You asked for it, we delivered. Here is the new RSS Feed for TechNet Briefings audiocasts, some folks call these podcasts, some call them blogcasts. This RSS feed provides an WMA and MP3 version audio file of each session, plus links to download the full video of the session as well as download just the supporting slide deck and transcripts.
Days after you asked for seperate feeds for WMA vs MP3, we delivered.
WMA Feed
MP3 Feed
Leave feedback here on how cool this is, and whether you are interested in getting TechNet briefings on video for your smarphone :-)
We posted the System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 Beta 1 bits to the https://connect.microsoft.com site today. Here are the Beta 1 system requirements:
Virtual Machine Manager is designed to be installed on a single-purpose dedicated server. The server runs the Virtual Machine Manager Server, the Virtual Machine Manager Administrator Console, and the Virtual Machine Manager Agent components. The optional Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service component should be installed on a separate computer.
Due to the size of virtual machines, it is a best practice to have all servers connected with at least a 100 MB Ethernet connection; however a gigabit connection could improve performance. If you use a gigabit connection, the Virtual Machine Manager server may require a more powerful CPU than the recommended 2.8 GHz Pentium 4.
Virtual Machine Manager Beta 1 should not be used to manage production environments.
Virtual Machine Manager is designed to run on a server that is dedicated to the role of virtualization. The following prerequisite software must be installed on the Virtual Machine Manager server:
· Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2
Install this trial software from the following site: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?Link
· Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
The Server Setup Wizard installs this software if it is not already installed.
· Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 (formerly called WinFX).
Install this software from the following site: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69910
Note
If Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 is already installed, installing Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 (formerly WinFX) keeps the existing Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 installation in place and adds the components needed to run Virtual Machine Manager.
· Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition Service Pack 1
The Setup Wizard installs this software with SQL instance MICROSOFT$VMM$ if it is not already installed.
· Windows Server 2003 R2 Hardware Management Tool
To enable the Hardware Management Tool, in Control Panel, open Add or Remove Programs, click Add/Remove Windows Components, highlight Management and Monitoring Tools, and click Details. Then check Hardware Management, and click OK.
The Virtual Machine Manager Administrator Console provides the graphical user interface (GUI) to create and manage virtual machines. The following prerequisite software must be installed on the server that hosts the administrator console:
Install this trial software from the following site: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?L
· Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0.
The Setup Wizard installs this software if it is not already installed.
· Windows PowerShell RC1
Install this software from the following site: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?LinkId=69911
· Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 (formerly WinFX).
Install this software from the following site: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkI
If Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 is previously installed, installing the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 (formerly WinFX) keeps the existing Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 installation in place and adds the components needed to run Virtual Machine Manager.
The Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal enables users to create and manage their own virtual machines over the Web. The server on which the Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal is installed must have the following prerequisite software installed:
Install this trial software from the following site:
The Self-Service Portal Setup Wizard installs this software if it is not already installed.
Install this software from the following site: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink
· Windows Server 2003 R2 ASP.NET and Internet Information Services (IIS)
To enable these components, in Control Panel, open Add or Remove Programs. Then click Add/Remove Windows Components, highlight Application Server, and click Details. Check ASP.NET and Internet Application Services (IIS), and then click OK.
To manage virtual machines in Virtual Machine Manager, you must add at least one virtual machine host using the Agent. The Agent manages virtual machines and allows you to add virtual machine hosts. The Agent should be installed on all virtual server hosts to be managed by Virtual Machine Manager. Installing the agent on a DC is not supported in Beta 1.
Each virtual machine host must have the following prerequisite software installed:
· Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 or Microsoft Windows 2003 Server SP1
· Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, either 32- or 64-bit version
· If the host is running Windows Server 2003 R2, you can enable the Hardware Management Tool by using Add/Remove Windows Components: In Control Panel, open Add or Remove Programs. Then click Add/Remove Windows Components, highlight Management and Monitoring Tools, and click Details. Check Hardware Management, and then click OK.
· If the host is running Windows Server 2003 SP1, you need to download and install the Hardware Management Tool. Install this software from the following site: http://go.microsoft.com
The Virtual Machine Manager Server and hosts must all be joined to Active Directory domains, although the hosts may be in a separate domain from the Virtual Machine Manager server if desired. If separate domains are used, there must be a trust relationship established between the Virtual Machine Manager server domain and the host domain. The server must be a member server. Installation on a DC is not supported in Beta 1.
When hosts are managed across machine-specific firewalls, agents must be locally installed on the hosts which will automatically open port 80. Once the ports are manually opened the hosts may be added to Virtual Machine Manager. The firewalls must then be configured to allow communication between the Virtual Machine Manager Server and the hosts.
If hosts are to be managed across a network firewall, you will need to manually open the ports for communication in that firewall.
