Robert Larson

Replacing a Broken LCD screen on a Dell Venue Pro

virtualgoods — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 02:44:44 GMT

You know you have had one of those days when you drop your brand new Dell Venue Pro in the parking lot and the unit explodes. The cover comes off, the battery goes flying, and you express your frustration verbally. Then you pick up the pieces and look at the front glass and you do not see a single scratch on the beautiful Gorilla Glass. You smile and put everything back together and power on your phone, only to find that the LCD screen behind the Gorilla Glass is shattered, your head drops..oh and that verbal frustration returns.

Then you start your repair research process. You find a replacement LCD screen from a vendor in the UK called mobilephonecrazy.com. You buy the replacement part and wait for it to arrive. While you wait you start looking for the instructions or videos that show you how to replace the LCD screen….nada, nothing. Not even any service manual documentation from Dell’s web site.

The part arrives and you call your buddy with the all the phone repair tools and you start to figure out how to disassemble the phone. Here is what the Dell Venue Pro looks like disassembled

Here is the breakdown of the pieces:

A – This is the rear of the glass and LCD once removed. You can see the ribbon cables that connect to the video card through the whole in piece B

B – This is the sliding mechanism and the mounting point for the front screen and the motherboard C

C – The motherboard. There are additional ribbon cable connectors.

D – This is the back of the phone. The silver part with the holes is the inner side of the battery compartment. The little piece to the right of D is the camera button that falls out when you take the phone apart.

E – These are the 6 torx screws that are in the back of the case

F - These are the 4 torx screws that are removed to get the LCD and glass front disconnected from B

G – These are the 2 screw covers that are at the top of the back side of the slider piece

H – This is the back cover of the phone

I – These are the two tools you need. The Torx screwdriver and the pry tool

J – The phone battery

Disassembly process

Unfortunately I did not think ahead to bring a good camera or a camcorder to record the process, but here is what you have to do to disassemble the phone.

1) Take off the back battery cover

2) Remove 6 screws using torx screwdriver

3) Using a pry tool, work the back cover off. There are small tabs that keep the cover on. You must unseat the tabs all around the chrome back and black ends, there are also tabs on the inside of the battery cover box that you will need to pop out.. Note the camera button will fall out when you get it off. You may have to remove the black tape covering the SD card slot to loosen the inside tabs.

4) Motherboard is now exposed. There are 4 cables to remove. Use a pry tool to pop the connectors. Two have short cables that plug into the motherboard on one side. Two have longer cables that come from the LCD screen through the sliding mechanism. There is a small cable at the top that has a rubber grommet that goes over a post, you must loosen the grommet using a needle or other tool to get under the cable.

5) Once the motherboard is off, there are 4 screws to remove. If you open the sliding mechanism all the way you will find two screws through the metal sliding mechanism and then there are two other screws with round covers at the top back of the screen. Use a pin to pry off the covers, they are sticky.

6) Once the screws are loose, you can pry the glass cover piece off from the side and ends, more tabs. The cover is stuck on typically so you will need to work it loose.

7) Once open, there is another cable connector. There is a metal flap that you can flip up slightly and pry lose the connector. Once you have that lose, you can use the long cables to remove the LCD from the glass. Be sure not to touch the inside of the glass.

8) Replace the LCD and reverse the disassembly process. Do not forget to put the camera button back in before you put the back cover on. You will have to hold the phone vertically with the camera button down to keep it in place.

9) Make sure all the tabs are snapped back into place, especially on the ends of the phone.

It took us about 30 minutes to figure this out from scratch with no instructions. If I did it again, I probably could do it in 10 minutes. The pry tool is very important. It needs to have a thin blade to get in the slider gap and pry off the cover at the chrome edges.

Hope this helps someone rescue their Dell Venue Pro from a bad fall.

Need more disk space on your notebook?

virtualgoods — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 00:02:38 GMT

You might have missed the fact that notebook hard drive capacities have increased recently. For those power users that need lots of space, there are a few more options for you.

If you are looking for the largest 7200 RPM disk that you can get in the 9.5mm size, you should look at the new Seagate Momentus 750 GB drive (Model ST9750420AS) or the SAMSUNG Spinpoint 640GB drive (Model MP4 HM640JJ).

If you are looking for SSD like performance, need large amounts of disk space, but do not have the funds to pay for SSD, there is a new line of hybrid drives that combine 7200 RPM and SSD technology to achieve performance between a pure 7200 RPM and SSD technology drive. Seagate Momentus XT 500 GB drive (Model ST95005620AS) is currently the largest size available.

So if you are looking for size, performance, or a combination of both, you now have new options to investigate.

I am currently testing the 500 GB hybrid drive from Seagate and have had a great experience so far....hope you also have a great experience.

Dealing with VMs, Snapshots and the dreaded broken security channel

virtualgoods — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:49:41 GMT

I build a lot of scenarios for testing using Hyper-V. During that testing I use snapshots all the time to protect myself from stupid mistakes and failed changes. It is a terrific capability, but can sometimes get you in trouble.

