Aidan Finn, IT Pro

Microsoft has released a new hotfix to deal with an issue where you have poor performance when you enable RemoteFX in Hyper-V on a Windows Server 2012-based computer that uses AMD processors.

Symptoms

Consider the following scenario:

• You have a Windows Server 2012-based computer that uses AMD processors.
• You install a Hyper-V role on the computer.
• You install the Remote Desktop Virtualization Host (RD Virtualization Host) role service on the computer.
• You create one or more virtual machines on the computer.
• You use the Microsoft RemoteFX feature to improve user experience in virtual machines.

In this scenario, graphics performance in the virtual machines is poor.

 

Cause

This issue occurs because Hypervisor incorrectly configures the Page Address Table (PAT) cache type for root partitions on AMD systems.

A supported hotfix is available from Microsoft.

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The folks have Altaro have published a free eBook to show you how you build a Hyper-V cluster for less than $2,000.

– How to assemble a simple hardware setup which will allow you to run a two-node Hyper-V failover cluster at a total cost of less than $2,000

- Selecting the recommended hardware, assembling all parts and making the necessary modifications

- Installing your OS and setting up the drivers (download links included) and firing up your new Hyper-V test lab!

Check it out!

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In this article I want to talk a little about the security of the Hyper-V worker process in WS2012. This might give you a little more knowledge behind a potential problem that I blogged about before about KB2779204.

What is the Worker Process?

The virtual machine worker process reside in user mode (as opposed to kernel mode) in the management OS (also referred to incorrectly as the host OS, running in the root partition you can see in this diagram). There is one VMWP.EXE for every running virtual machine. It’s a small process but it plays an important role, helping Hyper-V to manage the VM.  It is responsible for coordinating all actions performed on a given virtual machine (start, stop, save, snapshot, Live Migration, etc) and is also where any device emulation happens (accessing the legacy network adapter, for instance).

The Security Changes

Let’s define something first. A VM breakout attack is where a hacker gets into the app/OS of a VM and then tries to break out from that security boundary to get onto the host and/or other VMs. This has not happened to Hyper-V but it has happened to certain other hypervisors but Microsoft wants to take no chances.

In Windows Server 2012, each worker process runs under a dedicated user account. There’s a very good preventative security reason for this. . By running the VMWP.EXE under a single restricted user account that has no rights over another other VM or to anything in the management OS (or host). A potential breakout to the VMWP.EXE would be limited to affecting just the compromised virtual machine’s files. It has no rights over anything else and therefore it can do no more damage.

In the following screenshot I’ve used SysInternals (free Microsoft tools) Process Explorer to view the properties of an instance of VMWP.EXE. Note the user account is called NT VIRTUAL MACHINE\<some random thing>. You’ll also note Data Execution Prevention (DEP – a BIOS requirement for Hyper-V) is enabled and Address Space Load Randomization is set to High Entropy (to randomize memory against buffer overrun attacks).

The user account is created for you. There is no user or password management for you. This user is automatically made a member of a special system and hidden group called NT VIRTUAL MACHINE\Virtual Machines. In local group policy (GPEDIT.MSC) on the Hyper-V host, you can see that this group has been granted a special right. Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Local Policies > User Rights Assignment > Log On As A Service is configured as follows:

This permission allows the dedicated user account for each VMWP.EXE to log onto the management OS. This means the VMWP.EXE can start, and the virtual machine can run on this host.

The Gotcha!

Some security officers might want to customize this GPO at the local/domain level to be very restrictive. Maybe they only allow certain groups of managed service accounts to log on as a service. That could cause a problem. Imagine they do implement this restrictive GPO. That would result in each host’s NT VIRTUAL MACHINE\Virtual Machines group being evicted from this right. And this could lead to the aforementioned issues in KB2779204.

“Starting or Live Migrating Hyper-V virtual machines may fail with error 0×80070569 on Windows Server 2012-based computers”

By design, as the KB article notes, Hyper-V should detect a GPO refresh every time it happens. This is normally every 90 minutes (with a random offset of 0 – 30 minutes) or whenever you purposely run GPUPDATE.EXE. When the refresh is detected then Hyper-V will repopulate the Log On As A Service right with the Virtual Machines group. That seems to work just fine for most people. But on occasion, there can be a problem, as the KB article states.

Sometimes that problem is a once-off glitch. If so, you can fix the issue by running GPUPDATE.EXE in the management OS of the affected host. Your VMs should start up OK to live migrate to this host with no issues now.

Sometimes the problem happens frequently. If that’s the case, then create an OU for the hosts with a custom GPO. I have said it before, and I’ll say it again: This should be normal practice. Your management OS’s are not like normal servers. Have a custom GPO for your hosts assigned to this Hyper-V hosts OU. It will be configured with special settings just for your hosts (restricted admin rights, AV scanning policies, etc) … including giving NT Virtual Machine\Virtual Machines the Log On As A Service right. One GPO refresh later and you’re sorted.

Thanks to Ben Armstrong (Hyper-V Senior Program Manager Lead at Microsoft aka @VirtualPCGuy) for fact-checking this article for me. Admission: I did edit afterwards so mistakes are mine!

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I was sure I had blogged this article; I know I read it and noted it, but I can’t find it in my blog.  I’m getting old!

Anyway, this one deals with a scenario where Application log entries EventID 412 and EventID 257 are logged following install of Windows Server 2008 R2 as guest OS on a VHDx Hard Disk.

Symptoms

Consider the following scenario:

Using Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Manager, you create a Virtual Machine with a VHDx hard disk using the New Virtual Machine wizard.

You install Windows Server 2008 R2 as guest OS on the newly created Virtual Machine. Following the install, EventID 412 and EventID 257 are logged in the Application Event Log of the guest OS.

Cause

Like physical disks, virtual disks have the same concepts of physical and logical sector sizes.