The following minimum hardware requirements are required to install Virtual Machine Manager.
· Pentium 4 2.8 GHz Processor
· 2 GB of RAM
· 8 GB disk space for the Virtual Machine Manager application
· Additional disk space for Library objects - recommend 80 GB
System Center Virtual Machine Manager is the product I am working on. It is a management application for IT Pros to manage the explosion of virtual machines we see coming. It's currently in Beta, and you can sign up for it using these directions.
One of the "roadmap" questions IT Pros want to know is - where is virtualization going? The answer is Windows Server Virtualization, a feature of Longhorn Server x64editions.
What's the difference between Virtual Server 2005 R2 and Windows Server Virtualization?
Virtual Server 2005 R2
Windows Server virtualization
32-bit VMs?
Yes
64-bit VMs?
No
Multi-processor VMs?
Yes, up to 8 processor VMs
VM memory support?
3.6 GB per VM
More than 32 GB per VM
Hot add memory/processors?
Hot add storage/networking?
Can be managed by System Center Virtual Machine Manager?
Cluster support?
Scriptable/Extensible?
Yes, COM
Yes, WMI
Number of running VMs?
64
More than 64. As many as hardware will allow.
User interface
Web Interface
MMC 3.0 Interface
The Microsoft Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) enables IT administrators to remotely manage roles and features in Windows Server 2008 from a computer running Windows Vista with SP1. It includes support for remote management of computers running either a Server Core installation or the full installation option of Windows Server 2008. It provides similar functionality to Windows Server 2003 Administration Tools Pack.
splogscreen: if you are reading this on a site other than http://blogs.technet.com/tonyso, why not come to the original site for a visit?
Check out the Edge video. And the Windows blog.
Download RSAT here:
Microsoft is developing an Exchange SLA scorecard. The userguide introduction explains:
"As we move into more complex and interdependent applications, it becomes increasingly difficult to track the capabilities of various IT services. Furthermore, it seems that there is no single formula or presentation mechanism to easily roll up the data and demonstrate that IT is in fact meeting the needs of the business and achieving its service level agreement (SLA) targets.
Microsoft IT has become a world-class IT organization, possessing much experience in managing a large enterprise and achieving great success in messaging service delivery. Microsoft IT is diligent in its operations management processes and metrics management. They track key components and derive measurements that truly show how IT services are performing against business needs. They measure service delivery based on IT scorecards and SLAs. These metrics and measures allow them to fine tune services and achieve high availability with the Microsoft® Exchange Server messaging platform. However, since there is no industry standard for measuring services, customers frequently ask, “How does Microsoft do it?” The SLA Scorecard Solution Accelerator for Exchange provides customers with best practices for measuring the service delivery of Exchange."
The official name of the Beta is Microsoft Solutions for Infrastructure and Management Exchange SLA Scorecard.
Beta 2 of the scorecard is in use by a small group for customers in the Technology Adoption Program under NDA and other formal agreements. The TAP program is closed to new customers for getting official support from Microsoft. However, anyone can download the SLA materials, with BetaPlace registration, which includes signing a EULA. These "open beta" customers only get limited best-effort email support from the product team as time allows, but can still enter bugs and suggestions.
You can download the SLA Scorecard Beta 2 at http://www.beta.microsoft.com with the user name MSIMExchangeSLA (Case sensitive).
The beta includes the following components and features that are compatible with Exchange 2000/2003:
Why?
The scorecard shows more than just service uptime. It roles up availability by Exchange server role for all Exchange servers in the enterprise. It allows you to configure your SLA target metrics and aggregates MOM event and performance data, displaying actual availability vs. SLA target.
In addition, there are about 11 measures that give you a picture of the "workload" the infrastructure is doing. You can use this to help tune performance to more effectively achieve the SLA target. For example, using a version of the scorecard accelerator to monitor outage maintenance, Microsoft IT is able to categorize each particular outage and export the entire outage table to Excel. This helps Service Managers and IT Managers demonstrate that from an end to end perspective an email outage is more than an application outage. By slicing and dicing the outage data in prep for Service Review Meetings they can present where the majority of outages are occurring and focus efforts in those areas as appropriate. This makes a nice tie-in to change/problem management.
UPDATE: If you are interested in the SLA scorecard, you will definately be interested in this webcast.
TechNet Webcast: Defining and Monitoring Desired Configuration Across a Messaging Service (Level 300)Wednesday, September 21, 2005 - 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM Pacific TimeEdhi Sarwono, SYSTEMS DESIGN ENGINEER, Microsoft CorporationRobbie McAlpine, SR PROGRAM MANAGER, Microsoft CorporationDo you consider it a challenge to monitor a configuration across a messaging service? This webcast presents a new solution: the Desired Configuration Monitoring (DCM) Solution Accelerator, which will be released in September. Learn about the DCM Solution Accelerator, how configuration manifests are generated, how the configuration check is processed and about the resulting reports of non-compliant services. The Solution Accelerator provides tools to alert users of differences or non-compliance between their present configuration and baseline or desired configuration. It also provides environmental configuration data to aid configuration management.Register for this webcast
If you have not read Jen's article on LUA, you should be asking yourself why not?
