Archive for April, 2009

Register for Beta Exam 71-680: TS: Windows 7, Configuring  (Updated)

You are invited to take beta exam 71-680: TS: Windows 7, Configuring. If you pass the beta exam, the exam credit will be added to your transcript and you will not need to take the exam in its released form. The 71-xxx identifier is used for registering for beta versions of MCP exams, when the exam is released in its final form the 70-xxx identifier is used for registration.

By participating in beta exams, you have the opportunity to provide the Microsoft Certification program with feedback about exam content, which is integral to development of exams in their released version. We depend on the contributions of experienced IT professionals and developers as we continually improve exam content and maintain the value of Microsoft certifications.

71-680: TS: Windows 7, Configuring counts as credit towards the following certification(s): MCTS: Windows 7, Configuration

Availability

• Registration begins: April 27, 2009
• Beta exam period runs: May 5, 2009- May 18, 2009

Receiving this invitation does not guarantee you a seat in the beta; we recommend that you register immediately! Beta exams have limited availability and are operated under a first-come-first-served basis. Once all beta slots are filled, no additional seats will be offered.

Testing is held at Prometric testing centers worldwide, although this exam may not be available in all countries (see Regional Restrictions).  All testing centers will have the capability to offer this exam in its live version.

 Registration Information

• You must register at least 24 hours prior to taking the exam.
• Please use the following promotional code when registering for the exam: WIN7J
• Receiving this invitation does not guarantee you a seat in the beta; we recommend that you register immediately.

Full story here: http://blogs.technet.com/betaexams/archive/2009/04/15/register-for-beta-exam-71-680-ts-windows-7-configuring.aspx

More Windows 7 exams in development: http://blogs.technet.com/mslcommunity/archive/2009/03/25/sneak-peek-at-windows-7-exam-development.aspx

Prepare for the exam (updated 28th of April 2009)

Useful resources:

• Windows 7 Technet Library (Beta): http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd349342.aspx
• Windows 7 Springboard: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/dd361745.aspx
• Windows 7 Engineering: http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/
• Windows 7 Team Blog: http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windows7/default.aspx
• IT pro guides: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c14b8a69-db3b-4b7c-9203-689b7719b8b6&DisplayLang=en
• Windows Client video library: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/cc983502.aspx
• Windows 7 learning portal: Windows 7 – Learning Portal
• Windows 7 exam Information: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/Exams/70-680.aspx

Some Microsoft Clinics.

• First Look: Windows 7 Beta for IT Professionals: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/syllabi/6289A.aspx
• First Look: Windows 7 Beta for IT Professionals Hands-on Lab: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/syllabi/6290A.aspx

Topics to know for the exam based on clinics:

• Discuss configuration of the UAC elevation prompt
• Explain BitLocker Data Encryption for removable storage devices
• Summarize how to create and enforce AppLocker rules
• Describe how Windows Defender helps to improve security on a computer
• Describe how DirectAccess helps improve the connectivity experience for remote users
• Explain how caching works to help make users in a branch office more productive
• Summarize how to use libraries and search to organize and find information
• Describe how taskbar and Control Panel improvements bring together common tasks and information to reduce clutter and improve navigation
• Explain how to perform a Windows Backup and Restore
• Describe troubleshooting enhancements including the Problem Steps Recorder, unified tracing concepts, Performance Monitor, and Windows PowerShell 2.0
• Configure User Account Control.
• Utilize the User Account Type and Elevation Prompt.
• Configure Local Security Policy.
• Configure Windows Firewall.
• Create AppLocker Rules and configure enforcement.
• Configure Windows Defender.
• Set indexing locations and modify advanced options.
• Execute searches form multiple locations.
• Create a library and set security permissions.
• Create and deploy a search connector.
• Use the built-in diagnostics tools to diagnose and resolve system problems.
• Use Performance Monitor to collect system performance information.
• Configure the Action Center and view messages.
• Examine events in Event Viewer and create a custom view.
• Configure Device Manager and control device installation.
• Run Windows PowerShell commands.
• Configure Backup and Restore option.
• Configure the Sync Center.

Enjoy learning!

List of issues that are fixed:

Issue 1

When you migrate VMware virtual machines, the resource pools that are associated with the virtual machines are changed.

Issue 2

Hyper-V virtual machines have a status of “unsupported cluster configuration” if a node in a Windows Server 2008 Failover Cluster does not respond or has been restarted.

Issue 3

Differencing disks are lost when the following conditions are true:

• You migrate a virtual machine from a Virtual Server host.
• Multiple virtual machines share the same parent virtual hard disk file.

Issue 4

The agent status is not updated for Windows Server 2008 Failover Cluster nodes.

Issue 5

Hyper-V virtual machines in a Windows Server 2008 Failover Cluster have a status of “unsupported cluster configuration” if the cluster has a resource that has an MSCluster_Property_Resource_Cluster_Extension_XP_Type type. This resource type is typically used by storage replication software.

Issue 6

If you add a Virtual Center server by using an account that is a member of the Enterprise Admins group, you receive the following error message when the refresh host job runs:

Error (2951) Virtual Machine Manager cannot complete the VirtualCenter action on server servername.domainname.com because of the following error: Login failed due to a bad username or password. (InvalidLogin).

This hotfix rollup also includes the fixes that are documented in the following Virtual Machine Manager 2008 update:

959596  (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959596/ ) Description of the System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 update to address physical to virtual (P2V) issues

This hotfix rollup is available on the following Microsoft Update Web site:

http://update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate

KB961983: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961983

Windows PowerShell Virtual Machine Manager Cmdlet Reference: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=643C96AC-AB5C-4470-BD03-F32981BC3013&displaylang=en

Today I was doing some testing on my home datacenter. I’m installing the first public release of Server 2008 R2 (build 7000). I was running on all my hosts Windows Server 2008, until now. 