Certain applications and components, especially database and catalog, are aware of the physical sector size of the disk that they reside on. When these are moved to or installed on a physical disk that doesn’t have the same sector size as the one that they were initialized on, they will choose to do the appropriate action which may include logging an event to communicate the impact. Windows Server 2008 R2 has internal database and catalog components that will generate an error installing on an Advanced Format drive because Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM install media was prepared using a system that had a physical sector size of 512 bytes.

The VHDx hard disk created by the New Virtual Machine Wizard on Windows Server 2012 will be Advanced Format and will have a 4 KB physical sector size and a 512 byte logical sector size.

Resolution

In order for Windows Server 2008 R2 to be supported as a guest OS installed on a physical or VHDx based Advanced Format drive, the install media must contain the hotfix from KB982018 or the install media must contain SP1 or later. For more information regarding the compatibility of Windows Server 2008 R2 with Advanced Format Disks see the following KB982018.

If Windows Server 2008 R2 install media with the hotfix from KB982018 or with SP1 is not available, use the New Virtual Hard Disk Wizard to create a VHD and manually attach it to the virtual machine. It is also possible to use the use the New-VHD Hyper-V Cmdlet in Windows PowerShell to create a VHDx with a virtual hard disk with a physical sector size of 512 bytes as shown in the following example:

new-vhd -path D:\VHD\vhdx512.vhdx -sizeBytes 100GB -PhysicalsectorSize 512 -dynamic

If a VHDx was created with a physical sector size of 512, it would not be considered Advanced Format and installing Windows Server 2008 R2 without the hotfix from KB982018 or SP1 would be supported. When creating a VHDx with a physical sector size of 512 bytes that is greater than 2TB, the same NTFS file system limitations that apply to a similar physical hard disk would apply to the VHDx virtual hard disk.

In other words, if you get this alert then deploy either SP1 for W2008 R2 or install the update (here’s the reason why).  If you cannot do either of those, then install the OS and app into a custom VHDX as with the above cmdlet (that example creates a 100 GB Dynamic VHDX).

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The November 2012 cumulative rollup for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 contains a fix for a when you get the following error when backing up Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V VMs that are stored on NetApp storage:

The number of volumes reverted does not match the number of volumes in the snapshot set for virtual machine.

This cumulative update provided a new version of the Integration Components on the host to fix the issue.  You have (or had if you have already done it) to deploy this new version of the ICs to your guest OSs.  Didier Van Hoye previously (and correctly) blogged that this was only necessary for guest OSs that are Windows Server 2008 & Windows Vista or later.

To get the fix: patch your host (Windows Update – KB2770917) and update the ICs in the guest OSs.

Note: I record this as KB2770917.  That’s the number of the cumulative update that was delivered via Windows Update.  That update includes a number of articles that are not publicly documented.  We just got briefed on this issue so that’s why I’m posting this article 5 months after the update release.

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I’ve done a lot of posts over the last year on converged fabrics in Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V, not to mention nearly 100 pages on the topic in the new Hyper-V book.  Pretty much all of them center on using PowerShell to create your converged fabric in the management OS of the host itself.  But doing this is just 1 of the 3 ways (that I know of) for creating a converged fabric.  This topic has come up several times in conversation and blog comment over the past month so I thought I’d explore it a bit.

Using Hyper-V PowerShell in the Management OS

The benefit to implementing converged fabrics in the management OS is that with a pretty simple script, you can implement 1 design across an entire data centre no matter what hardware vendor you choose, or if you have rack servers here and blade servers there.  It’s the same every time, depending on physical NIC designs.  It’s also using technology that’s built into the virtualisation solution.  There is no dependency on additional expensive hardware.  And it’s software defined.  We like software-defined-anything right now because it is flexible.  In theory (and in practice as you’ll soon see) we can change it from a central point when the need arises.  That’s not the case with hardware defined solutions.

There is a concern for some about dependability.  All this MSFT networking is very new.  Can you build mission critical systems on it?  Some want to take the time to learn it a bit more before deploying it.

Hardware Network Appliances

An older option that’s been used for quite a while is to use hardware networking appliances to create converged fabrics, such as FlexFabric by HP (and others).  In the case of FlexFabric, with a pair of EUR 18K Virtual Connects you can carve up your 2 * 10 GbE blade server NICs into multiple 1 GbE NICs.  The benefit here is that you do the carving once per blade chassis with up to 8 or 16 blades per chassis.  It’s also a hardware appliance.  That means there is no CPU cost to implementing QoS in the management OS (as minor as that might be).  But importantly, there is a support policy from the hardware vendor – assuming that you (a) pay for the support and (b) the hardware is not more than 3 years old.

On the downside, hardware based solutions are very expensive.  That’s an issue when you’re looking at cloud computing and cross-charging, especially for public clouds where every capital expense makes your customer charges less competitive.  You’re also tied to that hardware vendor (thus impacting your future bid pricing) and possibly even that model of server.  And blades are not the most cost effective way to rack out a data center – walk into any substantial modern cloud and I bet you’ll see a hell of a lot more rack 1U and 2U servers than anything else!  The solution is hardware defined.  That makes it inflexible.  You set it per rack using the tools provided by the h/w manufacturer.  That’s not necessarily the most cloud integrated solution around.  I’d rather have control of the stack form top-to-bottom.

I’ve never used this approach so I don’t know where the NIC teaming is done or if you have to use the not-Microsoft-supported 3rd party software.  In the end, the networking will probably appear like it did in W2008 R2 Hyper-V.