This article briefly discussed the security principle of least privilege and the benefits of using LUA for daily tasks, followed by a short list of reasons why most Windows users continue to use administrator accounts anyway. It wrapped up with a call to readers to take the plunge and add an extra layer of security to their existing systems by using LUA for daily tasks.
Contact lua-qa@microsoft.com with any LUA questions you may have or if you encounter a serious problem while running as LUA that cannot be resolved even when best practices have been followed and all available workarounds have been tried. Your feedback helps Microsoft gain a deeper understanding of your pain points, which, in turn, will help us determine whether the current plans for the LUA experience meet our users' actual needs.
After you've read that, you may be interested in these:
new Non-Admin Wiki that was just launched by Jonathan Hardwick
TechNet Webcast: Phishers, Spammers and Scammers: Criminals of the Internet (Level 200)
TechNet Webcast: Defense in Depth Against Malicious Software (Level 200)
TechNet Webcast: Tools and Techniques for Securing the Desktop (Level 200)
This Aaron Margosis post has great advice and how tos on steps you can take to help your friends and family avoid Virus, Spam, and MALware.
Managing Power Options as a Non-Administrator
Remembering Calculator and Character Map Settings
Ctrl-C Doesn't Work in RUNAS or MakeMeAdmin Command Shells
Changing the System Date, Time and/or Time Zone
Such a deal - Pre-order the 6586 page Windows Server 2003 Reskit on Amazon and save US$74 plus free shipping. Cha-ching.
What makes a good Technical blog post?
Here are some things I'm thinking I should include on every blog post (if possible) to help you find the info you need:
What else?
I was asked yesterday if a Microsoft IT Pro has to be a good writer to blog. I said no, what do you think?
Keep in mind that whatever level your writing skill is right now, it will improve as you write more. So, my advice is dive in and learn as you go. You can read some tips here.
A well known Microsoft blogger offered me this advice, which I think trumps writing "style" issues:
In my former job at Microsoft when I interviewed technical writers I would ask them "How do you define good technical writing"?
I got many interesting answers. The one I wanted to see included somewhere in the list is "appropriate to the audience." For example, when writing technical documentation to a mass end-user audience, you make certain assumptions, and style guidelines tell you things like "don't overuse three-letter acronyms (TLA)." However, when writing to a technical audience like IT Pros we assume TLAs are OK, in fact, preferred.
Then there is the "make it personal" advice. My advice is this - don't worry about it. How can your writing be anything other than personal? When you write about things you are passionate about, you are making it personal. I think the issue again comes back to - know your audience. If the readers of your blog let you know they really don't care for non-technical posts about your (so called) "personal life" - then consider posting those on another blog like spaces.msn.com. If your readers give you feedback that they like what you do - do more of that. DO consider the difference between blogging and journaling, and be clear on which one you are doing.
Steve Farber, in his book on extreme leadership, gives this advice:“Communicate yourself, your humanity. Don’t just recite your company’s vision statement, talk in your own words. Talk to people about your ideas for the future, and ask for theirs. Be the person you are. Forget your title, forget your position, and speak from your heart. Talk not only of your hopes for the future, but also about your foibles today. Vulnerability aids human connection, and connection is the conduit for energy. Pretense of invincibility builds walls and creates distance between human hearts.”
Try thinking of it this way - the commodity we are trading in is the reader's attention. If you give them what they want, they will give you their attention. Once you have that, you can work on your other goals, be it relationship building, information exchange, education, whatever. You can measure (perhaps indirectly) the attention you are getting to help you adjust your blogging habits.
Viral Marketing is another relevant buzz-phrase here. Consider the following clip from http://www.myneweconomy.com/articles/210703/buzz.htm
Shelby Coffey, a shy, blond 10-year-old in suburban Atlanta, loves BellyWashers. Really. There are 45 of the cartoon-character juice bottles in a place of honor on a shelf above her desk. There's a scarce Sylvester, a rare Blossom, and the much sought-after green Power Ranger.
But Shelby is more than just a collector. With 15 young friends, she has organized a BellyWashers club to do community-service projects. They visit children's hospitals to pass out BellyWashers at Christmas, clean city parks under a BellyWashers banner, and donate proceeds of their yard sales to disadvantaged children. Over the past year, Shelby has amassed a five-inch-thick binder of pictures and newspaper clippings documenting her work on behalf of the brand. Local TV stations have filmed her good deeds. The kicker: She does it all for free. "It's been lots of fun," says the fifth grader.
