The Poster Guy’s latest, the “Remote Desktop Services Component Architecture” poster, provides a visual reference for understanding key Remote Desktop Services technologies in Windows Server 2008 R2. It explains the functions and roles of Remote Desktop Session Host, Remote Desktop Virtualization Host, Remote Desktop Connection Broker, Remote Desktop Web Access, Remote Desktop Gateway, RemoteFX and Remote Desktop Licensing.

Been looking for the “forest” instead of the “trees” view?  This is it:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=9bc943b7-07c5-4335-9df9-20e77ed5032e

You can use this poster in conjunction with the previously published Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 component posters (see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=193499 and http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=179116) and the Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Component Architecture poster (see http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=5567b22a-8c47-4840-a88d-23146fd93151).

Salty goodness.

The killer app for user-created content is games. Game devotees are invested in the experience to the extent that it allows them to feel “I created this experience.” This helps us somewhat get over some terrible user experience design issues:

There are those who feel that any features in social media that smack of competition (closely allied to, but not synonymous with games) drives user participation down. They therefore lobby for the elimination of things like leaderboards, “best of” lists and so on.

Which is true?

You have approaches like foursquare (Wiki.  http://mashable.com/2010/07/13/game-mechanics-business/?utm_source=TweetMeme&utm_medium=widget&utm_campaign=retweetbutton), or Digg’s recent step away from this.

Which is the right model for the TechNet Wiki?

There is an interesting point in the TechNet Wiki FAQ (based on a colleague’s observation) <see what I did right there? Is that competitive or not?>

What is the TechNet Wiki (TNW)? How is it different from wikipedia?

Wikipedia is focused on academic research, the TechNet Wiki is focused on technical documentation. The purpose of academic research is to argue a conclusion based on evidence. If the source of the evidence is not authoritative, then the argument is undermined. Technical documentation, on the other hand, is intended to solve a problem by providing a path to understanding the technology. In most cases, it doesn't matter as much whether the source of the information is authoritative as long as it is demonstrably correct. We test this in the practical application of the information. On the TechNet Wiki the people who actually use the information can refine the information (edit the wiki article ) based on their applied experience. A certain amount of authority will then adhere to those who do that refining, but only as the community agrees that the refinement is accurate by not further correcting it.The focus of TN Wiki is technical content for IT Pros and Devs that relates to Microsoft products. Microsoft employee participation on Wikipedia content about Microsoft or competitor technologies are not seen as peer-to-peer or "community." The members of the product teams at Microsoft who participate in forums, blogs, twitter, facebook and other social sites can collaborate with customers on the TN Wiki more effectively than on Wikipedia. In addition, wikipedia has a commitment to a NPOV (neutral point of view). TNW has a commitment to a balanced technical point of view. On the TNW, the value of the technical information is prized above the source.

IMO the wiki will win because it allows you to compete against yourself, and help colleagues (or at least others with the same interests or technical problem) at the same time.

Comments welcome.

You IT Pros have appreciated the posters colleague Martin McClean puts out. He now helps you find them on The Poster Guy blog.

Go there. Enjoy.

Do you need a script to validate that a virtual switch is configured correctly? Using WMI you can get the virtual switches like this:

$VSwitches = Get-WMIObject -namespace "root\virtualization" -class "Msvm_VirtualSwitch"

You can get the adapters like this:

$Adapter = Get-WMIObject Win32_NetworkAdapter | Where {$_.NetconnectionID –eq “name”}

You can map adapters to ethernet ports like this:

$ExternalNIC  = Get-WMIObject -namespace "root\virtualization" -query "SELECT * FROM Msvm_ExternalEthernetPort WHERE DeviceID='$($Adapter.GUID)'"

With these you can confirm that a switch with the same name exists.  You can validate properties of the physical adapter (IP, etc…). 

However, to tie these two pieces together, you can use the script below, which is a modification of Ben Armstrong’s script from http://blogs.msdn.com/b/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2009/02/24/script-determining-virtual-switch-type-under-hyper-v.aspx, using  “Associators.”