In a perfect world, when you are working on a testing scenario that includes a DC and multiple members of the domain, when you need to snapshot one of the machines in the test scenario, you would snapshot all of the VMs in the test scenario and you would do it at the exact same instant in time. This means that all the VMs would be saved in an ideal configuration.

The problem with that perfect world is that you might want to snapshot a single machine to perform a what-if test and then be able to roll back if the idea is a bust. But if you do not snapshot all the VMs at the same instance, you run the risk of one of the machines changing it’s secure channel password during the what-if period. When you revert the changes during that session and you attempt to login, you will get an error message saying that the trust relationship with the domain controller is broken. You only option is to remove and re-add the machine to the domain.

There is a solution to this problem. You can disable the computer account from changing its secure channel password or you can change the password change window to something longer than the default 30 days. Doing so will eliminate the issue of not being able to login. Now would you want to do this in a production environment, not without fully understanding the changes and the security risks.

To make the change, open up your favorite GPO editor and go to

Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\Security Options\

Enable the Domain Member: Disable machine account password changes option

Edit the Domain Member: Maximum machine account password age option and increase the value from the default of 30 days to a new larger value (up to a maximum of 999 days)

Doing either of these options should keep you from getting the dreadful message that the secure channel is broken.

Hope this helps you some day…..Robert

Cool New Gateway Netbook

virtualgoods — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 19:58:21 GMT

Since Windows 7 RTMd, I figured I needed a new toy to play with. I run Windows Server 2008 R2 on my high end notebook, but wanted to run Windows 7 so I could get some of the great new features.

I have been researching netbooks for a few weeks and had decided that I wanted something with at least a 11” screen. I looked at all the usual suspects Acer, Lenovo, Dell, etc… and then I cam across one that struck my eye, a Gateway LT3114U netbook from BestBuy.

(Note that if you want the Cherry Red model you can only seem to buy it online, but you can walk into a BestBuy and buy the black model….I found this out the hard way and had to wait two extra days for my machine while a coworker rubbed it in with his.)

For those who do not know, Acer bought Gateway. This netbook is a slightly redesigned version of the Acer Aspire One 11.6” model. The Gateway version comes with an 11.6” screen 2GB RAM, 250 GB 5400 RPM hard drive, 6 Cell battery, and Vista Basic. This version if the netbook is based on a AMD Athlon 64-bit processor for netbooks. So you can actually install a 64-bit OS.

I have been playing with the configuration and have done the following:

- swapped the 5400 RPM drive for a 7200 RPM drive

- swapped the 2GB RAM module for a 4GB RAM module (Yes it will take a 4GB module)

- swapped the Vista Basic for Windows 7 Ultimate x64

The cool and completely unexpected swap was the RAM upgrade. The specs said it only takes a 2GB module, but I had heard rumors at work that it would support a 4GB module, so I thought I would try it. In this configuration I get 3.75 GB of usable RAM (256 GB is for the shared video HyperMemory.

The 7200 RPM makes it run a little hotter, mainly because I took and older 100GB drive I had lying around to do the test. So one of the new generation 7200 RPM drive would probably solve that issue.

The Video performance is decent. I can watch hulu videos as normal resolution. At full screen they are slightly jumpy.

So far I have been pretty impressed by the performance under Windows 7. I am currently running under 2GB while I wait for an additional 4GB module.

Go check one out yourself…..

Q&A on AMD Rapid Virtualization Indexing (RVI)

virtualgoods — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 01:58:56 GMT

My Hyper-V Resource Kit co-author, Janique Carbone, and Tim Mueting - AMD Product Manager have gotten together to produce a Q&A on AMD’s Rapid Virtualization Indexing (RVI) technology in the latest AMD Opteron processor line. Hyper-V R2 uses this technology to enable Second Level Address Translation (SLAT) to offload work from the hypervisor to hardware.

The entry also has links to additional information on RVI and other AMD technology. It is good reference and read.

Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Resource Kit on the shelves June 10th

virtualgoods — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 05:18:31 GMT

Well Janique and I finished another Resource Kit book, this time on Hyper-V…..700 plus pages of Hyper-V resources (including a chapter on Hyper-V R2 coming in Windows Server 2008 R2) is done and on the way to the book store near you!

You can find the official announcement from Microsoft Press here

Sample chapters are available on Janique’s web site using the links here:

Table of Contents

Chapter 2 (Hyper-V Overview)

Chapter 8 (Moving from Virtual Server 2005 R2 to Hyper-V)

Index

We hope you find the book informative and full of guidance and best practices to help you plan, deploy, and manage a single Hyper-V server to a large farm of Hyper-V servers.

Thanks to all of the Microsoft team that helped us write, review, edit, and publish this book.

Installing Windows Server 2008 R2 on a notebook and getting all those required drivers.

virtualgoods — Sun, 03 May 2009 07:18:45 GMT

If you are like me, you use Windows Server 2008 R2 as your standard desktop/notebook OS. If you have installed Windows Server 2008 R2 on your notebook, you might notice that you ended up with a series of yellow bangs for missing device drivers. I found a workaround to get those drivers without have to manually go find them all from Windows Catalog. Try this….