Shelby is a buzz machine, the sort of hyperdevoted customer that marketers dreams of. As traditional media channels fragment and consumers zap commercials quicker than you can say TiVo, more companies are looking to harness the power of buzz. "Word of mouth has superseded any form of paid advertising, in terms of influence," says Marian Salzman, chief strategy officer at Euro RSCG Worldwide and author of Buzz: Harness the Power of Influence and Create Demand (John Wiley, 2003). Personal recommendations, she says, have become far more reliable and authentic than conventional hype.
The best way to learn something is to teach it. When you write about a topic, you learn that you don’t know some stuff, or have to go check/verify some stuff. Not only have you helped all of your readers by this effort, but you also benefit and your understanding of the topic will improve.
And there is this advice on Eric Gunnerson's Blog Can you write?Or, to put it more succinctly, can you write well in a reasonable amount of time without driving yourself and the people around you crazy. Before you can get a signed contract, you need to be able to demonstrate this to your publisher (unless you're a big name draw, and the publisher is willing to pay for editing and/or a ghostwriter).To find out whether this is feasible for you, you need to do some writing, and then you need to have an audience read the writing and give you constructive feedback. Writing is a skill, and over time you should be able to develop techniques that work will with your target audience. Good ways to practice:
Finally, consider making it easier for readers to find your blog while writing. See 10 Tips here for making your blog a little easier for search engines to find. What do you think? Can you point me to well-written blogs? Poorly written ones? Does the writing style matter to IT Pros as long as the technical information is good and useful? Post a comment and let us know.
This article says that Microsoft's research indicates that 85% of corporate users and 97% of consumers are running their machines as administrators, according to Neil Charney, a director of product management at the software vendor. Charney said the company is hoping those percentages will decline as a result of the User Account Protection feature.
Read up on UAP here.
Thanks to Kyle and Tom:
American Strategic Management Institute - http://www.managementweb.org/
balanced scorecard collaborative - http://www.bscol.com/
Balanced Scorecard - http://www.rocketsoftware.com/portfolio/epm/balancedscorecard.htm
Big Brother System - http://www.quest.com/bigbrother/
BS15000 - http://www.bs15000certification.com/
C O P C - http://www.copc.com/
Capability Maturity Model - http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmm/cmm.html
Captive Insurance - http://www.captive.com/
Cause Mapping - http://causemapping.com/
COBRA - Security Risk Assessment, Security Risk Analysis and ISO 17799 - BS7799 - http://www.riskworld.net/
Configuresoft - http://www.configuresoft.com/
Construx - http://www.construx.com/
DCML Data Center Markup Language - http://www.dcml.org/
Depart of Trade & Industry - http://www.dti.gov.uk/
Distributed Management Task Force - http://www.dmtf.org/
DTI Quality - http://www.dti.gov.uk/quality/
Empresa SofHar Assessment - http://www.sofhar.com.br/empresa/msf_english.asp
Exin Exams for ITIL - http://www.exin-exams.com/
Fox IT - http://www.foxit.net/asp/Frames_Set.asp?go2=home
Help Desk Institute - http://www.thinkhdi.com/
Holocentric - http://www.holocentric.com/
ILGRA Risk Assessment - http://www.hse.gov.uk/aboutus/meetings/ilgra/index.htm
Improve Platform Manageability - http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/overview/benefits/manageability/default.mspx
ISACA - http://www.isaca.org/template.cfm?section=about_isaca
ISO - http://www.iso.org/iso/en/ISOOnline.openerpage
ITGI - http://www.itgi.org/
ITIL & ITSM Directory - http://www.itil-itsm-world.com/
ITIL & SM - http://www.itil-service-management-shop.com/
ITIL Apollo 13 simulation - http://www.apollo13game.com/
ITIL Exams - http://www.itilexams.com/
ITIL MOF - http://www.itilsurvival.com/ITILMOF.html
ITIL Tooling Page - http://tools.itsmportal.net/
ITIL.org - http://www.itil.org/itil_e/index_e.html
ITSM Books - http://www.itsmbooks.com/
ITSM Watch - http://itsmwatch.com/
ITSM - http://www.itsm.info/
ITSMF - USA - http://www.itsmf.net/
ITSMI - http://www.itsmi.com/
ManageOne - http://www.manageone.com/
META Group - http://www.metagroup.com/cgi-bin/inetcgi/jsp/home.do
MOF Overview - http://www.microsoft.com/business/services/mcsmof.asp
MOF Self-Assessl - http://www.microsoft.com/solutions/msm/evaluation/MOFTool.asp#
MS SAM - http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sam/default.mspx
National Institute of Standards and Technology - http://www.nist.gov/
OGC ITIL - http://www.ogc.gov.uk/index.asp?id=2261
Ops Guides - http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itsolutions/techguide/msm/default.mspx