VMM 2012 SP1 Logical Switch

There is a third option … which is related to a blog comment I got recently.  You can deploy a software defined converged fabric from System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager SP1 (VMM 2012 SP1).  Instead of deploying the WS2012 Hyper-V converged fabric from within the management OS, you create and deploy a logical switch from VMM.  You can do this in two ways:

• As a part of bare metal host build
• Or deploy it to an existing host … and overwrite the existing networking config on that host

Using VMM gives you all the benefits of software defined converged fabrics as in the aforementioned PowerShell option.  However, there’s a lot of stuff to create first in VMM.  But once that’s done, you can deploy that logical switch and the converged fabric design to any host (bare metal or existing) with some mouse clicks from the VMM console.  That gives you top-to-bottom control of the stack from a central point.

Two things to remember here:

• Not everyone should be a VMM administrator.  That’s why delegation exists.
• Yes, you can erase the existing networking config on a running host by deploying a logical switch to it.

Choose One or the Other Software Defined Approach

VMM 2012 SP1 does not recognise existing Hyper-V PowerShell deployed converged fabric designs because they aren’t implemented with the VMM logical switch.  This does not mean the host cannot be managed.  You can still create logical networks and IP address pools.  You just lose the central configuration that the logical switch can offer … and you cannot do Network Virtualization in the real world (which requires VMM networking).  My advice: if you are doing Hyper-V software defined converged fabrics then choose 1 method only:

• Use PowerShell in the management OS if you want simplicity XOR
• Use the VMM logical switch to push out the configuration, especially if you want central configuration, Network Virtualization, or to use VMM-managed virtual switch extensions

There will be downtime to switch from the PowerShell method to the VMM one.

What’s the Right Solution?

In the end, you should pick the right choice for you or your customer, be it hardware or software defined.  There is no universal right answer.  Shh, there is … do software defined converged fabrics!

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It’s been a big month for fellow VM MVP, Edvaldo Alessandro Cardoso.  First he started a cool new job, and now he’s got a new book called Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Cookbook on the shelves. 

- Create, deploy, and manage Datacentres, Private and Hybrid Clouds with hybrid hypervisors by using VMM 2012 SP1, App Controller, and Operations Manager.

- Integrate and manage fabric (compute, storages, gateways, networking) services and resources. Deploy Clusters from bare metal servers.

- Learn how to use VMM 2012 SP1 features such as Windows 2012 and SQL 2012 support, Network Virtualization, Live Migration, Linux VMs, Resource Throttling, and Availability.

You can buy this book now from:

• Amazon.com
• Amazon.co.uk
• Amazon.de

Congratulations on the new job and the book Alessandro!

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I wanted to post a Tweet saying it was T-3 until the new book was out.  I decided to double-check the availability date on Amazon.com (USA) when …

It’s out NOW!

I can’t wait to get a paper copy.  The norm is that folks in the USA who order now will have it before we authors do.  I just got it on Kindle and it looks good if I do say so myself

So that’s that!  The Kindle version appears to be out on all Amazon stores.  The paperback is out in the USA, and appears to be coming to Amazon Europe on April 5th:

• Amazon.com: paperback and Kinlde
• Amazon.co.uk: Kindle
• Amazon.de: Kindle

The book is also (coming) out through the usual tech book channels, so check them out if Amazon doesn’t cover your area.

Congrats to the author team, Hans, and the editors for all the hard work, and a special thanks to Mariann for believing in this project.

Authors:

• Patrick Lownds, UK, Virtual Machine (Hyper-V) MVP
• Michel Luescher, Switzerland, Microsoft Consulting Services
• Damian Flynn, Ireland, Cloud and Datacenter Management (System Center) MVP
• Me, Aidan Finn, Ireland, Virtual Machine (Hyper-V) MVP

Technical Editor: Hans Vredevoort, Netherlands, Virtual Machine (Hyper-V) MVP

Questions? The Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Book Release FAQ

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Microsoft has posted a KB article for when a cluster creation fails with an “Unknown error (0xc000005e)” due to a networking issue.

Symptoms

When attempting to run the Create Cluster Wizard to create a Failover Cluster with Windows Server 2012, the operation may fail. Additionally, you may receive the  following error:

An error occurred while creating the cluster.
An error occurred creating cluster ‘MyCluster’.
Unknown error (0xc000005e)

Note: An error 0xc000005e means STATUS_NO_LOGON_SERVER

Upon investigating the CreateCluster.mht that is located under C:\Windows\Cluster\Reports directory, you may notice the operation failure happens during the following:

- Verifying computer object ‘MyCluster’ in the domain.
- Unable to successfully cleanup.

Cause

This problem can occur if TCP or UDP Port 464 is blocked.

Resolution

To resolve this problem, ensure that port 464 for both TCP and UDP is open on all firewall network devices between the nodes in the cluster and the domain controller.

The error STATUS_NO_LOGON_SERVER is caused because the nodes in the cluster were unable to communicate with a domain controller to set the password when attempting to configure the computer objects in Active Directory. Port 464 is enabled by default in Windows Firewall on Windows Server 2012. 

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Over the years I’ve seen lots of computer naming standards.  Some have used Simpsons or Tolkein character names, football player surnames, etc.  That has mainly because of laziness, but sometimes it’s to do with security-by-obscurity because “hackers then can’t figure the network out”   Ooooooo-k then!  No need for defensive comments on that topic

On the other extreme I’ve seen the likes of Dub-Lab-DC-1.  It couldn’t get much more descriptive without including the spec of the server.  You’ll need to be careful if creating a VMM server in this kind of network.  There’s a small, but important, note in TechNet article that describes the system requirements of System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) with/without Service Pack 1 (SP1).

In addition to the normal rule of the computer name not exceeding 15 characters:

The computer name cannot contain the character string of -SCVMM-, but you can use the character string of SCVMM in the computer name. For example, the computer name can be SEASCVMMLAB, but the computer name cannot be SEA-SCVMM-LAB.