My configuration is standardized on:

• 1x Q6600 CPU,
• Intel P45 Express chipset with the ICH10R Sata controller (http://www.intel.com/Products/Desktop/Chipsets/P45/P45-overview.htm )
• 8Gb of RAM,
• 2 SATA drives in RAID 1 for the OS install and some other data. (semi Hostraid within ICH10R utility)
• 1 SATA drive for Local VMs. (using ISCSI for SAN connection to test Live migration)

Everything ran ok after the default OS install, but when I enabled the Hyper-V role and did a reboot something happened within my Raid configuration and gave me an “initialize status” when booting. Something was happening downtown. This doesn’t felt good.

The second time I started from scratch I also did an install of the chipset drivers or the Intel Storage manager within the Server 2008 R2 OS. Maybe this could help. No luck either. The reason I did this because I saw the “sm bus controller” missing in the device manager.

Luckily the company I work for has the ability to test some newer builds. After installing the new build (yes that is 3 times in a row) everything went very smooth and the installation was extremely fast.

The first build has no problems with the ICH9R and Intel P35 systems. A colleague of mine runs on this configuration @ home in his datacenter.

Case closed for now.

To be able use VSS based backups of Hyper-V VMs using Windows Server Backup, we need to add the following registry keys to register the Hyper-V VSS Writer with Windows Server Backup. WindowsServerBackup key is not created when we install the Windows Server Backup feature. We have to create this key manually.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WindowsServerBackup\Application Support\{66841CD4-6DED-4F4B-8F17-FD23F8DDC3DE}

When the keys listed above created, we also need to create a String Value with the following parameters / settings:

Name: Application Identifier
Type: REG_SZ
Value: Hyper-V

When backing up virtual machines, we must select all volumes where VM related files is present, because Windows Server Backup only supports volume based backups.

For more information about Hyper-V virtual machine backups, take a look on the KB958662.

• General resources
• Core Server
• Exchange Server
• File Server
• Hyper-V
• Multi Site clustering
• Network loadbalancing
• SQL Server

  Read the rest of this entry »

System Center Operations Manager management pack for Hyper-V.

A quick note that a beta of the Hyper-V management pack for System Center Operations Manager (2007, 2007 R2) is available. In combination with SCVMM (for advanced monitoring of VMs across your Hyper-V, ESX and Virtual Server environments), this SCOM management pack enables health/perf monitoring of the Hyper-V host. The management pack includes health diagram view of virtual machines, virtual components roll-up per host, critical Hyper-V Service monitoring, disk space threshold monitoring.

This beta management pack supports the following OS only (for now):

• Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition (Full Installation with Hyper-V Role enabled)
• Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition (Full Installation with Hyper-V Role enabled)
• Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition (Full Installation with Hyper-V Role enabled) 

To request an invitation to access this beta, you can send a message to the following address: MPCC@microsoft.com

Hyper-V
Hyper-V provides software infrastructure and basic management tools in Windows Server 2008 that you can use to create and manage a virtualized server computing environment. The following resources contain information about Hyper-V.
What’s New in Hyper-V
Windows Server 2008 R2 includes changes to the Hyper-V role in Windows Server 2008. This topic describes some of these new functionalities.
Hyper-V Update List
This topic summarizes the list of software updates and hotfixes for Hyper-V.
Hyper-V Release Notes
Read about the known issues about this release of Hyper-V.
Planning and Deployment
Hyper-V Planning and Deployment Guide
This guide describes the considerations you should take into account when planning to deploy the Hyper-V technology, and provides installation and configuration details that will help you deploy Hyper-V.
Hyper-V: Step-by-Step Guide to Using Live Migration in Windows Server 2008 R2
This guide describes the steps that are required to perform a live migration of Hyper-V virtual machines from one node in a Windows Server 2008 R2 failover cluster to another node.
Virtual Machine Migration Guide: How To Migrate from Virtual Server to Hyper-V
This guide explains how to migrate virtual machines running Virtual Server 2005 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) or Virtual PC to Hyper-V.
Getting Started
Hyper-V Getting Started Guide
Become familiar with Hyper-V by installing this new technology and creating a virtual machine.
Hyper-V Step-by-Step Guide: Hyper-V and Failover Clustering
Learn how to use Hyper-V and Failover Clustering together to make a virtual machine highly available by creating a simple 2-node cluster.
Hyper-V Virtual Machine Snapshots: Frequently Asked Questions
Get answers to some common questions about virtual machine snapshots.
Case Study how Microsoft does Server Virtualization
To optimize deployment and management of thousands of virtual machines, Microsoft Information Technology (Microsoft IT) has developed standards and best practices for configuring host servers, storage, and network infrastructure. 
Installed Help
Help installed with Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 is also available in the Windows Server 2008 Technical Library.
Hyper-V Manager
 Other Resources
Windows Server 2008 TechCenter: Hyper-V
TechCenters provide links to content outside of the Technical Library, including Knowledge Base articles, downloads, technical articles, and other resources.
Best practices
Hyper-V Best Practices – Quick Tips (1)
http://blogs.technet.com/vikasma/archive/2008/07/24/hyper-v-best-practices-quick-tips-1.aspx
 Hyper-V Best Practices – Quick Tips (2)
http://blogs.technet.com/vikasma/archive/2008/07/24/hyper-v-best-practices-quick-tips-2.aspx
 Link to Microsoft site: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753637.aspx

Linux Integration Components for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V

Brief Description
A set of drivers that enable synthetic device support in supported Linux virtual machines under Hyper-V.

Download here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=ab7f4983-93c5-4a70-8c79-0642f0d59ec2