Outlook Exchange SLA - http://www.outlookexchange.com/articles/stevebryant/bryant_c5p1.asp
Pink Elephant - http://www.pinkelephant.com/
PRINCE2 - http://www.prince2.org.uk/web/site/home/home.asp
Pultorak - www.pultorak.com
Root Cause Analysis - http://rootcause.com/
SLA World - http://www.sla-world.com/
SMF Guides - http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itsolutions/cits/mo/smf/default.mspx
SMF Ops Guide Series - http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/TechNet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/maintain/opsguide/chgmgtog.asp
Socitm Public - http://www.socitm.gov.uk/Public/default.htm
TSO - http://www.tso.co.uk/
BCI - http://www.thebci.org/frametrial.html
Continuity Central - http://www.continuitycentral.com/
DRII - http://www.drii.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=2
IAEM - http://www.iaem.com/index.shtml
Survive - http://www.survive.com/
VeriCenter IT Disaster Recovery Services - http://www.vericenter.com/products/disasterrecovery/
AICPA Sarbanes-Oxley - http://www.aicpa.org/info/sarbanes_oxley_summary.htm
Corporate Responsibility System Technologies - http://www.crstlsystems.com/
COSO - http://www.coso.org/
IAASB - International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board - http://www.ifac.org/IAASB/
IFAC - The International Federation of Accountants - http://www.ifac.org/
Institute of Chartered Accountants - http://www.icaew.co.uk/
MS Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance - http://www.microsoft.com/business/productivity/collaboration/sox/default.mspx
NCSP - http://www.cyberpartnership.org/index.html
P2600 - Hardcopy Device and System Security - http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/2600/
Sarbanes-Oxley Act Forum - http://www.sarbanes-oxley-forum.com/
Sarbanes-Oxley Act - http://www.sarbanes-oxley.com/
SEC Sarbanes-Oxley - http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/sarbanes-oxley.htm
SOX-Online - http://www.sox-online.com/index.html?
X9.org - http://www.x9.org/
GE - Six Sigma - http://www.ge.com/sixsigma/
i Six Sigma - http://www.isixsigma.com/
SigmaXL - http://www.sigmaxl.com/
Six Sigma Forum - http://www.sixsigmaforum.com/
Six Sigma Software - http://software.isixsigma.com/
I am happy to announce that System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) Beta 1 is ready for download to registered SCVMM Public Beta 1 users!
To download the Beta:
1. Go to
2. Sign in with your Passport or Windows Live ID 3. Select "VMM Beta 1"
4. Please note that SCVMMM Beta 1 is for "test/lab environment" deployments only 5. Make sure you read Getting Started with Virtual Machine Manager and Requirements for Deploying Virtual Machine Manager (available in the Downloads) before installing Beta 1.
6. Use the newsgroup to report any problems. You can access the newsgroup by following the "Newsgroups" link on the left menu pane and following the instructions there. The product group and virtualization MVPs monitor this site during business hours (GMT-8 Mon-Fri 9am-5pm).
7. Please send us feedback regarding the product by following the "Newsgroups" link on the left menu pane. Or, you can leave comments here on the blog.
Enjoy.
Coming next month, a virtualization server (sometimes called a host) that you can download for free (as in Beer). Watch the Hypre-V Server page for more news. Scenarios for Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 (notice that it is NOT called Windows Hyper-V Server) include:
Note that Hyper-V Server comes with no UI, just like running the Hyper-V role on Windows Server 2008 on a Serve Core installation. Among the things you DON'T get in Hyper-V Server:
Read the system requirements for Hyper-V Server.
For more info: Read the Hyper-V Server FAQ.
I recently recorded a podcast with TechNet's Social Platform team, discussing the social platform, and the new TN social bookmarking in particular. Listen to the podcast, and then leave feedback here.
Some points to think about:
I am a gaijin. That’s what the title of this post is supposed to say after running it through Bing translator, but how would I know? I don’t read Kanji. Is the title even written in Kanji? Or is it hiragana? Me, clueless. And gaijin, still.
In these cases, and especially when trying to communicate technical info, it is really great to have a knowledgeable human translator to help.
Meet Paul. He writes in both English, like this MSDN Magazine article: Configuration Testing With Virtual Server, Part 2, and in Japanese, like this blog.
“Paul Despe is a Program Manager on the Hyper-V team. Paul has worked as a Software Design Engineer in Test on both the Virtual PC and Virtual Server products. Before joining Microsoft, Paul worked in Japan and at Connectix, a virtualization software company acquired by Microsoft in 2003. Paul can be reached at paulde@microsoft.com.”
If you follow the Technet blogs feed, you can see all the different languages that TN bloggers post in, but how can we bring all these together around technical content in the library?
