Microsoft updates Windows 7 SDK beta
Ars Technica – Boston,MA,USA
The Windows SDK beta for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 has been
updated. Developers, what are you waiting for? By Emil Protalinski | Last
updated …
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Q. How can I mount a virtual hard disk (VHD) file in Windows 7 or …
Windows IT Pro – Loveland,CO,USA
A. Diskpart and Disk Manager in Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 have native
VHD support and can be used to create and mount vhd files. …
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32-bit support optional for Server 2008 R2 Server Core
Ars Technica – Boston,MA,USA
32-bit support for Windows Server 2008 R2 Server Core will have to be
installed manually since this is the first 64-bit-only operating system
that Microsoft …
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IE8 in Windows 7, and IE7 in Vista SP2 – Download Critical Patches
Softpedia – Bucharest,Romania
… Windows XP SP3, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008, for the
IE8 Beta build in Windows 7 pre-Beta and in Windows Server 2008 R2
pre-Beta, …
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PowerShell 2.0: Even Better Than 1.0
Microsoft Certified Professional – USA
While no release dates have been set, we can likely expect to see it around
the releases of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Should you care? …
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Economy Could Slow Enterprise Adoption of Windows 7
PC World – USA
There are networking and other features in Windows Server 2008 R2 that take
advantage of new features in Windows 7, so Microsoft might have better luck
…
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Q. How can I install Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 to a …
Windows IT Pro – Loveland,CO,USA
A. Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 add the ability for an OS to be installed
onto a virtual hard disk (VHD) file to boot physical hardware. …
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Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta Now Powers Microsoft.com
Softpedia – Bucharest,Romania
Microsoft.com is already running on top of Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta
(Windows 7 Server) almost entirely, the Redmond company confirmed. …
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32 Bit Support To Be Optional in Windows Server 2008
Maximum PC – San Francisco,CA,USA
Windows Server 2008 R2 will be the first operating system to feature 32 bit
optional. This means that all the applications included with Windows Server
2008 …
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Windows 7: Is it so hard to say “we’re sorry”?
InfoWorld – San Francisco,CA,USA
… frilly release — Windows 7 — while tying what little IT red meat it
contains to the company’s next-generation server OS, Windows Server 2008
R2. …
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Just a quick one today, I had a client come to me this morning with their Lenovo R61 notebook with Vista as the OS, complaining that they couldn’t get their wireless connection working. After a clean reboot the Error Dialog box that cam up said “Error Code: 1747 WLAN AutoConfig service failed to start”. So I tried to open up Event Viewer to have a look and that failed to load as well stating that the Windows Event Log Service failed to start.

So I opened up the Services MMC and tried to manually start the Windows Event Log Service and no luck, didn’t start. SO I did a bit of hunting and found that it could be related to a corrupt Windows Vista TCP/IP Winsock Catalog. So I ran the following command in the command prompt with admin privileges.

netsh winsock reset

What this does is reset the Winsock Catalog to a clean state or default configuration. After a reboot everything was fine.

What was interesting to note was that Windows automatically created a 200mb hidden partition which is used to hold the Boot Data Configuration (BCD) and the Windows Recovery Environment and actually only uses 32Mb of the allocated 200Mb. One thing to note here is that it is very hard to remove this partition after it is created and if you do then you risk your computer not booting again!

But if you are like me and wanted to take an image of the machine so that you can put it on another machine to test as well then this “hidden partition” can cause some issues. There are ways to avoid this partition from being created and there is a great article explaining it here..

One of the first things that I was impressed with and was a common comment on Twitter was the speed at which it booted and logged in, much better than Vista in my opinion. The other thing was the task bar. Let’s say you have more than one tab open in Internet Explorer you can hover over the IE Icon in the task bar and have the tabs that you have open appear separately and you can then just click on the one that you want to open (see below)

Another little change which may throw a few people (my clients especially who LOVE change) is that Folders are now called Libraries, so you know have a Document Library, Picture Library etc etc.

Now what I found really cool was you now have the ability to Create and Attach VHD Files through Disk Management, which from an admin point of view is great because you can now attach modify VHD files.

One thing that is really important for me and other network admins is Remote Server Administration and Microsoft have released a Windows 7 version or RSAT that you can grab from here. This installed fine and once enabled through Control Panel > Programs and Features > Turn Windows Features on or off they were up and running. I turned on DNS Server Tools, Hyper-V Tools, File Server Resource Manager Tools, AD DS Tools and Group Policy Management Tools and they all work well.

