I really like the Virtual Desktop manager powertoy for XP . Unfortunately, it's just not available under Windows Server 2003. Or is it? Read on.... Part of my on-going mission is to run Windows Server 2003 as my main desktop. Not because I'm sadistic...

Update: 26th June 2008. Hyper-V RTM is now available. RC1 is pre-release software.       We're getting really close to shipping Hyper-V. Today, we can announce that RC1 is available. If you're already running RC0 , the upgrade is really...

Update: 4th Nov - See updated and improved script here As part of my backup for Exchange I was playing with at the weekend, I ended up writing a pretty simple script to run as a scheduled task. Although my Exchange environment is simple as well, the...

Yesterday evening, I was at home and attempting to remotely connect to my XP desktop machine in the office to access an application which was installed there, but not installed on my laptop. This was over VPN. Now I’ve only had both machines for a few...

The Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) for Windows 7 SP1 are now available for download. These include the latest version of Hyper-V Manager which supports both Dynamic Memory (DM) and RemoteFX. Here's the link: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads...

Update: 26th June 2008. Hyper-V RTM is now available. RC0 is pre-release software. The Vista SP1 Management Tools for Hyper-V RC0 are now available for download. These include Hyper-V Manager, the MMC management console, and Virtual Machine Connection...

This was an interesting problem I was discussing with a customer today. The customer had a concerning looking error appearing periodically in the event log: Event ID: 40961 Source: LSASRV Version: 5.2 Symbolic Name: NEGOTIATE_INVALID_SERVER Message...

In May , I mentioned that we introduced a checkbox in the Hyper-V UI for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 which determines whether a virtual NIC is created in the parent partition for External Virtual Networks. (To get a better understanding of Hyper...

Although on the Windows virtualization team here, it's heads down working on the next generation of virtual machine support to be built into Windows Longhorn server with a " hypervisor " architecture, we're absolutely not sitting still on the Virtual...

Most of you know the limit of 10 times authenticated users can join machines to a domain. Upping the limit, or removing it is a very simple thing to do, however everytime someone asks me, I have to go back to look it up again. At least if I have it on...

There is one particular scenario where you could be faced with this when booting a VM using Hyper-V. The most obvious way you can immediately notice it is that when using Virtual Machine Connection to remotely control a virtual machine, you do not have...

How to fix the following error on ISA 2004 backup or export: ISA Server cannot load the property page. Error: 0xc00403557 The Server referenced by Array [ArrayName] does not exist A bit off topic for my usual blogging activities, but I had to share...

A quick post to announce the availability of a new utility written by a colleague of mine in the Hyper-V team, Keith Mange. NVSPBind (Network Virtual Service Provider Bind) overcomes a shortfall that many people hit in server core installations of Windows...

Everyone knows that fizzy drinks are bad for your teeth. However, after extensive research (OK, so 8 days being over in America), I have a new theory. The first couple of days I was out there drinking "Soda", I kept hitting my gum onto my teeth every...

Blogcast, podcast, mini-webcast.... What's in a name - well quite a lot judging by some of the reactions I've had. Leaving the name issue to one side, I've recorded a series of eight clips which walk through the process of migrating an NT4 server into...

It had to happen - RSS everywhere, and this is another great example. The Help and Support site ( http://support.microsoft.com ) can now provide an RSS feed to your favorite RSS reader program with daily feeds of new articles relating to the products...

Our Virtual Switch got smarter in Windows Server 2008 R2. In Windows Server 2008, VMs are susceptible to MAC spoofing. MAC spoofing is where a (generally) malicious machine pretends to be another machine on a network (there are legitimate applications...

This week has been a little strained, hence quiet on the blogging front. Apart from a hectic week at work (more to follow on that shortly), the reason was a "disaster" which happened late last Sunday evening - everything was working at home one moment...

Update: 26th June 2008. Hyper-V RTM is now available. This post refers to pre-release software for Hyper-V, formerly known as Windows Server virtualization. However, there is no difference in the guidance provided in this post. Following on from my...

Over the break I’ve been taking over Christmas, one of my goals was to move the remainder of my Virtual Server “production” VMs across to Hyper-V. But when nearing completion, I noticed that Server Manager was reporting a role error: Looking at...

In many ways, yesterday was a sad day as I resigned from Microsoft UK after 18 months or so, having decided to take a change in career direction. I'll still be around Microsoft UK for about a month though. However, it certainly wasn't just a sad day,...

I thought I’d start a series of posts highlighting some of the smaller changes in Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2. There’ll be plenty of people covering the larger features such as Live Migration, so I figured someone needs to cover the other fun stuff...

This is a question I’ve seen come up a few times so figured it was time to examine why in a little more detail. In Virtual Server, you were able to copy VHDs and the associated VMC (Virtual Machine Configuration) file from one host to another, add...

Update: Feb 2008. This post no longer applies for the Hyper-V (formerly known as Windows Server virtualization) Beta, as present on the Windows Server 2008 RTM (Release To Manufacture) media. To install the Hyper-V role from the Beta release onwards ...

Now that the veil of silence has been lifted with the release of Windows Server “8” beta , I’m able to tell you a little more about what I’ve been working on for 5 years now. An inside joke is that it’s a feature with two...