$HyperVServer = "VMHost1"

$VSwitches = Get-WMIObject -namespace "root\virtualization" -class "Msvm_VirtualSwitch" -ComputerName $HyperVServer

foreach($VirtualSwitch in $VSwitches){

   $query = "Associators of {$VirtualSwitch} where ResultClass=CIM_SwitchPort"

   $switchPorts = gwmi -namespace "root\virtualization" -Query $query -computername $HyperVServer

   # A VM only switch with no VMs connected will return null

   if ($switchPorts -ne $null){

        # Iterate over each switch port

        foreach ($switchPort in @($switchPorts)){

            # Get the Msvm_SwitchLANEndpoint associated with the switch port

            $query = "Associators of {$switchPort} where ResultClass=Msvm_SwitchLANEndpoint"

            $SwitchLANEndpoint = gwmi -namespace "root\virtualization" -Query $query -computername $HyperVServer

            # If there is no active connection on the switch port the results will be null

            if ($SwitchLANEndpoint -ne $null){

                # Get the CIM_EthernetPort for the Msvm_SwitchLANEndpoint

                $query = "Associators of {$SwitchLANEndpoint} where ResultClass=CIM_EthernetPort"

                $EthernetPort = gwmi -namespace "root\virtualization" -Query $query -computername $HyperVServer

                # Check to see if the associated Ethernet port is an external port

                if ($EthernetPort.__CLASS -eq "Msvm_ExternalEthernetPort"){

                   $VirtualSwitch.ElementName

                   $EthernetPort.ElementName

                }

            }

        }

    }

}

Feel free to add to this (unsupported, as-is) script, it is the wiki way.

Colleague John Savill has put together a great 20 minute demo showing how (and why) to use  Hyper-V Dynamic Memory and Remote FX (both available now in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta). Click the image to play the video.

At around the 15 minute mark check out Disney World in 3d over RFX:

And about 2 minutes later, check out the Halo 2 over RFX action.

Here’s how to manage Hyper-V from a Windows 7 system.

1. Download and install the Remove Server Administration (RSAT) tools for Windows 7 from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7D2F6AD7-656B-4313-A005-4E344E43997D&displaylang=en. Install either the 32-bit or 64-bit depending on what version of Windows 7 you’re using.

2. Open Control Panel and click Programs.

3. Click Turn Window features on or off. 

4. Under Remote Server Administration Tools Role> Administration Tools check Hyper-V Tools.

Launch to tools by either typing Hyper-V Manager at the Start menu or go to Start>Administrative Tools>Hyper-V Manager.

One of the things customers asked of us when we met at TechEd 2010 is summarized as:

“It would be really useful if you would give me a table of <thing> and how it changes from version to version.”

The most frequent request was for <GPO>, but it really applies to a lot of <things> of interest to IT Pros.

So, how can we get you this info? It is quite difficult to do this on TN/MSDN, partly because everyone working on those properties is 110% focused on the next version of the product, and getting ready to give you the info you need for that.

Enter the TNWIKI. For example, this article “Exchange ActiveSync Client Comparison Table” has a table that compares the changes in the EAS client between different Exchange versions, and that, is salty goodness…

Now, imagine a topic like this that shows you how <your group policy object of interest> changed between versions of Windows Server? Better yet, go get stubby on it.

My colleague Kathy Davies has published a quick demo of DM in the SP1 Beta on YT:

Principal PM Vijay Tewari also showed DM, and Remote FX (both available in the SP1 Beta) at TechEd2010:

The product group has the definitive series of blog posts on Dynamic Memory, now available in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta

Part 1: Dynamic Memory announcement. This blog announces the new Hyper-V Dynamic Memory in Hyper-V R2 SP1, including requirements. http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2010/03/18/dynamic-memory-coming-to-hyper-v.aspx

Part 2: Capacity Planning from a Memory Standpoint. Details issues to consider for memory capacity planning and why. http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2010/03/25/dynamic-memory-coming-to-hyper-v-part-2.aspx

Part 3: Page Sharing. Detailed discussion about the TLB, large memory pages, how page sharing works, SuperFetch and more. http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2010/04/07/dynamic-memory-coming-to-hyper-v-part-3.aspx

Part 4: Page Sharing Follow-Up. Questions answered about Page Sharing and ASLR and other factors. http://blogs.technet.com/b/virtualization/archive/2010/04/21/dynamic-memory-coming-to-hyper-v-part-4.aspx

Part 5: Second Level Paging. Details why should avoid this in a virtualized environment, including Performance impacts. http://blogs.technet.com/b/virtualization/archive/2010/05/20/dynamic-memory-coming-to-hyper-v-part-5.aspx

Part 6: Hyper-V Dynamic Memory. Discusses DM, and each of the per virtual machine settings. http://blogs.technet.com/b/virtualization/archive/2010/07/12/dynamic-memory-coming-to-hyper-v-part-6.aspx

On the TechNet Wiki (Beta) we encourage IT Pros and Devs to start a wiki article, even though they may not have all the information required to complete it. Troubleshooting articles, in particular, as well as “link aggregations” can profit greatly from this approach.

Check out the How to Create a Stub Page article, and/or review the tag page for existing stubs waiting for help, and get stubby.

Here’s an example. I created the PowerShell Survival Guide in Feb 2010, and it looked like this (at 75% magnification):

Today, after scores of IT Pros and Devs from around the world contributing links to resources that they vouch for as valuable, it looks like this (in 15% magnification) - all in Green has been added by the community.

