Keith Combs' Blahg

Got 2010? Go get it !!!

2009-11-20T06:00:00Z

Head on over to http://www.microsoft.com/2010/ and check out the 2010 wave and downloads.

Compose a Haiku and Win!

2009-11-18T07:09:30Z

Clear your mind. Think about the magnificent Windows Server 2008 R2 and compose a Haiku. Ready to get started? Head on over to http://www.r2haiku.com/ for a chance to win. Official rules at http://www.r2haiku.com/Home/Rules.

Azure Services Training Kit – now available for download

2009-11-18T04:36:08Z

The Azure Services Training Kit includes a comprehensive set of technical content including hands-on labs, presentations, and demos that are designed to help you learn how to use the Windows Azure platform including: Windows Azure, SQL Azure and .NET Services. The November release includes new and updated labs in addition to information about Microsoft Codename “Dallas”. This training kit contains the following content:

Presentations Presentations will be updated after PDC 2009 with all of the latest and greatest decks.

Demos Demos will be updated after PDC 2009 with all of the latest and greatest demos.

Hands On Labs

Introduction to Windows Azure
Exploring Windows Azure Storage
Deploying and Monitoring Applications in Windows Azure
Windows Azure: Worker Role Communication
Federated Authentication in a Windows Azure Web Role Application
Building ASP.NET Web Form Applications with Windows Azure
Introduction to SQL Azure
Migrating Databases to SQL Azure
SQL Azure: Tips and Tricks
Intro to Dallas
Introduction to the .NET Service Bus
Introduction to the .NET Access Control Service
Service Remoting with Service Bus
Eventing with the Service Bus

Get it @ http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=413e88f8-5966-4a83-b309-53b7b77edf78.

BitLocker to Go Reader – now available for download

2009-11-18T04:29:38Z

BitLocker protection on removable drives is known as BitLocker To Go. When a BitLocker-protected removable drive is unlocked on a computer running Windows 7, the drive is automatically recognized and the user is either prompted for credentials to unlock the drive or the drive is unlocked automatically if configured to do so. Computers running Windows XP or Windows Vista do not automatically recognize that the removable drive is BitLocker-protected. With the BitLocker To Go Reader users can unlock the BitLocker-protected drives by using a password or a recovery password (also known as a recovery key) and gain read-only access to their data.

Go get it @ http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=64851943-78c9-4cd4-8e8d-f551f06f6b3d

My new adventure starts tomorrow

2009-11-16T03:18:00Z

The Dallas Cowboys should certainly be thinking that after nearly getting skunked by the Green Bay Packers, but this isn’t about them, it’s about me. Monday, November 16 I start a new job. I am not leaving Microsoft. I still dig working here. I am joining the team that is responsible for technet.microsoft.com.

The Job

I’ll still be doing many of the things I’ve been doing for years. Staying immersed and deeply technical on a variety of Microsoft products will still be core, hard core. I’ll still blog, deliver webcasts, live events, and produce screencasts. This time around I’ll be taking advantage of technet.microsoft.com more fully. I consider it my new blog. Grin.

My real job is to build TechNet.com into a place where the community is more active. In order to do that I am going to need your help on what is needed. I have some ideas on stuff I’d like to try, and we have some pretty smart people already hard at work on some kewl ideas, but ultimately it needs to work for you.

The mission is really quite simple. Make technet.microsoft.com a place IT Pros can really use effectively for their jobs, and want to come back to over and over. This sure sounds simple, but the scope is global so I will get the opportunity to work with the subsidiaries in all parts of the globe to build a killer new environment.

The transformation has actually already started. We are making a lot of changes to the TechNet sites as well as the MSDN sites. In fact, what they get, we get and vice versa. You will see a lot of improvements coming. Some are geared directly at organizing the information more effectively. Other changes are geared for discovery. Then other changes are geared towards the community.