1) Install Windows Server 2008 R2 on your notebook (I am using a Lenovo T61P), but leave about 20GB of free space available.

2) Install all the roles and features on your machine….here is what I have

- Hyper-V role
- Desktop Experience feature
- Wireless LAN
- Windows Server Backup

3) Run Windows update to get any driver updates….you will end up with multiple missing device drivers in Device Manager.

4) On that additional 20 GB partition, install Windows 7 x64 Enterprise or Ultimate

5) Run Windows update on the Windows 7 installation until all yellow bangs are resolved (this might take a couple of reboots)

6) Now reboot into the Windows Server 2008 R2 installation, open Device Manager

7) For each yellow bang, right click it and say Update Driver Software, when you get the dialog, select Browse my computer for driver software

8) In the dropdown box at the top of the screen, browse to the drive that has Windows 7 installed and go to Drive:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository, Click Next

9) The new driver should be found and automatically installed.

10) Repeat for all other drivers.

When you are done, you should have Windows 7 x64 drivers installed (except for the Bluetooth driver probably)

Hope that helps you fellow Windows Server 2008 R2 users….

Hyper-V Resource Kit

virtualgoods — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:41:17 GMT

Well we have finally finished all the chapters of the Hyper-V Resource Kit. We are in final editing stage, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Be looking for it on the shelves within the next 60 days.

Here is a preview of the TOC.

Introduction to Virtualization
Overview
Architecture
Installation and Deployment
Advanced Features
Security
Best Practices and Optimization
Moving from Virtual Server 2005 R2 to Hyper-V
Hyper-V R2
Management Overview
Single Server Management
Server Farm Management Using SCVMM
Backup and Recovery
Server Migration using SCVMM
Server Monitoring using SCOM
Management using PowerShell
Server Virtualization Scenarios
Virtualization Project – Envisioning
Virtualization Project – Discovery
Virtualization Project – Assessment
Virtualization Project – Planning and Design
Virtualization Project - Pilot

It is over 700 pages long…

For more information visit http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/Books/11842.aspx

Beware of Integrated eSATA ports

virtualgoods — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 06:28:32 GMT

For you demo warriors out there who try to get the maximum performance for your Hyper-V based demos, eSATA has been your path to maximum performance. If you only use a single drive attached to an eSATA port, you can quit reading, but if you are like me and want the best performance possible, you have probably invested in a 2.5” or 3.5” external portable cabinet that can take two or more drives.

These cabinets from makers like StarTech and AMS, have built in hardware RAID functionality that allow you to configure the dual drives in a RAID configuration without requiring a RAID card in your machine. Typically RAID 1 (mirroring) and RAID 0 (striping) are the two most common approaches in a dual drive case.

BUT, these external cases rely on a technology called Port Multiplication to see all the drives. You can go read the detailed description at your favorite web site, but basically port multiplication allows you to have multiple drives accessible through a single eSATA port. The catch is that the eSATA interface must support Port Multiplication.

This is where the issue is with integrated eSATA ports in laptops and desktop motherboards. They do not all support port multiplication…actually very few do.

I found this out the hard way recently. I purchased a new high end workstation class notebook that has an integrated eSATA port. the port I found out does not support port multiplication. If you attempt to connect an external case to the eSATA port and the drives are in RAID mode, the port will not be able to understand which drive it is talking to and the entire machine will slow to a crawl. Even if you attempt to configure the dual drives as JBOD, the ports will only see the 1st drive.

How do you deal with this issue? You use an ExpressCard with port multiplication support or use only a single drive case connected to the internal eSATA port.

Hope this saves you hours of headache…

Managing MAC Address Pools in Hyper-V R2

virtualgoods — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 14:24:05 GMT

Hyper-V automatically creates a MAC address pool for virtual machines usage when it is installed. Hyper-V RTM had no option in the UI for managing the MAC address pool and you had to edit the registry to manage the pool (see a detailed article on that subject here).

Hyper-V R2 has provided the ability to manage the address pool directly in the Virtual Network Manager. To manage the global MAC address pool, open up Virtual Network Manager and select the MAC Address Range option under Global Network Settings. From here you can modify the MAC address pool available on the managed Hyper-V host.

Note that making this change does not fix any existing assigned MAC addresses from the original pool. Therefore if you need to change the MAC address used or modify the range of addresses, you should make this change prior to creating the first virtual machine.

If virtual machines have already been created, then you have two options to change the MAC address.

1) Modify the MAC address assignment to static and assign a static MAC address to the virtual network adapter.

2) Remove and re add the virtual network adapter in the virtual machine and a new dynamic MAC address from the pool will be assigned.

Hyper-V R2 and Management NICs

virtualgoods — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:41:24 GMT

When you install Hyper-V R2 role now it reserves a single wired NIC in the machine for management of the parent partition. If you have only a single NIC in your server, you will not be able you select a NIC to create an external network when you are installing the role. This is a good thing because the installation is enforcing best practices.

Hyper-V R2 also has a new default when creating an External Virtual Network. By default the new external virtual network is not exposed to the parent partition for it to share. In order to enable the parent partition to share the NIC, there is a new checkbox that you must enable under the physical NIC dropdown box (as you can see in the picture below).