In other words:

• Dub-Lab-SCVMM-1 is BAD.
• Dub-Lab-SCVMM1 is good.  A single hyphen can be the difference between a successful day and a world of hurt.

Interestingly, neither Bing nor Google return any results for -SCVMM- for me. 

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Last night Hans Vredevoort, MVP, posted an article on the new Hyper-V book, Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Installation And Configuration Guide (Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de).  All I can say is “Wow!” and “Thank you, Hans”.

When the author team got together we had a very short conversation on who we wanted as our tech reviewer.  If you read my blog, then there’s a damned good chance you read Hyper-V.nu too, and a very big reason for that will be the posts by Hans.  He’s a respected member of the community, with thought out opinions, and damn, does he do his research! 

I’ve worked on 3 books with Hans, twice with him as the tech reviewer and once when he an author.  We knew what we’d get – Hans would make us look smarter.  Hans was digging out RFC docs to double check facts, testing scripts line by line, and not taking things for granted.  That’s why you’ll find Hans in the credits over and over.

Now don’t blame Hans if there are mistakes!  The nature of book writing is never ending deadlines, pressure to get things finished, and they are static.  Sometimes we authors added things after Hans had done his reviews, sometimes we find out something different, and worse … sometimes Microsoft releases information after you’re all done.  That one’s a total pain!

But thanks again, Hans, for the post and the hard work!

The Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Book Release FAQ

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I just had a weird issue where some apps got messed up on my Windows 8 PC at work.  They disappeared.  I went onto the Windows Store to re-install them but according to the store:

You already own this app

Sure, I might “own” it, but it’s not installed.  How do I fix that?

It’s not obvious but there is a way to sort it out in the Windows Store:

• Open the Windows Store.
• Left click or swipe from the top, and click/touch Your Apps.
• In the top left change Apps Not Installed On This PC to Apps Installed On <Name Of Device>.  This is because the store thinks that the app is actually installed.
• Click/touch the app(s) that is missing.
• In the bottom, click Install.  This is … a repair I suppose.

Bob’s your uncle!

Note: This does not seem to work with the default Microsoft apps.  I don’t have a solution for this yet.

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I’ve had the Nokia Lumia 820 (Windows Phone 8) up and running for nearly a week now, including a full bank (national) holiday weekend.  What did I make of it?

On the positive side:

• I like the merged contacts … on a personal phone.  I hate the default merge from the social networks on a business phone.  For personal usage, I like going to one place to start a conversation.  Any people that weren’t merged automatically were merged manually on the phone with very little effort.
• The core app functionality I want is there.  I’ve seen complaints about the Twitter and Facebook apps.  They’re simple and clean and have the functionality you need, just how I like it.

On the negative side:

• The breadth and quality of apps is poor.  You want a big name app?  Odds are it is not there in the Marketplace.  You want a jerky moving stickman sprite?  You got it!  Offering $100 to app devs will only continue this problem, not fix it.  We want quality, not quantity.  Microsoft needs to court the established app developers on other platforms instead of tempting students into earning beer money in return for cr-apps.
• 8 GB of storage, even with expansion, is not enough.  I’ve added a 16 Gb MicroSD card but that is only used for video/document/music storage.  Apps must be installed on the internal (8 GB) storage, and apps often (Audible for example) ignore the available storage expansion.  I have to limit app installs and Nokia map downloads because I’ve used 80% of the available 8 GB in a week (after clean up).
• The battery life of the Nokia 820 is not good.

Let me expand on the latter.  My work phone is a HTC 8x WP8 handset.  The battery life on it is similar to an iPhone.  It’ll sit on my desk, lightly used to be honest, for 2 days without power and without complaining.  This morning I used the Nokia for 15 minutes, while tapping the snooze button, on my house Wi-Fi (not 3G) while I checked e-mail, Facebook, etc.  The battery was drained by 16%.  I listen to audio books in the car (I got bored of bank scandals 2 years ago).  The FM transmitter is powered directly from the cigarette lighter.  I have been forced to power the phone from the USB slot on the transmitter because I’ll drain the battery too much during the 1 hour commute.

The phone actually gets quite warm while being used.  You can feel the heat through the back of the handset.  This is surely indicative of some inefficiency in the design of the handset?  I’ve never had another “hot” phone.  I have to charge this phone in the office, on the lead intended for the 8x.  The 8x is OK because it’s not as used/power hungry.  I never had to do this with my iPhone.

So far, I have to rate the HTC 8x as a much superior phone to the Nokia 820 but the Windows Phone 8 adventure continues.

By they way, I handled a Sony Xperia Z Android phone today.  Surprisingly light.  The square corners are a concern … I think I’d have to walk and sit down very carefully with that phone in my pocket.

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Microsoft has released a very high level document on Windows 8 Client Hyper-V (the actual name for this edition/version of Hyper-V) which you can optionally enable in Windows 8 Pro or Windows 8 Enterprise:

Client Hyper-V is the virtualization technology built into Windows 8. Client Hyper-V is the same virtualization technology previously available only in Windows Server. A similar functionality in Windows 7 is called Windows XP Mode.

Client Hyper-V enables you to run more than one 32-bit or 64-bit x86 operating system at the same time on the same host computer. But instead of working directly with the computer’s hardware, the operating systems run inside a virtual machine (VM).

Hyper-V enables developers and IT professionals to easily maintain multiple test environments and provides a simple mechanism to quickly switch between these environments.

Licensing:

I will not be answering questions on licensing, no matter what mechanism you try to contact me with.  Ask your LAR, distributor, or reseller … that’s their job because that’s why you pay them and that’s why they have lawyers

Windows 8 Enterprise gives you up to 4 VOSEs.  That means you can install Windows 8 Enterprise up to 4 times in virtual machines that are running on a PC that is licensed for Windows 8 Enterprise.  It doesn’t matter what virtualization you use: VirtualBox, VMware Workstation, Client Hyper-V, or whatever.  This is not a limit on how many VMs you can create; it is a limit on how many times you can install Windows 8 in virtual machines that are running on the licensed physical PC.  You’ll need licensing for any other operating system (Windows Server for example) if you want to install that OS in the VMs that you can run on your machine.