So far I have been impressed with this version. I am still testing out a few things and will post anything that I find impressive or NOT so make sure you SUBSCRIBE to my RSS Feed or better still Follow Me on Twitter

Cheers

Daniel
Continuing to test Windows 7

If you are using Hyper-V or are considering using it then grab this and have a read. Grab it here…..

After reading Virtual PC guy’s article on the Import and Export feature of Hyper-V I thought I would give this a go. I needed to move 2 Exchange 2007 Servers, one holding the Mailstore Role and the other the Hub Transport Role, from one Hyper-V Server to another. Let me say if you ever need to do this then this way is a MUST.

First shutdown the current Virtual Machine, Select it in the “Virtual Machines” window, then on the right hand side you will see a link that say export. Click that and you will then need to select an Export Path, in my case C:\export. After you click OK a folder will be created inside that export folder and it will be the same name as the Virtual Machine that you are exporting.

After that has completed, you can then copy that folder to the new Hyper-V Server and rather than selecting export we want to select Import Virtual Machine. Make sure you allow enough time for this copy process, it took me a couple of hours to copy 78GB !!!. After selecting Import Virtual Machine you will need to select the actual folder that you copied and not the parent folder. Eg. If you copied the exported folder into a folder called “Import”, then do not select the Import folder, select the folder inside that. In my case inside my Import folder was my virtual machine FHS-MAILSTORE.

NOTE: Be sure to copy the Exported Machine to the location that would want it to be BEFORE you actually do the Import……

After the import has completed (for me about 10sec) fire up the Machine and away you go……….

I now have a fully “Virtual” Microsoft Exchange 2007 Environment. What I can’t wait for is the new Live Migration that will be part of Windows Server 2008 R2…..

Happy Hyper-V ing……

Well the new year is upon us all and for me I got back to the daily grind 5 days ago, Grrr. What awaited me on my return was 96 Desktop Computers to unpack and pack up the old ones ready to return !!! I hate this time of year. We are now heading for a number of 40 degree day here in Melbourne so I will be sweating it out this week. I hope you all had a good break (if you got one!!), I sure enjoyed my couple of weeks that I spent camping in Merimbula. My kids and wife had a great time, it was great to get away from the computer screen for a couple of weeks that is for sure.

I have a couple of new servers arriving in a week or so, so I will be stepping up my migration of Physical Servers to Virtual ones using Hyper-V. I will be letting you know how that goes and how I think the best way of going about this is. I would be interested to know how others have gone about this and their thoughts on Hyper-V.

There will be quite a few posts coming on Virtualization and the like as this is an area that I am moving toward and stacks of people in our industry are certainly looking at. MAKE SURE you pop your Name and Email Address into the ORANGE box on the right so you don’t miss the Windows Server 2008 Administrator Tips Newsletter.

It is called MySysprep2 and if you go to this website, you can have a read and download it. Basically you add the mysysprep.exe file to the normal sysprep location C:\Windows\System32\Sysprep, then in your unattend.xml file replace the value that you want the user to enter in with %Insert Computer Name Here%. The text can be anything you would like, that was just an example.

For example I substituted * in the ComputerName Tags with %Please Enter A Name For Your Computer%. I also added the UserAccounts Component into the oobeSystem Pass and added a domain account to the Administrators Local Group. In the Name Section of the DomainAccount I whacked this in as the value %Please Input Your User Name%.

Sysprep now prompts me twice, once for the Computer Name and once for a User Name to add to the Local Administrators Group.

This issue has caused alot of headaches for system admins for a while now, check out this TechNet Forum. It is GREAT to finally have a way to do this.

If you have not done so already, make sure you REGISTER your name and email address in the Orange Box on the right so you don’s MISS OUT on the information that the others are getting as part of the Windows 2008 Server Administration Newsletter.

As part of this Newsletter you will receive information, tips, tools, how to’s on a range of topics associated with Windows Server 2008. I am currently testing out and having my first look at TS RemoteApps (very cool!) so there will be a good run down of my experiences with using this and lot’s more.

So make your System Administrator job alot easier by keeping “In the Know” SIGN UP Today

Cheers

Daniel Anderson
PS. 100% Guaranteed NO SPAM