One of the metrics we keep an eye on for the TechNet Wiki (Beta) is number of article revisions. We view this number as one measure of increasing quality for the article. This article has been revised 100 times to date, and is also consistently in the top 5 or 10 articles when counting page views.

Come on in, the wiki’s fine…

One of the things a wiki should enable is great collaboration on troubleshooting. This kind of content greatly profits from many perspectives and contributors. The TechNet Wiki (Beta) also supports useful things not available in the TN/MSND library troubleshooting topics, like video, screenshots and scripts.

Want to contribute? Start your own troubleshooting topic,

…or help out by improving one of the existing topics:

Hyper-V: How to Detect if a Computer is a VM Using Script

DFSR Event 6002 (DFS Replication)

Troubleshooting SQL Server Express Installation

Troubleshoot DirectAccess in Windows Server 2008 R2

SCVMM How To: Remove failed jobs from SCVMM console

SCVMM V2V failed with Error (protocol error : too many authentication failures for root)

When you try to add Install Image to Windows Deployment Services you receive “The data area passed to a system call is too small” error message

Wiki: Troubleshooting Template

Some people find templates helpful when creating wiki articles. This one is intended to help those writing troubleshooting content, and is based on the Microsoft KB schema. This template is a work in progress, please add to it. Feel free to copy/paste the template below into your troubleshooting wiki...

Colleague Jim Holtzman is doing a very interesting (and helpful) thing over on the TechNet Wiki. Typically, when you look on TechNet or MSND for something like router (or any hardware really) setup instructions, you find an article that aims to serve the widest possible audience, and therefore does not go into depth on any one particular model or brand. Partly this is because to go into one hw setup and not another would be seen as “playing favorites” and you can’t document them all, right?

Well, on the wiki WE can. For example, Jim has started the ball rolling with 8 or so currently popular Windows Small Business Server 2008: Router Setups.

What’s that you say? Your router is not in the article? Go ahead and add it, it is the wiki way!

Imagine, one place where all the hw setup info for all the router OEMs can be found, and it has an RSS feed so you can get notified (if you subscribe) when it is updated.

Salty goodness. Well done Jim!

Hrmm, that gives me an idea about BIOS settings in Hyper-V….

…saith Wm.Gibson. The future of IT Pro documentation is here – colleague Jim Holtzman shows you how to setup your Windows Home Server router on the TechNet wiki.

What’s especially fabulous about this article? 8 Different OEM routers are detailed, and anyone can add to it! One URL, all OEM router setup instructions, with and RSS feed for all changes/updates to the article. If that ain’t the future, I don’t want to go.

When you use the RSS Feed for a TechNet Wiki article,

on change you get an email notification with a link to the article history.

Clicking this link allows you to quickly go straight to what changed and make a judgment about any action you might need to take.

Additions are highlighted in green, deletions are in red.

What a time saver! Now, if only the TN/MSDN library had such a thing…

Great buzz around Soumya’s TechEd preso Hyper-V Backup Deep Dive: A Look Under the Hood. Check it out. Click the image to play the presentation.

TechNet has launched a beta on the MS Connect site that allows you the “early adopter experience” that you have enjoyed for products, only this time it is for content/TechNet.

Join the fun. Make yourself heard. NOTE: Windows Live ID and Connect user account required.

Please check out a proposed new innovation for IT Pro content “Customer Feedback Requested: Canonical Topic TOC” at: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/customer-feedback-requested-canonical-topic-toc.aspx

We'd like to know your reaction and feedback. What's missing from the table of contents (TOC)? We're proposing a new type of TN topic specific type of topic would be written for a Server Role and it would contain all of the basic information about a server role. Thanks in advance.

There is a wiki how-to to topic on tools you can combine to help you stay on top of wiki content of interest: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/wiki-how-to-monitor-content.aspx.

To example, you can “subscribe” to a wiki topic using email, and when the topic is changed you get an email that looks like this:

Now there is an RSS feed for each page on the wiki:

if you subscribe to the RSS feed, the item that comes to you on update also shows the stuff that got changed in either red or green so you can see right away what changed…

Handy.

One of the more pleasant lunches I’ve had in a long time – cochon muffalleta at cochon swinebar 3 blocks from the NOLA convention center where my TechEd mates are complaining about no-protein breakfasts and long meal lines. Best mufalleta evah! Bonus points - ++Good handmade spicy cucumber pickle spear.

Conventioneers – 3 blocks outside the center, the deli attached to the restaurant - 930 Tchoupitoulas St.