Reminder #1: This applies no matter what virtualisation you use.

Reminder #2: Send your licensing questions to your reseller, not to me.

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Mary Jo Foley has reported (lots more information there than here) that businesses can now buy (direct from Microsoft) a bulk number of Surface devices.  The choices vary by country:

In the USA you can buy the RT and Pro Surfaces.  In Ireland you are restricted to the Surface RT:

Note that when you add our VAT (a whopping 23%) then the Surface RT bulk order for business price is exactly the same as the consumer price (at least for the 32 GB RT tablet).

The Pro is the one businesses will want so I don’t see too much biz here for partners outside of the USA/Canada until the Pro model spans other markets.  There is no distribution channel that I know of for partner reselling so it won’t really happen – what partner will buy at retail price to resell at uncompetitive prices?  I expect HP/Lenovo to dominate there until Dell has a suitable Intel model (their new one does not fly IMO).

Go check out Mary Jo’s article if you want to learn more.

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Finding new books and music have been made much easier thanks to services like iTunes, Xbox Music, and Kindle.  I remember being stuck in a hide up the side of a mountain in Norway, waiting for Golden Eagles to come to our bait to photograph them, and burning the hours away reading a book.  After a couple of days, I’d get a new book with just a few touches, and be rearmed for the next day.  Just last week I bought a book while I was recommending that people check it out (I know the authors are that good).

The convenience is amazing.  I want it, I search, I buy it.  The e-sellers and the credit card companies must love this now-current way of selling content, as the brick & mortar stores shut down all over the place.

You know what I do miss … the feeling of finding a treasure.  When I got into music, the music I wanted to listen to wasn’t in the charts.  The Virgin Megastore was only in Dublin and a trip to the city was a once or twice a year thing.  You’d dig through local music stores trying to find something you wanted.  And even if you got to Tower Records or Virgin, they focused on the chart music that angry teenagers are trained to hate.  And the pleasure of finding that cassette (then the CD) was glorious after flicking through row and after row of boxes, rack after rack, to find something you liked. 

It was the same for books.  My college work placement was in Dublin and I’d head downtown most Thursday evenings to browse through Easons on O’Connell Street or the used book (also music) store in Abbey Street.  As a student, finding a near new CD or book was even better than finding a new one … more money for cider!!!!

I wonder if kids have that experience now … or is it just click-click-click-consume?

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Myself (through MicroWarehouse Ltd.) and Dave Northey (DPE, Microsoft Ireland) are going to be doing a 4-stop road show on the topic of why and how you should upgrade to Windows Server 2012.

The show will run from 9am until 1pm as follows:

• 15th April: Cork
• 17th April: Galway
• 19th April: Belfast
• 24th April: Dublin

The primary audience are Microsoft partners but all will be welcome.  You can register here.

BTW: There will be absolutely no Hyper-V content unless you bring up the subject

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I just started to read a post by Keith Mayer (Microsoft) on BranchCache and I got to wondering “how could I build a nice demo rig to demonstrate this stuff?”.  Way back when I started showing DFS-R in Windows Server 2008 R2, we used some network appliance that the guys called a “network nightmare” to throttle our network and show off how efficient DFS-R could be with redundant block (cross file) replication.  I want something like that … but virtual … and free.

Actually, it’s really easy and effective.

I’ve got 2 VMs, VM01 (the client) and VM02 (the remote file server).  What I’m going to do is restrict the outbound bandwidth from VM02 in the NIC settings of VM02 in Hyper-V Manager – also possible using PowerShell.

Before I do, I’m going log into VM01 and copy a Ubuntu 12.04 ISO from a file share on VM02 to VM01:

After a few runs, that takes 11 seconds.  Both VMs are on the same host, virtual switch, and simple subnet.  Now to hammer that.

I’ve enabled bandwidth management and set Maximum Bandwidth to 10 Mbps, not an uncommon speed for branch offices.  Click OK and that’s done.  There’s no need to shutdown or reboot the VM.

Now do the copy again …

That file copy is going to take a bit longer   Point proven!  Now you can head over to Keith’s blog, set up BranchCache, and show how Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8 Enterprise can add value to a business by overcoming limited bandwidth to/from branch offices.

If you want to build this out into a bigger virtual WAN, then you could do that.  Just set up a VM with multiple NICs.  It could be an appliance (I haven’t looked at Vyatta in quite a while) or maybe you set up a Windows Server VM with RRAS and enable simple RIP routing.  Now you can restrict the NICs on the router to simulate a bandwidth challenged WAN.

Before you comment – yes I know, this solution won’t simulate latency.

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Last night I finished setting up the new Nokia Lumia 820 Windows Phone 8 handset that came to me.  In summary – I’ve moved the SIM from my personal iPhone 4 to it with the intention of trying to use the WP8 machine as my normal phone.