If your machine only has a single NIC, you can create an external virtual network and check this box. This will allow the virtual machines and the parent partition to share the single NIC.

NOTE: Doing this will violate best practices for a Hyper-V install. It is recommended to add an additional NIC to the server instead.

If you are running Hyper-V R2 on a notebook, another option is to use and ExpressCard Ethernet adapter or an USB-to-Ethernet adapter to add an additional NIC that can be seen by Hyper-V. See this previous post for some USB-to-Ethernet adapters that have 64-bit drivers.

Installing Zune 3.1 on Windows Server 2008 x64

virtualgoods — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:54:56 GMT

Ok you are probably wondering why you would ever need Zune software on your Windows Server 2008 x64 machine….well if you are like me, my primary machine is my notebook and I run Windows Server 2008 x64 so I can have Hyper-V.

Anyway, Microsoft released a new version of the Zune software the other day and I wanted to install the latest version on my machine. Good – there is a native 64-bit version of Zune. Bad - the Zune installer blocks on Windows Server 2008 x64.

So how do you get around this issue? You can extract the installation package and install by hand…..that gets around the installation block on OS version, but there is a catch, you MUST install as the local administrator. No you cannot install with an account that is a member of the local administrators group.

Here is the process

1) Download the Zune 3.1 package from here. It is a 300+ MB package

2) Open a command prompt and launch the downloaded package with the /x option to extract it versus launch the installation.

ZUNEPACKAGE31.exe /x

3) Specify a folder to extract to, I used C:\TEMP\ZUNE31 as the directory

4) Go to C:\TEMP\ZUNE31\x64\PACKAGES

5) Right Click the ZUNE_X64.MSI and select Install

6) Answer the questions and it will install

Now go enjoy the music!

Go to 8GB on your notebook for ~$350

virtualgoods — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 06:38:00 GMT

Some vendors have started shipping DDR2-5300 memory that provides 667Mhz 4GB SODIMMs for you notebook. You will need a notebook that has a SantaRosa chipset to be able to access all 8GB and even then the BIOS has to support it.

I personally purchased 8GB G.Skill memory from newegg.com for $170 per chip. I have tested the memory in a Lenovo T61P and a Dell Latitude 830 with no issues. I did have an issue with a Dell Inspiron 1420. It does not recognize both 4GB chips when installed and does not finish the boot process. It does support a 4GB and a 2GB module for 6GB RAM.

So for about $350 you can upgrade your compatible notebook to 8GB RAM.

Hope this helps you run more VMs on your notebook. :-)

Installing Updates on Server Core

virtualgoods — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 16:10:26 GMT

I love Windows Server 2008 installed with Server Core. It’s small footprint (although it could be even smaller), simplistic command line UI, and the boot speed. One thing I dislike (until recently) is installing updates on Server Core. Well I found a nice little sample script that works beautifully to check and install all available updates from the command line

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa387102(VS.85).aspx

This is a VBScript that uses the built in Windows Update Agent (WUA) to check for all available updates, provide you a list, and allow you to select to download and install the updates on your machine.

This makes updating a Server Core image a breeze.

Enjoy.

Additional NIC for your Laptop and Hyper-V

virtualgoods — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:44:19 GMT

If you are like me and use Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V on your laptop, you have possibly found out that Hyper-V does not support wireless adapters. This is an issue with the Wireless spec no Hyper-V. You can use ICS or bridging to get it to work, but having a 2nd wired network adapter can be helpful in some situations.

What you need is a USB NIC that can be quickly added to your machine when you need it. I have been searching an have bought some adapters from local computer stores to find none that have x64 drivers.

Well another MS consultant told me about an adapter that his friend uses with Hyper-V. I bought one and found some drivers that work

These two adapters work with Vista x64 and Windows Server 2008 x64 if you use the Vista x64 drivers from the chipset manufacturer.

http://www.airlink101.com/products/agigausb.php - 1 Gb version (AS88718)

http://www.airlink101.com/products/asohousb.php - 100 Mb version (AS88772)

Use drivers from chipset mfgr http://www.asix.com.tw

TrendNet also makes a 10/100 USB adapter that has x64 Vista drivers.

http://trendnet.com/products/proddetail.asp?prod=150_TU2-ET100&cat=49

Their gigabit adapter might also have drivers, but I have not investigated it to find out.

So if you find yourself in need of another wired NIC on your notebook running x64, then you have options….doesn’t everyone do clustering on their notebooks :-)

BTW, Fry’s carries the 10/100Mb AirLink101 adapter and it is on sale right now for $2.99 in stores.

Getting UNDO functionality with Hyper-V Snapshots

virtualgoods — Thu, 15 May 2008 10:54:40 GMT

Snapshots are not the same as UNDO disks in Virtual Server 2005…go here to read a previous post of mine to learn about how they work.

That said, you get UNDO like functionality using snapshots…..with maybe a little more work.