Like this, maybe?
Thoughts? Leave feedback and thanks in advance.
What's the deal with PowerShell?
Here is the VBScript code to list services:
strComputer = "." Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" & "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2") Set colServiceList = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_Service") For Each objService in colServiceList wscript.echo objService.name Next
strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" & "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
Set colServiceList = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_Service")
For Each objService in colServiceList
wscript.echo objService.name
Next
Here is the script to do the same thing in PowerShell:
Get-Service
Which would you rather memorize?
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?>
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 can find some common TNWIKI tags at: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/wiki-common-tags.aspx
Internet pundit Clay Shirky said “The Only Group That Can Categorize Everything Is Everybody.” The idea behind a tagging taxonomy, or “tagsonomy” as it is implemented on the TNWIKI is that IT Pros can create their own ways of navigating and finding technical content through the use of tags.
For example, the PowerShell Survival Guide topic has the following tags as of this writing:
blog, blog link, cmdlets, download, Facebook, has video, liblink, newsgroup, PowerSlim, script, scripting, Scripting Guys, scripts, survival guide, tonyso, Twitter, video link, Windows PowerShell
So, for example, if you like the *idea* of the survival guide, and want to find other survival guide-type topics, just click the tag. This will even return a couple of topics that are titled “resource lists” which would not appear in a search for “survival guide”. Someone saw a category or structural similarity between survival guides and resources lists, and linked them with the tag.
You could even develop your own “table of contents” by tagging all the articles you wanted me to find with “top secret project” and then letting me know to click on that tag to find the articles of interest to us both. Of course, using that tag would *not* gain you a lot of secrecy…
In the example above, you will note a tag of “tonyso,” which is my e-mail alias. This is of interest to no one but me, but allows me to quickly get a list of articles that I started, which is not easy using search,.
Enjoy!
“…folksonomies work because they leverage a very efficient natural language processing tool: the human brain. By offloading the task of disambiguation onto the user, folksonomies reduce the need for all of those fiddly niceties like hierarchy that ontologists have traditionally considered necessary.” [link]
http://technet.com/wiki/got a facelift, near Valentites Day. Coincidence? You decide.
But seriously folks, here is the new look. How do you like it? leave comments.
Recently I had a virtual machine stop responding. Upon investigation I noticed that the machine was paused. This usually happens when the underlying disk has run out of space and it was the case in this instance as well. I thought this was unusual since I have followed the Microsoft recommendations in my production Hyper-V environment by having one LUN per VM and using fixed-size VHD files, so there was nothing that should grow to fill up the disk. Digging further I found that the machine was actually running on a differencing disk, not a fixed size VHD and that this differencing disk (AVHD) was there because there had been a snapshot in the past that was still waiting to merge into the parent VHD file.
This raises an interesting issue. When a snapshot is deleted, the virtual machine must be powered off, not merely rebooted, in order for the data in the differencing disk to merge into the parent VHD. The VM must remain powered off until the merge is complete. If the machine is booted back up again before the merge is completed then the merge process stops until the machine is powered off again. The bigger the AVHD, the longer the merge takes. And while SCVMM and Hyper-V manager have an indication in the GUI that a snapshot exists, when a snapshot is deleted it is deleted from the GUI straight away even though the snapshot hangs around until the merge is complete. So if there is a VM in this state there is no visible indication of it.
Back to the problem at hand. It appears that the machine had a deleted snapshot for an unknown time period and that this had grown to the point where it filled the underlying disk. Since quite a few of our LUNs that run VMs are full to within a few percent, we have disabled the disk space alerts on all LUNs that host VMs, so we were never alerted to the impending issue. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that the LUN was now so full that the merge could not take place even if the VM was turned off.
Luckily we maintain a 250 GB LUN on each Hyper-V cluster that is used for staging and emergencies, so it was an easy thing to power the machine off and use System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) to migrate the VM over the network to this larger LUN and allow the merge to complete and then move it back to its home. Problem solved.
After a lot of Internet research, and trawling through the output of WMI objects and the registry for a suitable indication, I came up with nothing. So, decided I needed to examine the difference between virtual machines in three different states, namely:
So I started by downloading the PowerShell Management Library for Hyper-V and trawling through the various settings on snapshots that were available to me. I thought I was onto something when I saw that a VM with a pending merge still had the disk listed as the AVHD file, not the the parent VHD. I managed to write a complicated script that went something like this:
Now, this worked in the majority of contrived cases, but it all fell down if a disk had been added after a snapshot was taken and was difficult to code when there were multiple disks. Finally I decided to go diving into the configuration XML file. I was hesitant to fiddle too much with the Hyper-V configuration files. They might be simple XML, but it is not like there are a lot of technical articles out there that advocate editing the configuration file. At this point I was out of ideas.