It’ was an app-heavy night.  Starting with LastPass … cos I’ve lots of long passphrases recorded there   Other apps that I found and (left) installed:

• Accuweather: the best hour-by-hour forecast I’ve found
• Amazon Kindle
• Audible: I would prefer something that can play 3rd party audio but a 1 book/month subscription is cheap and is more than I can listen to anyway.  I can cancel at any point if I want.
• British Airways
• ConnectivityShortcuts: quickly disable connectivity, great for flying
• XE Currency
• Facebook
• Football Live: NFL news because there isn’t an official app
• Here Maps (Nokia): downloadable maps
• Hotels.com
• IMDB: perfect for those debates on the way home from the movies
• Irish Tides: tidal app for landscape photography
• IrishTimes: Irish news paper
• Lastminute.com
• LinkedIn
• Lync 2010: Who knows when my O365 will be updated so I can upgrade to Lync 2013
• My Travel Story Free: Snap holiday/travel photos by themselves are pointless.  Stick them in a “journal” to give them context.
• Netflix
• PDF Reader
• PhotoBeamer (Nokia): Wonderful app for presenting photos to a web browser on your PC/projector
• Photosynth
• Podcast Picker: the best of a bad bunch when it comes to podcasting on WP8. It can find, download (must be harder than it seems because some bigger names fail), auto download, and allow me to create playlists.  I have no interest in McGuyver solutions based on iTunes.
• Post-it Tiles: The sort of app I use to record the parking space I’ve used at the car park
• Pumps.ie: get the price of car fuel at local locations in Ireland
• RTÉ News Now: Irish news from the national broadcaster
• Shazam: Find out what music is playing
• SkyDrive
• Skype
• Sunlight: Get the sunrise and sunset times.  I am still looking for one that has the golden and blue hours.
• Twitter

As for my car’s Bluetooth, it’s a Parrot CK3100 LCD.  It synced up easily enough with the handset.  My Belkin FM transmitter works well.

I also installed a free battery app called “Battery”.  It gives a more meaningful display of the charge via a tile, as well as predicted battery life (while disconnected) or charge time (while charging).  There’s also a graph to illustrate power usage over time.

There is a little concern about battery life.  It was gobbled up this morning while watching the recorded Samsung S4 launch coverage on TWiT during breakfast.  However, I charged it in the car via the FM transmitter and I’ve been showing the phone to a few people in the office.  The battery is still showing as 100% full.

Photography is a big thing for me.  I copied my “favourites” album from my Windows 8 tablet to the phone.  These photos are full sized JPEGs from my DSLRs over the years.  They’ll range from crops on an 8 MP camera to full sized 16 MP images.  And they only get into this library is the are sharp (focus + detail).  On Windows 8, I’ve noticed that there appears to be an API issue in the new UI when you zoom in on images.  The detail is lacking.  Open up the images in the desktop and they are much more crisp.  What would it be like on WP8?

I am used to some form of compression when copying photos onto the iPhone.  You get a certain amount of zoom but the transfer reduces the photo size to save space (I think).  I was at a photography club event and met another member I hadn’t seen in a while.  We shared “war stories” and showed our prizes on our phones.  He had an iPhone and could only zoom a bit to show detail.  My relatively low res Lumia 820 allowed quite a bit more zoom on my images while retaining detail.  It felt (subjective judgement) that the WP8 photos app zooms better than Metro apps in Windows 8.  Score one for the Nokia. 

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I’m tuned into the MS Jumpstart for VMware on the Virtual Academy and Justin Incarnato (Orchestrator PM) said that Update Rollup 2 for System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 would be out in April.

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I really want Windows 8 to succeed.  But marketing fluff aside, it’s struggling.  The media are relishing in hammering Windows 8 on a daily basis.  Retailers are more interested in what Android devices they can stock than in what Windows 8 devices are on tap.  Lack of device availability (seems OK in the USA now, but still not great here) by the OEMs hasn’t helped.  The built-in apps in Windows 8 don’t help the cause.  And the apps in the store sure don’t give us much to hope for.

I don’t want to be Mr. Negative.  Let me offer examples of good apps:

Shark Dash

This is the one app that I have pad for in the Windows Store.  I love it.  You stretch a rubber shark to fire him around the bath tub, with a primary mission of eating the rubber duckies and a secondary mission of collecting the coins.  My colleague uninstalled it from her machine because it was too addictive.

Note that the game fills the screen.  It makes use of touch for interacting with the shark and scrolling the multi-sized bath tubs.  And it looks amazing on a 27” touch screen

Armed happens to be another great example of how to get this right.  There are some, like Nightmares From The Deep that are very pretty, and Hydro Thunder Hurricane that has console quality graphics (but at a steep price).

Sky News

It’s not easy praising something that is owned by Rupert Murdoch, but the Sky News (UK) app is a very good news app.  Once again, you use touch in a screen filled interface.  News is presented in text/image, recorded video clips, and a live feed from the Sky News channel.

Star Chart uses the entire screen to allow you to explore the cosmos.  Netflix is a superb implementation, with smooth animation that puts the website to shame.

OK.  How do apps get it wrong?

Not Using the Screen Space

Exhibit A, your honour, is Twitter’s brand new app.  Imagine this on a normal 22” monitor.  I have a column of information that is around 25% of the total real estate.

Seriously?  That’s the best that Twitter can do?  Please don’t bother informing me about the various other Twitter apps.  I’ve tried them.  They are all $hit. 

What should a Twitter app look like?  Your honour, please turn your eyes towards the Tweetdeck app running in the Chrome browser.  Notice how the various columns are right there, for the user.  The user doesn’t switch between single columns that waste 75% of the screen.

Yes, I am aware that Twitter now owns Tweetdeck.  Their Windows Store App “effort” shows just how little they care.

Useless Boxes

This is almost every information app in the Windows Store.  I’m only presenting The Register because it’s the only one of these that I have installed.

These apps are a lazy implementation.  I don’t know how they operate under the hood, but they appear as if each box is an RSS entry from the original website.

Want to see how to get this right?  Have a look at Appy Geek, an IT news aggregator.

It Just Doesn’t Refresh Like It’s Supposed To

I give you a heinous villain.  Standing in the dock now … is the built-in People app.

What I like about this app is the potential: aggregate all of your various social networks and contacts into a design-for-touch UI.  It should be the app I use the most on my Windows 8 tablet.  But it is not.  Instead I have Facebook open in IE (Metro) and Tweetdeck open in Chrome.  How … inefficient.

