John Howard - Senior Program Manager in the Hyper-V team at Microsoft : Windows Server – NT

Understanding Active Directory in the Real World

jhoward — Thu, 23 Jun 2005 18:23:00 GMT

For those of you who are available on Monday (27th June), this is a reminder that there is an all-day Technet event running at Cavendish Conference Centre in London about how you can deploy, manage, migrate-to, secure and extend the value of your directory platform. Myself and two colleagues from Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS), Mark Cribben and Mike Brannigan, both Active Directory experts, will be on stage presenting. Demand has been very high for this, but there are still a handful (and I really do mean handful) of spaces left only.

To register for this free event and to find out more information, click here. Hope to meet you there.

Virtual NT4 Guest Server auto power off after shutdown under Virtual Server

jhoward — Thu, 09 Jun 2005 15:16:00 GMT

I know from the presentations, customer meetings and emails I get, many of you are running NT4 server as a guest under Virtual Server 2005. While NT4 itself as a guest is supported, remember that this doesn't increase the supportability of the NT4 OS itself.

However, here's a useful tip if you find that NT4 doesn't power off automatically if you instigate the shutdown through Virtual Server (it should work OK if you use the start/shutdown command). You need to enable the NT APM/Legacy support. Note that this was a deliberate step by the development team for Virtual Server to ensure that undo disks were flushed correctly. I don't have the exact specifics of the problem, but this is planned behaviour.

To resolve, you will need the hal.dll.softex.dll that's provided, but not installed, from SP4. Note you officially need SP6A anyway to run NT under Virtual Server so that shouldn't be a problem. Run through the following steps:

Rename the x:\winnt\system32\hal.dll to x:\winnt\system32\hal.dll.sav
Copy the hal.dll.softex to x:\winnt\system32\hal.dll
Set the following registry key to 1: HKEY_LOCAL_COMPUTER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\PowerdownAfterShutdown
Reboot

Scriptomatic (revisited)

jhoward — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 16:42:00 GMT

The Scripting Guys released version 2 of their "Scriptomatic" tool a couple of weeks ago. Don't be put off by the somewhat frivolous name - it has some very true value. One such example I frequently use is for the WQL queries in WMI filters when building Group Policy Objects - this tool saves a lot of effort. The sequel is a completely new. However, this time, it doesn't write just VBScript, it can output in Perl, Python and JScript. Go take a look - you'll be glad you did. It works from Windows 98 right through to Windows 2000 (but you'll need to install WMI 1.5 Core for 98/NT). Oddly though, Windows Server 2003 isn't in the list of supported operating systems for Scriptomatic. I can confirm it works for me under WS2003 so far. Odd!

Here's the download link.

Windows Task Manager - Alternate View

jhoward — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 11:43:00 GMT

This is one of those small almost unheard of "things you can do in Windows" tips.
The left image below is a "normal" Windows Task Manager screen shot.
If you double-click anywhere in the graphical part of the tab, it changes appearance to the screen on the right.

Click image to enlarge.

You can also do this on the networking tab. Not sure how much mileage you'll make of it, but it may be useful.

Blogcast on VSMT (Virtual Server Migration Toolkit) - Part 5

jhoward — Sun, 09 Jan 2005 03:02:00 GMT

As promised, here's the last blogcast installment walking through a VSMT migration of an NT4 server into a virtual machine running under Microsoft Virtual Server 2005. This blogcast walks through deploying the disk image into the blank VM and seeing the final result. It can be viewed by clicking here (10 minutes 6 seconds).

If you missed any of the previous parts:

Part one can be viewed here
Part two can be viewed here
Part three can be viewed here
Part four can be viewed here

Edited by John: 3rd Nov 2005 - Rehosted WMV File

Blogcast on Virtual Server Migration Toolkit (VSMT) - Part 4

jhoward — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 06:54:00 GMT

I'm "virtually" (no pun intended) at the end in the series of blog entries walking you through a VSMT migration of an NT4 server into a virtual machine running under Microsoft Virtual Server 2005. If you've missed out so far:

Part one can be viewed here (links to 2 blogcasts)
Part two can be viewed here (links to 2 blogcasts)
Part three can be viewed here (links to 2 blogcasts)

The seventh and penultimate VSMT blogcast walks through creating a new virtual machine under Virtual Server as a placeholder for the migrated server. It can be viewed by clicking here (6 minutes 55 seconds).

I've had some great feedback about this series from a truly worldwide audience - the level of interest has been absolutely staggering, and I thank you for taking the time to provide feedback. If you would like more of this type of demonstration/blogcast, please drop me an email using the contact me option on the home page of my blog. I'll try my best to accomodate, but I need to know what you want to see....

Edited by John: 3rd Nov 2005 - Rehosted WMV file

Do I have local admin rights? Find out how in three mouse clicks (or two keys plus a mouse click)....

jhoward — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 03:48:00 GMT

I use this quick-tip frequently to determine if I'm a local administrator. The trouble with some tips is that you just know them, they're so simple so you don't bother to tell people as you're under the assumption they "must have known that". This exact circumstance happened today in the office when a colleague was having problems installing some software. They thought they had local admin rights, but didn't.

Click 1: Right-Click My Computer
Click 2: Select Properties
Click 3: Select the "Computer Name" tab

If the "Change" box is available, you're a local administrator. If it's greyed out, you're not. It's that simple.

So as to combine one tip into two, if you didn't know, you could change Clicks 1 and 2 above with 2 keyboard hits: Windows Key + Break.

Blogcast on Virtual Server Migration Toolkit (VSMT) - Part 3

jhoward — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 11:41:00 GMT

If you missed my two previous postings in this series of blogcasts walking you through a VSMT migration of an NT4 server into a virtual machine running under Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, part one can be viewed here, and part two can be viewed here.