In Virtual Server, when you wanted to use UNDO, you powered down your VM and enabled UNDO on the Virtual hard disk tab. Then after you power on the VM, when you powered it off you will be asked if you want to Save, Commit, or Discard your changes. Selecting Save kept the changes separate, Commit merged them into the original VHD and then started the UNDO process over again, and Discard threw away the changes and started over again. All of this used Differencing disks in the background.

In Hyper-V, UNDO is not an available option on the virtual disk menu anymore, you now have snapshots. If you want the ability to protect your VHD from any changes getting merged you need to do this.

Before you first power on a VM (the same point you would have enabled UNDO in Virtual Server), take a snapshot and call it something like UNDO DISCARD. This just makes your VHD effectively read only and all changes are written to a working AVHD file.

Power on your VM and work away. When you want to effectively “Turn OFF and Discard” all changes, then apply/revert to the UNDO DISCARD snapshot and it is all gone…start a new test scenario. Just remember that if you made any changes to the VM settings, they are also discarded.

By default all changes are saved to the working file, so you need to do nothing to get the SAVE feature.

If you want a COMMIT capability and want it permanent like it is with Virtual Server, then that takes a little more work. Once you create the UNDO DISCARD snapshot, there is no way to merge any changes back to the original VHD through the snapshot UI.

You can do the following though to get the COMMIT functionality

Power down the VM
Find the working avhd file
Copy it to CHILD.VHD
Backup up your original VHD for protection
Use the Edit disk option in Hyper-V MMC to edit the new CHILD.VHD and select Merge for the action in the wizard
Select to Merge to the parent
Wait for the merge to complete
Apply the UNDO DISCARD Snapshot (which throws away all the changes which you just merged from the copy and creates a new working avhd file that is the child of the original VHD)
Power on the VM and work away

Once again remember that if you had made any changes to the VM settings, that applying the UNDO DISCARD snapshot would have thrown them away…..other than that have fun!!

Let me know if you have any issues...

Entering Product Keys into Virtual Machines

virtualgoods — Tue, 13 May 2008 00:39:23 GMT

I create virtual machines every day. I have a set of product keys that I use from my MSDN subscription and I hate playing the visual copy typing game (ok I am a lousy typist). It turns out that I had overlooked a nice little feature in VMConnect that makes this VERY easy.

If you open up VMConnect console to a virtual machine, you will see an option on the menu called Clipboard. The first option is Type Clipboard Text. This nice little time saver allows you to highlight a string of text on the host and then have it pasted into the VM at the current cursor position.

To copy a product ID into a setup dialog, copy the product ID and the hyphens from a notepad file or other location on the host, place your cursor within the borders of the VM (or click inside the VM if you do not have integration components loaded), click into the product ID box, and press CTRL-V. The feature types the contents of the clipboard text.

Short, simple, easy to use.

Virtual Machine Snapshots with Hyper-V

virtualgoods — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 04:33:14 GMT

Snapshots are a new feature of Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. Snapshots are a point in time version of a virtual machine…..what does that mean you ask? It means that you can be running a virtual machine, take a snapshot and at any point you can select a previous snapshot and revert back to that point in time. You end up with the virtual machine in the EXACT configuration that it was when you took the snapshot…and I mean exact….memory, virtual hardware, processes, state, etc. So you can have a running virtual machine, take a snapshot, change the virtual hardware configuration, format the disk and install a different OS, it does not matter, when you apply the previous snapshot it looks exactly like it did when you took the snapshot.

Snapshots do not affect the running state of the virtual machine, meaning that taking a snapshot does not change the virtual machine hardware, applications, or the currently running processes. It also means that deleting a snapshot does not change the virtual machine either….it just means that you cannot go OOPS and go back to that point in time to get you out of something you just did.

The snapshot files consist of the following:

A copy of the VM configuration .xml file
Any save state files
A differencing disk(.avhd) that is the new working disk for all writes that is the child of the working disk prior to the snapshot.

If you create snapshots one right after each other and never apply a previous snapshot, the you will have a tree with one branch. if you apply a previous snapshot, then you will get another branch to the snapshot tree starting at the applied snapshot.

Creating Snapshots – How does it work?

When you create a new VM in a directory, let’s say D:\TestVM, two sub directories are created – D:\TestVM\Snapshots and D:\TestVM\Virtual Machines. The \Snapshots directory contains nothing, but the \Virtual Machines directory contains the original XML configuration file saved with a unique GUID as the filename with an .xml extension and a directory to house the save state files (.VSV and .bin) memory files. The directory also uses the same GUID as the directory name. I will refer to this as the VMGUID.

Note: All the filenames and directories are actual GUIDs, I am using friendly names to make it easier to write and understand the concept.

The VMGUID.XML file points to the D:\TESTVM\TESTVM.VHD as the current VHD for all writes. Before you do any snapshots, all changes get written to the D:\TESTVM\TESTVM.VHD file and any save state is saved in the D:\TestVM\Virtual Machines\VMGUID directory.

When you create the first snapshot you have two scenarios: [1] You create it with the virtual machine powered down or [2] you create it while the virtual machine is running.