Toasters are in the air today. I had two separate conversations about toasters with attendees at TechEd 2010. I’m paraphrasing:

1: “Look, just because you skillfully operate a toaster, doesn't necessarily mean you can make breakfast" "Making breakfast" calls for a number of integrated skills, of which "operating toaster V.N" is only one. Concentrate all your documentation on the operation  of the toaster and you will not ever get breakfast served!”

2: “To learn how to operate a toaster, you don’t start by reading the schematics. You start with the operations procedures. Why do these always seem to get written last, in haste, by people who do not make toast, much less serve breakfast?”

Even in the future, when toasters can talk and have AI…

…we still ain’t getting breakfast till we get the point that the customer is not that interested in grilled bread products. The customer has spoken.

I have a chance to record this short booth demo of Hyper-V Dynamic Memory and Remote FX with Principal VM Vijay Tewari at the busy Hyper-V booth in New Orleans this morning. Click the link to view the video.

To read more about DM and Remote FX check the product team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/virtualization/

Breaking news from the TechEd 2010 according to the Super Site blog…

“Someday, Task Manager will look like this on all our PCs. :)”

“

I’m posting this from 37K feet on a SouthWest Airlines flight with WiFi pilot (and human pilot too). The flight attendant just asked for the Lakers score, and I got if off Bing in about 2 seconds. how James Bond is that?

Now, about those dinky tray tables – need more space for a laptop that sucks up that pay-for wifi, y’know? You listening airline industry?

Posting this from 37K feet, 14.5 hours into my epic journey to TechEd 2010. Southwest Airlines has in-flight wifi!

Salty goodness.

One strange thing, they haven’t established the pricing yet. It’ll be somewhere between US$N and US$n, but you don;t know the price when you sign on midair. At least it appears to be all you can eat, and they do say in the info sheet:

“As is common on many other public networks, we will attempt to filter indecent content.”

Whew, guess I am safe from my neighbor’s porn viewing, but I wonder if they filter both ways?

Now, let’s see, how long to download a wardriving app and snoop the rest of the plane’s traffic???

Oops, just got my e-mailed rcpt – price is $5 for the 2.5 hours from Denver to NOLA. A bargain!

Now, where’s the jetpack we were promised?

TechEd 2010 starts tomorrow – oversubscribed with more than be over 10,500 guests, speakers and event staff in New Orleans this week.

LAISSEZ LES BON TEMPS ROULET

It is “no cost to you as long as you first watch this ad…and log in every 30 minutes…and watch the ad again every time…and give up the top 1/5th or so of your screen to an ad rotator that you cannot close…”

Just thought you should know.

Oh, and, it is all well and good to give up your seat for a traveler in obvious and lachrymose distress, but, when the airline says “we’ll get you on the next available flight” – word of advice? Check the fine print. In my case, I feel good the crying lady got my seat, but bad that I am wandering the terminal for 8 hours, instead of building community at TechEd 2010.

Lesson learned.

Traditional media images of ninjas depict them as solitary and good at doing things some (especially pirates) would term anti-social. The TechNet Wiki Ninjas are a community of TNWIKI users that are social, and care about sharing their cognitive surplus with the IT Pro and Dev world audience. If you are in New Orleans this week, stop by TechEd 2010 and say hi to the wikininjas in the community lounge.

The Wired magazine article casts the wiki contribution value proposition this way:

When someone buys a TV, the number of consumers goes up by one, but the number of producers stays the same. When someone buys a computer or mobile phone, the number of consumers and producers both increase by one.

The wiki ninjas and other TNWIKI contributors are on the way to 1000 articles.

Why do they do this? What’s in it for them? Microsoft higher-ups are interested to learn “how do we motivate these people?”

I say, first do no harm. Next, trust them. Get out of their way, let them do what they do best. On the wiki this is expressed as “Don’t do things that destroy community.”

More interesting insights from the Wired article…

Pink: We have a biological drive. We eat when we’re hungry, drink when we’re thirsty, have sex to satisfy our carnal urges. We also have a second drive—we respond to rewards and punishments in our environment. But what we’ve forgotten—and what the science shows—is that we also have a third drive. We do things because they’re interesting, because they’re engaging, because they’re the right things to do, because they contribute to the world. The problem is that, especially in our organizations, we stop at that second drive. We think the only reason people do productive things is to snag a carrot or avoid a stick. But that’s just not true. Our third drive—our intrinsic motivation—can be even more powerful.

Both of us cite research from University of Rochester psychologist Edward Deci showing that if you give people a contingent reward—as in “if you do this, then you’ll get that”—for something they find interesting, they can become less interested in the task. When Deci took people who enjoyed solving complicated puzzles for fun and began paying them if they did the puzzles, they no longer wanted to play with those puzzles during their free time. And the science is overwhelming that for creative, conceptual tasks, those if-then rewards rarely work and often do harm.