This blog provides links to the next two blogcasts parts five and six:

The fifth VSMT blogcast walks through updating the script files to ensure the generated P2V migration files work correctly in the environment validating the XML file describing the hardware on the server being migrated and adds an device to ADS for the target Virtual Server machine. It can be viewed by clicking here (2 minutes 46 seconds).

The sixth VSMT blogcast walks through capturing a disk image of the NT4 server into ADS. It can be viewed by clicking here (7 minutes 33 seconds).

Edited by John: 3rd Nov 2005 - Rehosted WMV files

Blogcast on Virtual Server Migration Toolkit (VSMT) - Part 2

jhoward — Wed, 05 Jan 2005 19:01:00 GMT

I hope you enjoyed the first two blogcast demonstrations of VSMT I blogged about yesterday. Today, I'm publishing part two which contains the next two blogcasts in the series.

The third VSMT blogcast walks through validating the XML file describing the hardware which the server being migrated is running. It can be viewed by clicking here (1 minute 23 seconds).
The fourth VSMT blogcast walks through generating the P2V (physical to virtual) files used for the remainder of the migration. It can be viewed by clicking here (2 minutes 44 seconds).

Edited by John: 3rd Nov 2005 - Rehosted WMV Files

Blogcast on Virtual Server Migration Toolkit (VSMT) - Part 1

jhoward — Tue, 04 Jan 2005 20:17:00 GMT

Blogcast, podcast, mini-webcast.... What's in a name - well quite a lot judging by some of the reactions I've had.

Leaving the name issue to one side, I've recorded a series of eight clips which walk through the process of migrating an NT4 server into Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 using the VSMT (Virtual Server Migration Toolkit). Each of these clips is only a few minutes long, with the longest one only 10 minutes. Please feel free to delve in as you want. These clips essentially run through the steps described in a fabulous white paper available on microsoft.com

You will be able to see demo live in Birmingham on January 13th where you can ask me questions in-person.

The first blogcast is an introduction to the environment I'm using to perform the migration and can be viewed by clicking here.

The second blogcast is using the gatherhw tool to generate an XML manifest cataloguing the hardware in my NT4 Server. This can be viewed by clicking here

Hope you enjoy these - I'll blog about the other recordings over the next few days. Also, if you want to see more of these type of recordings relating to Windows Server environments or Virtual Server, drop me a mail or add a comment.

--------------------------------

...added 28th January 2005: Now that they're published, here's the links to the other parts to save you searching.
Part two can be viewed here
Part three can be viewed here
Part four can be viewed here
Part five can be viewed here

Edited by John: 3rd Nov 2005 - Rehosted WMV files

Group Policy Webcast series

jhoward — Mon, 20 Dec 2004 23:02:00 GMT

Matt Hester recently finished a great series of 14 webcasts about the ins and outs of Group Policy. If you missed these the first time round, or just want to know more about group policy, they're available for re-run on the Microsoft Technet site.

Blogcasts - surely a typo I hear you say.

jhoward — Mon, 13 Dec 2004 21:23:00 GMT

No, it's not a typo! A "blogcast" is probably a new term to you as it's been made up by the IT Pro Evangelism team in the UK (not quite true, but it's nice to think we got there first). A blogcast in this context is a webcast delivered through blogs. So what's new about that I hear you ask? The answer to that is the way most of you tell me you view webcasts. How many of you can relate to one of the following statements?

I skip through webcasts to the bit I'm interested in
I pop the kettle on at the start of a webcast
I have the TV on while listening to a webcast, muting it when the presenter gets to the interesting slide

To solve this, a blogcast is a mini webcast (certainly under 10 minutes) delivered through a blog, concentrating on a very specific topic. No frills added. By building a series of these, we hope to be able to take you through a "journey".

Now over to you... We're busy trying to build a list of possible topics, so if you have any specific to the Windows or Virtual Server track, please let me know.

Eileen has already posted a blogcast here to give you a flavour.

New windows not opening in IE? Use the Knowledge Base - it knows a lot of stuff!

jhoward — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 22:22:00 GMT

Internet Explorer on my test Windows Server 2003 box has been playing up for a couple of days - every time I clicked a link which opened a new window, I got a blank window with nothing in the address bar. Annoying, but sometimes you don't have time to sort it out, so you end up working around the problem. For example, I have been copying shortcuts and pasting it in to the blank window. However, there's certain links which just don't work doing this, such as those with scripted links.

There's a limit to my patience, but the answer took no more than two minutes to find and resolve without resorting to reinstalling. From the Microsoft knowledge base under article 281679 - I just had to follow the first step, (re-)registering urlmon.dll. I still don't know why this happened in the first place, but there you go.

The article above has lots of other information if the first step doesn't fix it for you, and applies to IE5, 5.01, 5.5 and 6.0

NT4 Server and Windows Server 2003 Interoperability - Technet Evening Session

jhoward — Tue, 23 Nov 2004 01:58:00 GMT

I'm co-presenting a free Technet evening event with Dave Sayers tomorrow night (Tue 23rd Nov) at the Microsoft office in Reading, UK discussing "NT4 and Windows Server 2003 interoperability". The session starts at 18:30 with registration opening at 18:00. Click here for the registration site. Remember, it's FREE

If you are planning on attending, please take a moment to say hello during the break or afterwards - it's always nice to meet and chat to the audience and understand your pains/woes about Microsoft technologies. Sign-up now and enjoy the free beer and pizza...

Alternatively, if NT4 and Windows Server 2003 interop isn't your thing, you can always try out learning how to upgrade from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2003 being presented by my colleague Eileen Brown in the room next door.

Don't forget that there are many free training sessions throughout the UK. Check on the Microsoft UK Events Homepage