CASE [1] – VM is powered off

It creates two directories in the D:\TestVM\Snapshots\ folder

One with a folder name of VMGUID – this is where all the avhd files will be stored for all snapshots (This only happens for the first snapshot)
One with a new GUID for a folder name – this is where the memory save state for this snapshot is stored, I will refer to this as SNAPGUID
In this case no files are written to D:\TestVM\Snapshots\SNAPGUID here because the VM is powered down and there is no memory state

It also creates a copy of the VM’s XML configuration file with filename SNAP1GUID.XML
It creates a working .avhd files with another GUID and stores it in the D:\TESTVM\Virtual Machines\VMGUID directory. I will refer to this as WORKING.AVHD
The VM’s original VMGUID.XML file is updated to point to the new WORKING.AVHD as current VHD

CASE [2] – VM is powered on

Everything that happens for CASE [1] happens for case [2] except in this case the memory is saved to disk and stored in the D:\TestVM\Snapshots\SNAPGUID folder as a BIN with the actual memory saved and a VSV with supporting process information.

Both Case [1] and [2] proceed the same from here….

From this point on, all writes are written to the WORKING.AVHD file. If you make a bunch of changes and then decide to use Revert (to go back to the point in time of the first snapshot), this is what happens

The WORKING.avhd file is deleted and a new one is created with a different GUID
The VM’s original VMGUID.XML file is updated to point to the new WORKING.AVHD as current VHD
If there was a save state file to load it would be loaded and the VM would be resumed from save state.
If there was no save state file to load, the machine would remain powered down since you took the snapshot when it as powered down.

So you make a bunch of more changes and then take another snapshot, this is what happens

A copy of the current VMGUID.XML files is made, placed in the SNAPSHOTS folder and given a filename with a new GUID, let’s call it SNAP2GUID.XML
A folder is created in the SNAPSHOTS folder using the SNAP2GUID to house the save state files for this snapshot, The VM is save stated to this folder
The current D:\TESSTVM\Snapshots\VMGUID\WORKING.AVHD file is now the point in time state of the VHD (the GUID does not change)
- Its parent is the original TESTVM.VHD file
A new WORKING.AVHD file is created with a new GUID
- Its parent is the old WORKING.AVHD file
The VMGUID.XML file is updated to the new WORKING.AVHD

So for each new snapshot in succession

A copy of the current VMGUID.XML is made and placed in the VMs SNAPSHOTS folder, the filename is a unique GUID
A new directory is created in the SNAPSHOTS folder to hold the save state files, the folder name is the same as the GUID in (a) above
A new avhd file is created with a new unique GUID. This becomes the new working avhd file and the existing one becomes the RO parent.
All new writes are made to the new working avhd file

Hope that provides you with a better understanding on what snapshots are and how they are created under the hood…..I will save deleting snapshots for a future post :-)

Robert….

Building a Host Cluster with Hyper-V Beta 1

virtualgoods — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 23:12:57 GMT

Well by now you have heard the news that Microsoft shipped Hyper-V Beta 1 early!!

Like many of you I have been testing away and thought I would share the steps for creating a host cluster in Windows 2008 and Hyper-V. For those that have built host clusters in Virtual Server, you will find the process in Windows 2008 and Hyper-V much more streamlined and user friendly. One major improvement is the integration of Hyper-V as a cluster aware application and native support for making a virtual machine highly available.

So what are the 10 steps you have to go through to build a host cluster using iSCSI shared storage?

1) Build nodes with Hyper-V
2) Build Virtual Network Switches in Hyper-V
3) Establish iSCSI Target Quorum and Data drives
4) Use iSCSI initiator on each node to connect to targets
5) Install Failover Clustering on each node
6) Run Validate on the cluster nodes
7) Create Cluster
8) Build a VM to make highly available
9) Make the VM highly available
10) Test it by moving the VM to another node

Node1

LAN IP address = 192.168.0.170
Heartbeat IP address = 10.10.10.1

Node2

LAN IP address = 192.168.0.171
Heartbeat IP address = 10.10.10.2

Cluster IP Address = 192.168.0.181

Step 1:

Building the nodes with Windows 2008 Enterprise or Data Center edition is a simple process. Once you have the OS installed, you need to add the Hyper-V role in Server Manager (and reboot)

Step 2:

Once you reboot and Hyper-V installation completes, you need to launch the Hyper-V management console from the Administration Tools menu on each node.

[Do this on both nodes] On the right hand side, click the Virtual Network Manager, and create a new virtual network switch. For simplicity make it a private network and call it Private. The name must be the same on both nodes.

Step 3:

Go to the iSCSI target (hardware or software based) and build two disks enabled for shared access. One disk needs to be 500 MB or larger to hold the cluster configuration info, and other disk needs to be big enough to hold the virtual machine, say 10 GB minimum. Be sure to enable the option for shared or cluster access to the disks.

Step 4:

On NODE1 launch the iSCSI initiator software. Discover the iSCSI target via name or IP address and then establish a connection to the Data and Quorum disks that were established in step3.

Once the disks are connected to Node1, use Disk Management to initialize and format them as NTFS volumes. Assign driver letter Q: to the small disk and a drive letter like S: to the large disk.