After a bit of poking and fiddling in a test machine’s configuration file I eventually came across the mother lode: configuration/global_settings/disk_merge_pending = true. This is the point where I feel kind of stupid spending the amount of time I had already spent up to this point when the solution ended up being so simple. But enough wallowing in self-pity, the problem was not solved yet.
On to the implementation part of the story. You’d think it would be simple now, but there were more issues to cover. I intended to monitor this with SCOM and this introduced a couple of complications. Both PowerShell and VBScript offer native support for parsing XML. Doing it in PowerShell is dead easy and doing it in VBScript is more complicated and unintuitive for a poor sysadmin such as myself. The problem is, support for embedding a script into a SCOM monitor or rule is restricted to VBScript.
Let me take a short time to digress and discuss my implementation woes with PowerShell. The default settings for running PowerShell scripts is to only run signed scripts and there are three setting available to you:
From the blog post on “what is considered remote” you will find that if you have IEESC turned on that the Intranet zone is considered remote, so any script run from a network share is considered remote. I would have been happy to create my own code-signing certificate, but I found that unless you have an Enterprise CA running on Windows Server Enterprise Edition that you can’t create your own code-signing CA with your Microsoft certificate authority. I was stuck. My choices, none of them palatable, were:
I’ll leave this side issue here since I have explained all the relevant background and get back to the issue of implementing my SCOM monitoring of pending merges.
So, I was left with my conundrum about which scripting language to implement my SCOM monitor in. VBScript allowed me to run the script straight out of SCOM and provides a nice way of returning output from the script to be tested by the monitor and reported in the alert. PowerShell offered the path of least resistance in writing the script. The I had a brainwave. Why not have the best of both worlds? Here is what I came up with:
This setup worked great! I was getting an alert and a Warning state when the pending merge was detected and the alert would auto close when the pending merge situation was resolved and the monitored Hyper-V host would be returned to a Healthy state. Unfortunately it was still not good enough. I could imagine a case where an alert would be raised, but in the time taken for you to arrange an outage for the VM to allow the merge to complete, another machine had its snapshot deleted and also has a pending merge. The first alert would indicate that a certain host and a certain VM had a pending merge, but another alert wouldn’t be raised for the second pending merge. When you resolve the first pending merge the second one would prevent the alert from closing.
My solution was to create a rule to run the script and a monitor to alert on the results. I modified my script and abandoned the property bag and just wrote the information to the local Application event log and the monitor would raise the alert based on that information. I configured the rule to run every 24 hours and for the alert to expire after 23 hours, so SCOM basically bugs me every day about the pending merge until I resolve it. Of course you could customise this in your own implementation.
foreach ($file in Get-ChildItem "$Env:PROGRAMDATA\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V\Virtual Machines\*.xml" { $file.CopyTo((Split-Path -parent $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Definition) + "\" + $file.Name) | out-null [xml]$ConfigFile = Get-Content ((Split-Path -parent $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Definition) + "\" + $file.Name) $VMName = $ConfigFile.Configuration.properties.name."#text" $MergePending = $ConfigFile.configuration.global_settings.disk_merge_pending."#text" if ($MergePending -eq "True") {Write-Host "$VMName has a pending merge."} del ((Split-Path -parent $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Definition) + "\" + $file.Name) Remove-Variable VMName Remove-Variable ConfigFile Remove-Variable MergePending }
I decided to copy the configuration files to a temporary location before parsing them just in case Hyper-V didn’t cope well with manipulating them.