The Title

My new title is Senior Program Manager. My role is modeled after Scott Hanselman and the talent on his team. They focus on the various developer technologies, and I will focus on the products and technologies IT Pros care about. In order to make this successful, we plan to more directly engage the community worldwide at TechNet. My role really has two titles. Senior PM is one of them and Community PM is the other. The job really combines elements of both.

This job is a logical step for me. I have enjoyed working as an IT Pro Evangelist in the US but it was time to do something a little bolder. John Martin, my new manager, is giving my that opportunity. I can already tell it’s going to be great working for John. He is a much more articulate communicator and diplomat than I am. He has a great sense and vision for what needs to be done. I’m sure much of this comes from the people on his team. Good teams elevate good managers and vice versa.

As you can probably tell, this is going to be a fascinating new gig. I join an extremely talented group and have the opportunity to learn many new lessons. My adventure begins in the morning. I am headed to Seattle and will be meeting everyone on the TechNet online team, learning what their plans are, and figuring out what I’ve really gotten myself into. It should be a fun week as I chart my course, and the new course for the IT Pro Community at TechNet.com.

By the way, the avatar looks a lot like me when I let my hair grow. Long haired hippy.

Empowering Women’s Brilliance event on Tuesday 11/17

2009-11-15T20:11:02Z

Join Directions Training, Macy's and the Microsoft's DPE team as we launch Empowering Women’s Brilliance. This local initiative was designed to help promote and celebrate women in technology by helping them accelerate the success of their early stage startups, providing:

Software - Development tools and production licenses with NO upfront costs
Support - Resources and Community support from over 300 network and hosting partners and Professional technical support from Microsoft
Visibility - Profile and Promotion on the BizSpark Database

Where: Macy's
NARCISSUS 7th Floor
111 North State Street
Chicago, IL 60602
When: November 17, 2009; 4pm - 8pm (CST)
Cost: FREE!

More information on this event and registration at https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=142198.

Note to future parents: Plan your automobile purchases carefully

2009-11-13T07:29:00Z

I’m sure all of you have teenagers that are practically perfect. Straight A’s and they have never been in any trouble. Even if that were true, we are all faced with one issue that is exceedingly hard to forecast. The automobile inventory and lifespan.

My forecasting abilities were doing quite well until late this summer. We had managed to stay ahead of the mayhem that inexperienced drivers bring to the sublime family life. I have already written about some of those horrors. I won’t remind you and thankfully this tale is not yet another wreck with twisted metal and a call in the middle of the night.

Instead, it’s the unexpected stoppage that occurs when the inexperienced driver continues to drive a valuable automobile that shouldn’t be driven. The result? Premature death of a great and fully paid for car. The other ramification sets in.

My plan was always to time the “hand me downs” so that our children would get a trusted machine I bought new. This works out pretty well in small families with a couple of “starter” cars. But the Automobile Sudden Death Syndrome (ASDS) blows that little plan all to pieces, fast.

Now what?

I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. Buy another used car from some nefarious creature in the Metroplex, or give my baby away and hope it makes it to 100,000 miles?

My baby in this case is the 2007 Honda Civic Coupe you see above. It’s coming up on three years old and I just turned 15,000 miles on it. Yea, you read that right. It is driven around the local community but generally it goes from my garage to the garage at DFW airport 10 miles away and back. That is it’s normal commute.

Shopping sucks

Yea, I already tweeted that. I’ve been on vacation this week. Some fucking vacation. Sorry for the f bomb but it’s well deserved. There are some seriously shady characters out there. I can spot them without ever even talking to them.

The best money you’ll ever spend shopping for a used car is the $40 membership to the carfax.com service. This service allows you to look at the history of a vehicle identification number (VIN). The history will tell you if the titled car was in a flood, or wreck, or had the odometer rolled back. You would be surprised at how many times this information comes in handy. I have had two people in the past week refuse to supply a VIN. That’s a big RED FLAG and probably means the auto was stolen or something very very bad.