Now go to Node2 and use the iSCSI initiator to connect the target disks, you do not need to do anything else.

Step 5:

From Server Manager, install the feature called Failover Clustering on each node. and when done, launch the Failover Clustering Management console .

Step 6:

Verify that Node1 has current ownership of the disk resources (although either disk could have ownership) and then launch the Validate process from Node1 specifying Node1 and Node2 are the nodes of the cluster, run all tests. If issues are identified, the validate report will provide details on what the issue(s) are and how to resolve them.

Click Validate a Configuration

Provide the names of the two nodes

Execute the validation process

Get a report back on the progress, if successful you should see all green checkmarks

Step 7:

Once you have completed a successful validate process, you can now build the cluster. It is a four step process

1) Select Create Cluster from the Failover Cluster Management console.
2) Specify the nodes of the cluster
3) Specify the name and IP address of the cluster
4) Execute the create process

Step 8:

Using the Hyper-V Management console, create a virtual machine called TestVM on Node1 that can be made highly available. Use Windows 2008 for the operating system. The integration components are automatically installed for you.

Do not start TestVM, it must be in the powered off state to make it highly available.

Step 9:

Make TestVM highly available. This allows you to have a planned or unplanned migration of a VM between nodes.

Click Configure a Service or Application

Select Virtual Machine from the list of available services or applications

Select TestVM as the VM to make highly available

Execute the process

Success!!

Now bring the VM online, right click the VM in the list and select "Bring this service or application online"

Step 10:

Once it is online you can test the fail over by moving the VM to Node2.

Right-click the Application and select "Move this service or application to another node", select Node2

Watch the process

1) The VM is placed in saved state
2) The resources are moved to Node2
3) The VM is resumed from saved state

Now the VM has successfully failed from Node1 to Node2.

You have successfully built and tested a 2-node host cluster using Hyper-V. Note that you can have up to 16 nodes in a Hyper-V host cluster.

Hope this helps you understand Hyper-V host clustering......:-)

Virtualization at IT Forum

virtualgoods — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 19:27:59 GMT

Well I am off to Barcelona Spain again to speak at TechEd IT Forum November 12-16th. This will be an exciting show for Virtualization. System Center products will be launching and Microsoft will be making some announcements about Windows Server 2008 virtualization.

System Center products focused on virtualization:

Virtual Machine Manager 2007 - centralized management of your Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 pool of hosts, Physical to Virtual migration, Virtual to Virtual Migration, Self Service web portal, VM templates, provisioning, and much more....

Data Protection Manager 2007 - centralized backup to disk or tape, native support for Exchange, SQL, SharePoint, and Virtual Server, delta based backup to reduce network traffic, end user file recovery, and much more

Operations Manager 2007 - SCOM has already been launched, but at the show will be new management packs for VMM and Virtual Server

Viridian announcements - While I cannot blog about the announcements...yet, I think you will really like them. So stay tuned....

There will also be many breakout sessions on Virtualization. There will be a surprise at a couple of the sessions....we will be giving away signed copies of the Virtual Server 2005 R2 Resource Kit , so come attend for a chance to win a copy.

See you there!!

Self Service VM Management with SCVMM

virtualgoods — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 19:27:33 GMT

One of the features of VMM that I really like is the power of the Self Service Web Portal (SSWP). The portal provides an individual user or group of users access to a virtual machines that they own or that they create. They can see, manage, and interact with virtual machines remotely using the VMRC ActiveX control.

You can create a portal and limit a group of users to specific actions or management capabilities. The use of the SSWP is limited only by your imagination. Here are some examples that I have thought about

1) Remote development environment for internal or outsourced developers.
2) Remote training environment, you can build a view only environment for end users so they can remotely attend a training class and watch the instructor teaching them a new skill from the instructors view-only VM, then switch over to a development VM to try it themselves.
3) Remote admin into a production environment (one you own or a hosted environment)
4) Remote test and Q/A environment
5) Remote proof of concepts for your software applications
and many more....

Enabling the SSWP for end users requires the following steps:

1) Install the Web Portal on a server (I just installed it on the VMM server for test purposes)

2) Create a Host Group and place one or more managed hosts in the host group (only the hosts in the host group are available resources for new VM creation)

3) Create a Self Service Policy (or multiple if you want different ones to apply to different VMs, View Only policy, Manage Policy, Create and Manage Policy)

4) Configure any pre-existing VMs for the policy

5) Build templates for the self services users if you are going to allow them to create virtual machines

Installing the web portal is easy and well documented, so I will not go over it again here.

Creating the host group is pretty easy also, in the VMM Admin Console, go to the Host view, then in the Actions menu on the right hand side, you will see a section called Host Groups, Click New Host Group, give it a name (I called mine SelfServe) and press OK.

Once you have the host group, you can drag and drop one or more managed hosts into the group. Once you do that, then select the group and then in the Host Group actions, Press New Self-Service Policy.

Provide a name for the policy

Set the policies that you want to apply to the user or group of users that you selected and save the policy.

If you already have Virtual machines on the host or if you will be pre-creating the virtual machines and not allowing the users to create virtual machines on their own, then you must configure the VM properties to recognize the policy. When you allow the users to create their own VMs, these values will be automatically set as the VM is created.

