Hi There,

During testing of a SHIM to fix an application, I accidentally deleted the SDB file from C:WindowsAppPatchCustom, rather than using the sdbinst -u <guid> command to uninstall properly. Whilst attempting to re-run this command I was hit with the following error;

This error was preventing me from using sdbinst to reinstall the SHIM.

The solution is pretty simple – there are two locations in the registry that need removing;

• HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUninstall<GUID>.sdb
• HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionAppCompatFlagsInstalledSDB<GUID>

Delete these and you will then be able to re-import your custom SHIM.

Thanks
SteveH

Hi There,

Whilst working on a bare-metal build for a Hyper-V host (based on HP blades with iLO 3) today using SCVMM 2012 and Host Profiles I came across the following error;

An out of band operation (IPMI) for the BMC <FQDN> failed

The obvious first line of troubleshooting is to check the IP address of the iLO connection was working (and that we had typed it right). This checked out, so the next check was to make sure the account we are using to access iLO has the necessary permissions to the host, and to check that IPMI commands are being accepted by iLO. This checked out as well and left us stumped!

After some further troubleshooting, we decided to re-create the account we had access to in iLO. We were not using the default ‘Administrator’ account, rather another delegated account that had been created for us.

We deleted this account, and re-created it using the same username/password to be greeted with an error along the lines of the username we are selecting has over 16 characters and therefore cannot be used to send IPMI commands….. however can still be created…..hmmm!

So let’s try shortening the account name, which we did, then changed the run-as account in SCVMM, re-ran the job and as if by magic our hosts started to boot

Cheers
SteveH

Hi there,

The above message pops up from time to time when attempting to remotely administer a Hyper-V server from another machine, particularly if the machine you are attempting to access is in another domain or in a workgroup.

First things first, make sure all of the config is correct on the Hyper-V server itself to allow remote administration. Use the excellent HVRemote for that

What usually catches me out after that is the fact that Hyper-V manager is not expecting a FQDN, it is hostname/shortname ONLY! Use the hosts file if you are having DNS issues.

Cheers
SteveH

Hi There,

The February 2012 update to the VDI Smackdown Whitepaper has just been released, it’s a great read if you want to weigh up to the pros and cons of the various virtual desktop technologies…

The overall goal of the white paper is share information about:

• Application and Desktop Delivery Solutions
• Explain the different Desktop Virtualization concepts
• Explain the pros and cons of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
• Describe the different Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) vendors and solutions
• Compare the features of the various VDI solutions

Read more HERE!

Cheers,
SteveH

Whilst tidying up one of our VMM 2012 environments earlier I was having trouble removing a service template that had been created, the following error was appearing when I was hitting delete;

As far as I could see I had deleted any related service deployments and could see no services or VMs on any of the host clusters. I also tried removing the Service via the Powershell command; Remove-SCService

The fix was staring me in the face on the Service Template screen – if you highlight the template, and look in the ‘General Information’ section at the bottom you will see a ‘Services:    <Service Name>‘ which is a hyperlink. Clicking this took me to one of my Host Groups and the Service was hidden away in here.

I deleted this, and was then able to remove the Service Template

The following TechNet Wiki links contains a number of very useful tools for Hyper-V, some of my favourites;

• Core Configurator 2.0 – makes configuring Server Core or Hyper-V Server much easier
• Disk2VHD – for creating VHDs from physical disks – very useful for the new Host Profile feature in VMM 2012
• Wim2VHD – in a similar vein to the above, if you have already captured your Server image to a .WIM, this tool will convert it to a VHD
• nvspcrub – useful tool to remove virtual network configuration from the management partition

Many more tools can be found at the following LINK

Cheers
SteveH

Today, Microsoft announced the general availability of System Center Advisor (formerly Microsoft codename ‘Atlanta’) enabling IT Professionals to proactively avoid server configuration problems by assessing static, runtime and operational data to identify potential issues that cause outages or poor performance.

System Center Operations Manager is great at alerting you to server issues as they happen, enabling you to quickly respond – but what if you could actually prevent server configuration problems before they ever impact your server’s performance or availability?

Read more HERE

Cheers
SteveH

Re-post from; http://www.windowsitpro.com/content1/tabid/57/catpath/virtualization/topic/windows-server-8-hyperv-30-evens-odds-vsphere-140573

At the recent Windows Server Workshop at the Microsoft campus in Redmond Washington Jeff Woolsey, Principle Program Manager Lead for Windows Virtualization in the Windows Server and Cloud division presented the new features in the next version of their Hyper-V virtualization platform. In the introduction to the workshop Jeffery Snover, Distinguished Engineer and the Lead Architect for the Windows Server Division made the bold statement that with Microsoft it’s the third release is where Microsoft really gets it right and with regard to what Microsoft demonstrated in the next version of Hyper-V this is definitely true. The upcoming Hyper-V 3.0 release that’s included in the next version of Windows Server has closed the technology gap with VMware’s vSphere.

Hyper-V 3.0 Scalability

The days when Hyper-V lagged behind VMware in terms of scalability are a thing of the past. The new Hyper-V 3.0 meets or exceeds all of the scalability marks that were previously VMware-only territory. Hyper-V 3.0 hosts support up to 160 logical processors (where a logical processor is either a core or a hyperthread) and up to 2 TB RAM. On the VM guest side, Hyper-V 3.0 guests will support up to 32 virtual CPUs with up to 512 GB RAM per VM. More subtle changes include support for guest NUMA where the guest VM has processor and memory affinity with the Hyper-V host resources. NUMA support is important for ensuring scalability increases as the number of available host processors increase.

