

Microsoft exams are a funny beast. I’ve worked in the hosting business for the last 3 years. The only reason that hosting companies even bother with the MS partnership program is because it is a requirement to be at least a registered partner to get SPLA. After that, it’s pretty [...]

Attack on Windows via Siemens Software

July 24, 2010 // 2 Comments

I just read about this attack. It uses Siemens software to install a root kit. The vulnerability starts with a static password that Siemens inserted. (I once worked in a bank where I am told MSBlaster got in via a Siemens phone engineer using the modem in their systems servers to dial [...]

Thoughts on Hyper-V VDI Hosts

July 23, 2010 // 2 Comments

Lots of out-loud thinking here …. If you put a gun to my head right now and asked me to pick a hardware virtualization solution for VDI then I honestly wouldn’t pick Hyper-V. I probably would go with VMware. Don’t get me wrong; I still prefer Hyper-V/System Center for server [...]