If you are creating the VMs for the user, then you must change the owner value of the VM to be owned by the user or group you selected for the policy. Select the VM and look at it properties. In the Owner box, set the owner.

Next click the Self-Service Tab and set the policy and the quota value for the VM.

Press OK.

Now you have the host group, self-service policy, and the existing VMs all configured for the policy.

The user can now connect to the Self-Service Portal to access the VMs that they have rights to. When they go to the self service web site, they will be prompted for their credentials, then presented with the screen below. On the left hand side is the list of all the VMs they have rights. If they select a VM, they will be presented with information on the VM and a menu of actions will be presented on the right hand side. For this VM the policy allows the user to Start, Stop, and view the properties of the VM.

As the administrator, if you go to the self service portal, you will see the same screen as a regular user. The administrator will be presented with a troubleshooting screen that allows you to help users of the portal.

Entering a user name in the box and pressing Enter will allow you to see the same interface the user sees so you can determine any issues they are having.

As you can see, setting up a Self Service Web Portal is not that complicated.

Enjoy!!

Microsoft publishes the Hypercall APIs via the Open Specification Promise

virtualgoods — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 12:26:27 GMT

Microsoft announced today with it will be publishing the Hypercall APIs through the Open Specification Promise when Windows Server Virtualization ships. In addition they posted a draft of these interfaces in the form of a Hypervisor top-level functional specification on Microsoft downloads here. This document gives you and view of the external interfaces of the first generation hypervisor from Microsoft and contains the following information:

Introduction
Basic Data Types, Concepts and Notation
Feature and Interface Discovery
Hypercall Interface
Partition Management
Physical Hardware Management
Resource Management
Guest Physical Address Spaces
Intercepts
Virtual Processor Management
Virtual Processor Execution
Virtual MMU and Caching
Virtual Interrupt Control
Inter-Partition Communication
Timers
Message Formats
Partition Save and Restore
Scheduler
Event Logging
Guest Debugging Support
Statistics
Booting
Appendix

This is really cool and gives you a detailed view of how to interface with the Microsoft hypervisor.

For more information, go to the Virtualization Product team blog entry here

Changes to Virtual Networks in Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1

virtualgoods — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 13:32:37 GMT

In Virtual Server 2005 R2, a virtual network operated like a hub with a switched uplink port. Traffic on all guests plugged into the network was visible on every port of the virtual network, but that traffic was not visible to anything on the other side of the uplink port because it was switched. The pro was that it was easy to use Network Monitor to trace what was going on the network. The con was every guest saw every packet and extra overhead existed.

In Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1, the virtual network was converted to a switch for all ports. This reduced the traffic that each VM saw and reduced the network overhead, but made it harder to sniff traffic between guests.

There is a solution to the problem though on a per VM basis. To enable the VM to see all the traffic, you need to enable promiscuous mode for the port. There is a setting in the VMC file called allow_promiscuous_mode that by default the value is false.

This tag exists under the <virtual machines> node and the syntax is

<allow_promiscuous_mode type="boolean">TRUE/FALSE</allow_promiscuous_mode>

Setting the value to TRUE will enable the old behavior from R2.

You will need to do this if you want to load NetMon or other packets sniffer software in the VM and see all the traffic on the virtual network.

New bonus scripts for Virtual Server 2005 R2 Resource Kit

virtualgoods — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 07:05:28 GMT

My co-author Janique Carbone has posted two new bonus scripts on her site http://vscommunity.com.

Both scripts have to do with finding out information about differencing disks.

GETVHDParentInfo - Allows you to specify a VHD file on the command line and the script will tell you if the VHD is a differencing disk and then walk the tree of dependencies to show you the entire hierarchy of the parent child relationship

ListDiffDisks - Allows you to point at a Virtual Server host and it will enumerate all the virtual machines and all of their VHDs, telling you which ones are differencing disks and also printing the entire hierarchy of the parent child relationship.

These are posted in the Downloads area and require you to be a registered user of the site to download them.

Enjoy....

Windows 2008 Components Posters

virtualgoods — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 06:55:39 GMT

Previously published in the July issue of TechNet Magazine, these are two PDFs of Windows 2008: Operating System components and Active Directory components. The posters explain how they work and detail capabilities. They are great resources to have up on your office wall (you will need a big printer though).

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c2b9e44e-0bbd-47cb-bc09-b3d48be7f867&DisplayLang=en

The Feature Components poster highlights the following components of the Windows Server 2008 operating system:

Terminal Services
Network Access Protection
IIS 7.0
Server Manager
Server Backup
Server Core
BitLocker
Windows Server Virtualization

The Active Directory Poster highlights the following components of Active Directory in Win2008

AD Lightweight Directory Services
AD Federation Services
AD Rights Management Services
Group Policy
AD Management
AD Read-Only Domain Controllers

These are painstakingly created by two Microsoft employees in Australia, Martin and Astrid McClean. These two have been building these posters for years and they have all been great hits, usually causing multiple re-printings.

Great job once again.....