Why don’t I use People?  When I browse into What’s New, there’s a wait for it to load.  Up comes all the posts.  OK so far … apart from the lengthy wait.  Maybe I’ll open IE via a link to read something.  I come back to People a while later and there’s no new posts.  Huh!  Refresh reveals nothing.  But what if I double check?  If I open the Facebook website I’ll find newer posts.  If I browse back to the main page in People and back into What’s New then the new posts appear.  Ugh!  Why bother!?

MetroTwit (a hardened villain, your honour) falls into this bucket.

It Crashes More Than A Bandicoot

I call for the death sentence for MetroTwit, your honour.  This vile creature sins in so many ways.

MetroTwit was the app of choice on the PC.  It became my TweetDeck replacement after Twitter decided to geld their new acquisition.  The desktop app sucks on a touch UI, being sluggish, and it’s a resource hog on my Atom tablet.  I was delighted to hear that MetroTwit would have a multi-column Windows Store App.  And then I tried it.

It wastes space.  It is nothing like the desktop version.  It doesn’t refresh dependably.  And it crashes.  I can make it crash at will.  In the morning, I’ll scroll back though my Twitter feed to see what I’ve missed.  In any other Twitter app, I can go back 8-12 hours with no problems to see where I’d left off the previous day.  But if I go back more than a few pages in MetroTwit (an each page is only a handful of tweets thanks to the wasteful UI) then *bang* it’s gone with no explanation.

Where Is The Synchronisation?

At the original Build we were told that developers would be able to synchronize their apps between our (up to) 5 devices.  I’d love that.  I have a work laptop, a work PC, my personal tablet, and my personal ultrabook.  I’d like to sync via SkyDrive.

Some apps get this right.  OneNote MX is a perfect example.  Edit a note and it syncs immediately.  Some, but not many, games do this too.  But not My Country.  My Country, a Sim City style of game, broke my heart.  I had spent weeks building up my city.  Then one day it crashed and reset itself.  Had the game synced via the cloud then I might have had some way to get back my progress.  Maybe I could have continued on another device.  Alas, it did not and I immediately uninstalled the game.

Cra-Apps

Every app store is filled with crap apps (cra-apps).  Unfortunately there are so few of the established brands in the Windows Store that these cra-apps seems to dominate.  How many stick men or dancing sprites do we really need?  How many Justin Beiber info sites do we need?  How many quizzes are required? 

The focus has been on quantity rather than on quality.  There are competitions to encourage newbies to get apps published.  Where is the encouragement to get Tweetdeck, Facebook, NFL Gamepass, and all the other big names in there?  I couldn’t care less if there were 1,000,000 apps in the store.  I’ll only ever use a certain number, but they have to be the right apps.  I got over sprites when I graduated from the Commodore 64.

Desktop Trash

Wild Tangent, I’m looking at you.  Let me get this very clear: Microsoft should not allow desktop apps to be published/sold via the Windows Store.  Microsoft should also limit the number of apps that can be published in a day/month by any one person/company.  Wild Tangent is polluting the Windows Store with $hite.  It serves the marketing people well because it boosts the numbers of apps in the store. 

Note: Windows RT users won’t notice this because desktop apps don’t appear in the Windows RT store app.

They Just Didn’t Try

Why is it that some apps are much better on every other platform?  Take Kindle for example.  I’d rather read a book on my iPhone than use Amazon’s app on Windows 8.  It’s a poor implementation compared to what is available on every other OS.  It feels like they took the poor desktop app and thought “that’ll do”.  Page turning, the one thing you do the most in Kindle, is nasty in the Windows Store App.

If a consumer goes into a store and tries a Windows 8 app then the natural reaction will be to compare and contrast it what they’ve used on iOS or Android.  Let’s take Zinio (magazine subscription/reading) for example.  There is no attempt to hide Zinio from you in the Apple Store.  Zinio is region crippled in the Windows Store; I got around that by temporarily setting my computer’s location to the USA.  Then I logged in to access my existing subscriptions.  No matter that I did, I couldn’t access more than the last 6 issues of a subscription.  I have no such problems on other platforms.  To the uneducated consumer the reason is simple: “Windows 8 sucks”.  It never crosses their mind to blame the app.

And let’s not forget the reliability of the app.  Back to Kindle: I have a situation where if I read a bit of a book on another device (such as my Kindle reader or iPhone) and sync, I cannot sync to the new position on my Windows 8 tablet.  The app just sits there forever, trying to sync, and never succeeds, fails, nor times out.  Uninstalling and reinstalling the app, followed by downloading the book again allows me to sync … until I dare to read a few pages on another device again.  Ugh!

—

Like I said, I really want Windows 8 to succeed.  But the desired apps and app quality is just not there.  Until there’s a shift from quantity to quality, I just don’t see Windows 8 having a chance in the consumer space, and IDC might end up being right about the future of this new tablet platform.  Consumers don’t care about the OS.  They don’t use the OS.  Users want apps, and the apps and app quality they want just aren’t there – which they can quickly see when they try devices out in the store (assuming the store bothers to power up or Internet-connect the display Windows devices in the same way that Apple demands for their devices on the next table).

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Today a nice new Nokia Lumia 820 arrived to my desk.  I decided that I would try to use it to supplant my iPhone 4 that has run my life since November 2010.  That should be … interesting.

As usual, getting Windows Phone 8 setup for personal usage was a breeze.  I put in my Live ID and my social networks and contacts were synchronised from the cloud.  I added my Office 365 account and my mail/calendar were sorted, quickly followed by disabling Hotmail sync.  Facebook and Twitter apps were installed, and I updated the Nokia Drive and photo apps.  All very easy.  This is where Windows Phone excels.  It is designed to be a social phone OS.