Option Explicit
Dim objFSO : Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") Dim objShell : Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") Dim strParentPath : strParentPath = objFSO.GetParentFolderName(WScript.ScriptFullName) Dim objPSFile : Set objPSFile = objFSO.CreateTextFile(strParentPath & "\PSTemp.ps1", True)
'Get the path to the PowerShell executable from the registry Dim strPowerShell : strPowerShell = objShell.RegRead("HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\ShellIds\Microsoft.PowerShell\Path") Dim strCommand : strCommand = Chr(34) & strPowerShell & Chr(34) & " -NoProfile -NoLogo -File " & Chr(34) & strParentPath & "\PSTemp.ps1" & Chr(34) Dim objExec Dim strOutput : strOutput = "" Dim i
objPSFile.WriteLine "foreach ($file in Get-ChildItem " & Chr(34) & "$Env:PROGRAMDATA\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V\Virtual Machines\*.xml" & Chr(34) & ") {" objPSFile.WriteLine " $file.CopyTo((Split-Path -parent $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Definition) + " & Chr(34) & "\" & Chr(34) & " + $file.Name) | out-null" objPSFile.WriteLine " [xml]$ConfigFile = Get-Content ((Split-Path -parent $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Definition) + " & Chr(34) & "\" & Chr(34) & " + $file.Name)" objPSFile.WriteLine " $VMName = $ConfigFile.Configuration.properties.name." & Chr(34) & "#text" & Chr(34) objPSFile.WriteLine " $MergePending = $ConfigFile.configuration.global_settings.disk_merge_pending." & Chr(34) & "#text" & Chr(34) objPSFile.WriteLine " if ($MergePending -eq " & Chr(34) & "True" & Chr(34) & ") {Write-Host " & Chr(34) & "$VMName has a pending merge." & Chr(34) & "}" objPSFile.WriteLine " del ((Split-Path -parent $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Definition) + " & Chr(34) & "\" & Chr(34) & " + $file.Name)" objPSFile.WriteLine " Remove-Variable VMName" objPSFile.WriteLine " Remove-Variable ConfigFile" objPSFile.WriteLine " Remove-Variable MergePending" objPSFile.WriteLine "}" objPSFile.Close
Set objExec = objShell.Exec(strCommand) objExec.StdIn.Close
'sanity check Do While objExec.Status = 0 WScript.Sleep 1000 i = i + 1 If i > 55 Then i = 0 objExec.Terminate End If Loop
Do While True If objExec.StdOut.AtEndOfStream Then Exit Do Else strOutput = strOutput & objExec.StdOut.Read(1) End If Loop
If InStr(strOutput, "pending") Then objShell.LogEvent 2, strOutput
objFSO.DeleteFile strParentPath & "\PSTemp.ps1", True
Set objFSO = Nothing Set objExec = Nothing Set objPSFile = Nothing Set objShell = Nothing
Many of you saw this app at TechEd NA and TechEd Europe and asked "When can I get it?"
It's heeeere: http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-US/app/server-posterpedia/f988071c-66dc-4281-8028-637ac0f09061
Free-as-in-beer.
This YT vid shows how it works http://youtu.be/o5tWAPWJ720. Seeing it in action explains all. You want to see it in action. Download it from the store now. Did I mention it was free as in no charge costs nothing?
Think, poster-as-table-of-contents-for-technology-information. Think "Minority Report". Think "the presentation IS the information." Think "infographics".
Try it, you'll like it. Especially on a touch-screen.
Tell your friends, leave feedback
As an IT Pro, you may or may not be aware of the “remix culture”. Really, when you read TN/MSDN blogs, you are participating in it…even if you don’t think about it that way.
I’m looking for some feedback from you about an idea I’ve been discussing with my IT Pro content colleagues here at Microsoft.
Here’s the thing, you get a call from one of your users who has a problem, you go to various sources of information to help them solve that problem. Let’s just say one of those sources is TN/MSDN. How useful would it be if when you found the fix on TN/MSDN it included text you could “remix” into a mail to your user?
The security folks are inching down this path, for example see the Conficker content at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/dd452420.aspx
which includes helpful pointers for “consumers” like this
I am wondering – how useful would this idea be to you if it was prepacked right there on the TN page? Something like:
Here’s a mail you can send to your users:
“The network is at risk because of a possible Conficker worm infection. While we <insert your text here describing the action you are taking>, you can help by doing the following:
1. Go to http://update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate to verify your settings and check for updates.
2. If you can't access http://update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate, go to http://safety.live.com and scan your system.
3. If you can’t go to http://safety.live.com, contact support at 1-866-PCSafety or 1-866-727-2338. This phone number is for virus and other security-related support. It is available 24 hours a day for the U.S. and Canada. For support in other countries, visit the Worldwide computer security information page.
Thank you.
If you would like more information about the conficker worm, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/protect/computer/viruses/worms/conficker.mspx.”
Thoughts? Leave comments to send mail to tonyso@microsoft.com
You know those little dishes beside cash registers marked "Give a penny, take a penny"? It is one manifestation of the "pay-it-forward' meme. I give an extra penny from my transaction change now when I don't need it, and I take one later when I do.
Folks who follow the Getting Things Done methodology are always looking for the equivalent in action mangement. An easy example: so that you won't forget to take the <important thing> with you in the morning, put it in front of the door before you go to bed. See what I mean?
Anyway, in that spirit I offer this little insight into an invaluable time-saving Outlook 2007 feature if you have RM installed We do here at Microsoft: on the Permissions menu. select Do Not Reply All, and you have saved everyone on the mail the time it takes to delete all the replies if they are not interested in the thread.
Linux Integration Components for Microsoft Hyper-V is available publicly.
To get it, please the following steps:
1. Login to https://connect.microsoft.com with a Live ID.
2. Click “CONNECTION DIRECTORY” on the top of the page
3. Click Category: Server, and scroll to find the “Linux Integration Components for Microsoft Hyper-V” in the middle of the page.
4. Click “Apply Now” to apply for access.