Multiple Concurrent Live Migration and Storage Live Migration

Perhaps more important than the sheer scalability enhancements are the changes in Live Migration and the introduction of Storage Live Migration. Live Migration was introduced in Hyper-V 2.0 which came out with Windows Server 2008 R2. While it filled an important hole in the Hyper-V feature set it wasn’t up to par with the VMotion capability provided in vSphere. Live Migration was limited to a single Live Migration at a time while ESX Server was capable of performing multiple simultaneous VMotions. In addition, vSphere supported a similar feature called Storage VMotion which allowed a VM’s storage to be moved to new locations without incurring any downtime. Hyper-V 3.0 erases both of these advantages. Hyper-V 3.0 supports multiple concurrent Live Migrations. There are no limits to the number of concurrent Live Migrations that can take place with Hyper-V 3.0. In addition, Hyper-V 3.0 also provides full support for Storage Live Migration where a virtual machine’s files ( the configuration, virtual disk and snapshot files) can be moved to different storage locations without any interruption of end user connectivity to the guest VM.

Microsoft also threw in one additional twist that vSphere has never had. Hyper-V 3.0 has the ability to perform Live Migration and Storage Live Migration without the requirement of a shared storage on the backend. The removal of this requirement really helps bring the availability advantages of Live Migration to small and medium sized businesses that came afford a SAN or don’t want to deal with the complexities of a SAN. The ability to perform Live Migration without requiring shared storage really sets Hyper-V apart from vSphere and will definitely be a big draw – especially for SMBs that haven’t implemented virtualization yet.

VHDX, ODX, Virtual Fiber Channel & Boot from SAN

Another important enhancement with Hyper-V 3.0 was the introduction of a new virtual disk format called VHDX. The new VHDX format breaks the 2TB limit that was present in the older VHD format and pushes the maximum size of the virtual disk up to 16 TB per VHDX. The new format also provides improved performance, support for larger block sizes and is more resilient to corruption.

Hyper-V 3.0 also supports a feature called Offloaded Date Transfer (ODX). ODX enables Hyper-V to take advantage of the storage features of a backend shared storage subsystem. When performing file copies on an ODX enabled SAN the OS hands off all of the data transfer tasks to the SAN providing much high file copy performance with zero to minimal CPU utilization. There is no special ODX button. Instead ODX works in the backend. ODX requires the storage subsystem to support ODX.

Companies that use fiber channel SANs will appreciate the addition of the virtual Fiber Channel support in the Hyper-V guests. Hyper-V 3.0 guests can have up to four virtual fiber channel host bus adapters. The virtual HBAs appear in the VMs as devices very like virtual NICs and other virtual devices. Hyper-V VMs will also be able to boot from both fiber channel and iSCSI SANs.

Extensible Virtual Switch & NIC Teaming

In keeping par with the sweeping changes in Hyper-V’s compute capabilities and storage Microsoft also made a some of significant enhancements to Hyper-V’s networking capabilities. First, they updated the virtual switch that’s built into the Hyper-V hypervisor. The new virtual switch has a number of new capabilities multi-tenant capability as well as the ability to provide minimum and maximum bandwidth guarantees. In addition to these features the new virtual switch is also extensible. Microsoft provides a API that allows capture, filter and forwarding extensions. To ensure the high quality of these virtual switch extensions Microsoft will be initiating a Hyper-V virtual switch logo program.

Another overdue feature that will be a part of Windows Server 8 is the built-in ability to provide NIC teaming natively in the operating system. VMware’s ESX Server has provided NIC teaming for some time. Prior to Windows Server 8 you could only get NIC teaming for Windows via specialized NICs from Broadcom and Intel. The new NIC teaming works across heterogonous vendor NICs and can provide support for load balancing as well as failover.

The Magic Number 3

As Jeffery Snover pointed out three does seem to be the magic number – at least for Hyper-V. Hyper-V 3.0 brings Microsoft’s virtualization on par with VMware’s vSphere. Businesses that are just getting into to virtualization or those businesses that may be bulking at VMware’s latest price increases will find Hyper-V to be a very cost effective and highly competitive alternative.

Whilst at a customer recently I had a requirement to run a ‘Diskpart /Clean’ at the start of a task sequence to remove any encryption on the drive, in this case McAfee. I have done this several times in the past however always hit a few niggles so thought I would blog to refer to in the future

The easiest way to do this is to perform the following;

1. Mount your Windows PE image(s) to a directory
2. Create a text file called ‘CleanPartitions.txt’ (for arguments sake), with the following content;
   • Select Disk 0
   • Clean
3. Copy this text file to ‘<Mounted Folder>WindowsSystem32′ (again, for arguments sake)
4. Commit the mounted folder back to the .WIM

In your task sequence, before the standard ‘Format and Partition Disk’ phase, perform the following;

1. Add a ‘Run Command Line’ task
2. In the ‘Command Line:’ text area, type;
   • diskpart.exe /s “%windir%system32CleanPartitions.txt”
3. Disable 64-bit file redirection
4. Save the task sequence

This should now run successfully and remove any encryption on the drive

It is worth noting that this will only work in a Lite-touch situation as you will need to either PXE-boot or use bootable media. There is a solution that McAfee have released that allows you to perform this end-to-end in a Zero-Touch situation that I will blog about soon.

Cheers

SteveH

Excellent tabular list of new and upcoming features in Hyper-V 3.0 with Server 8

http://aidanfinn.com/?p=11979

Cheers,
SteveH