The two challenges I’m facing are:

• Finding a working podcast solution – Podcasts are hidden from us (Ireland) in the Marketplace … “licensing” is the excuse from Microsoft which is flat out BS.  Such region crippling is inexcusable.  One of the paid-for podcasts apps is allegedly written and sold by Windows Phone developers that are employed by Microsoft.  Things that make you go Hmmm.
• Finding an audio book solution that allows you to play and keep place for 3rd party content.

As for other apps that I use, I’ve found them before on my work phone (the excellent HTC 8x handset) and I expect no issues there.  They’re usually navigation and photography related: Irish Tides, a sunrise/sunset app, etc. 

BTW, the Nokia alternative reality app is really cool.  Some of the guys in the office loved it.  I can see it being useful when in a strange location and seeking somewhere to eat, like a group of us were a month ago in rural Florida.

My FM transmitter will be fine … it’s a Belkin gadget that connects to the phone via a 3.5 mm audio jack.  That’s playback in the car sorted.  I’ve seen lots of comments about car Bluetooth.  Let’s see how my near-new Focus (Ford Sync is still an expensive option here) with a Parrot interface does.

I’ll post more on my progress as time goes by.

EDIT#1:

Somewhere someone is sending a panicked email right now *evil laugh*

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I’m getting lots of questions about the release of Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Installation And Configuration Guide.  I’ll deal with them all here.

The Kindle version of the book is available now and the paper version is out in the USA, with release in Europe coming soon (please see Amazon with 1 mouse click instead of emailing me).

• Amazon.com
• Amazon.co.uk
• Amazon.de

Is System Center Covered In The Book?

No, it is not.  The book is 600 pages long, not 6,000.  There is already enough in WS2012 to fill an above-average-size tech book (which it did) than to include the massive System Center products.  This book gives you the fundamentals that are essential to understand for designing and managing a Hyper-V cloud, even if you’re hiding it under System Center.

I Found A Typo

We do our best to eliminate these but the editing process sometimes introduces errors, e.g. we submit our graphics, it gets re-drawn, we ask for changes, and sometimes those things get missed.  A chapter might be written with a correct scalability limit before RTM, and then a new limit is announced at RTM time.  These things happen.  Please contact Wiley directly.

Are The Scripts Available To Download?

No.  Some of the scripts in the book are quite long and detailed.  People have asked if there is a download somewhere.  There is not – and this was my decision.  Wiley asked if we would like to share the scripts online.  I decided that I didn’t want a person who didn’t buy the book to get value from our research and work.  Once they get shared online … they’ll appear all over the place, no matter what copyright you put on them.  So take the time to type them out – maybe you’ll understand the code a little better, and maybe you’ll improve them!

Does the book include a PDF?

The book does not include a PDF.

Can You Give Me A PDF Because <Insert Story Here>?

No.

Will there be a Kindle, Epub, etc, electronic version available?

E-book versions will be released.  Usually that is at the same time or soon after the paper version of the book.  See the Wiley site for more details.

What About O’Reilly?

I have no idea.  Contact O’Reilly.  Same for their pricing; it is nothing to do with me.

Why Can’t I Get The Book In My Country?

I don’t know.  Distribution is handled by the publisher.

Why is Amazon charging more for the Kindle version?

There is a small chance that Amazon will continue to sell the paper book at the pre-release discount price for a short time after the release.  That happens sometimes.  And for a brief period, the Kindle version is more expensive.

—–

I’m looking forward to the release.  The project started a long time ago and a lot of man-hours went into it.

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This afternoon I got a phone call from a -blocked- phone number.  I answered.  The person who called said he was calling me from Bank of Ireland.  I got the usual “the call is being recording for training purposes” speech.  And then the shocker:

“I need to ask you some security questions”.

Huh?

1. This person called me.  I assume he got my number from a database.  OK, my phone could have been stolen.  But let’s remember that he called me.
2. He was going to ask me the security questions?

Who the hell was he?  This could be any geezer with caller ID disabled on his phone and reading off an official sounding script.  Let’s imagine he asks me to confirm my date-of-birth, my credit card number, and my mother’s maiden name, etc.  What’s to stop that dude from calling the bank and claiming to be me?

I refused to proceed.  To be honest, I knew it was BoI and I knew why he was calling.  But I wanted to highlight how stupid this “phishing” practice was.  The guy in question understood and told me how I could contact the bank to proceed.  He was quite professional about it, and not to blame for the process he was force to follow by his employer/manager.

But the call from block number practice followed by asking security questions process is ridiculous.  I took to Twitter to let BoI know what I thought:

This is the response that I got:

So let’s imagine the scenario out:

1. The Prince of Abuja picks up his phone, blocks caller ID, and calls me.  He reads out the “call is being recorded” script and starts out with the security question process.
2. I stop him because I don’t want my security question answers to be phished.
3. The Prince of Abuja now says “Sure, my name is Prince of Abuja and you can call me on 01 4567890 and I’ll be happy to help you”
4. I call 01 4567890
5. The Prince of Abuja now asks me the questions and I give him the answers
6. Now the Prince of Abuja has the necessary information to call Bank of Ireland and pretend to be me.

Bank of Ireland, this is the most ridiculous “security” practice.  It’s clear that you don’t have the first clue about data or identity security.  I am not a real security expert but I know enough not to be sharing information in this manner.

Jeez!

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Alex Juschin (Microsoft RDS MVP) will be delivering a day of free training on Windows Server 2012 RDS & VDI in Microsoft’s Leopardstown offices (Dublin, Ireland) on Tuesday 26th March.

Seriously: you will want to know about RemoteFX (RDP 8.0), the new connection broker, the new personal settings storage mechanism, and much more.

Places are limited, so register early.

Details of the event (and the registration page) are here:http://microsoftrdsandvdi.eventbrite.com/#

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