Websites

Time to rant a little on craigslist.com. They clearly have everything going for them. I assume it’s due to low rates for running an ad. But their UI and data entry sucks.

Freeform text entry is good for some people. Freedom to control the formatting is also good for others. But for the masses that post on craigslist.com, it’s a curse. Many people neglect to supply key information about the product (automobile in this case). And it’s simple stuff like the model, color, etc.

I realize posting mileage might be something they actually want to leave off, but there are a lot of other things people might want to know and it might actually help SELL the freaking car. I realize there’s a language barrier issue at work here, but a better automobile data entry form would help immensely.

The most annoying feature, or lack of feature in this case, is the inability to put a freaking thumbnail on each posting. You actually have to click the posting first. Is this the BBS era of the 1980’s or what? It wouldn’t be so bad but the dealers and other n00bs tend to post their vehicles a million freaking times over the course of a few weeks. I guess they think it’s going to get someone’s attention and help sell the car. Wrong!!!

What to do?

I guess I’ll play the game a while longer. I am taking a break from my vacation (thank god) and going back to work next week. I’ll continue to monitor craigslist, autotrader.com, cars.com and a few others looking for the golden nugget. But let’s just say I am not holding my breath even though I look great in blue.

People, please go to http://kbb.com and read the descriptions for the quality ratings. Excellent doesn’t mean poor.

Good Karma

2009-11-11T00:28:16Z

See the new hybrid at http://karma.fiskerautomotive.com/.

Exchange Server 2010 is now available to TechNet subscribers

2009-11-09T17:34:12Z

For those of you that have TechNet Plus subscriptions, you’ll notice that Exchange Server 2010 is now in the subscriber download area. If you haven’t looked at some of the new capabilities, here’s an overview of some of the top features.

Reduced deployment cost - Exchange Server 2010 helps you reduce costs by addressing common infrastructure requirements such as backup, e-mail archiving, mobile e-mail access, and voice mail with no need for third-party tools.
Simplified high availability and disaster recovery - Exchange Server 2010 introduces a simplified approach to high availability and disaster recovery to help you achieve new levels of reliability and reduce the complexity of delivering business continuity.
Easier administration and decreased dependence on the help desk - Exchange Server 2010 provides new self-service capabilities to help users perform common tasks without calling the help desk.
Greater mobility and flexible access - Exchange Server 2010 offers an enhanced universal inbox experience, which provides your users with access to all of their business communications from a single location.
Decreased inbox overload and increased productivity - Exchange Server 2010 adds new productivity features which help your users organize and prioritize the communications in their inboxes efficiently.
Transformed voice mail - With Exchange Server 2010, users can receive their voice mail messages in their inbox with text preview.
Simplified compliance - Exchange Server 2010 delivers new integrated archiving functionality to help simplify compliance and discovery.
Safeguards for sensitive information - With centrally managed and enforced information protection and control capabilities, Exchange Server 2010 makes it easy to encrypt, control, and moderate your company's communications.
Reduced risk of malware and spam - Exchange Server 2010 actively helps protect your communications through built-in defenses against junk e-mail and support for an array of third party security products.

More information at http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/2010/en/us/default.aspx and http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/2010/default.aspx.

Windows 7 Digital Cable Advisor and CableCard Copy Freely released !!!

2009-11-07T06:19:10Z

Microsoft announced at CEDIA that customers will now be able to add digital cable tuners with a CableCARD™ to any Windows® 7-based PC with Windows® Media Center. The Digital Cable Advisor tool is being provided by Microsoft to analyze consumer PCs to ensure that they are capable of a quality digital cable viewing experience.

The Digital Cable Advisor measures system parameters such as CPU speed, RAM, graphics card support for hardware acceleration, and digital connection capabilities. If the PC meets the minimum requirements, the tool enables digital cable functionality on the PC. Then, users can add a digital cable tuner with a CableCARD™. With a digital cable subscription from a TV service provider, users can access cable pay-TV, including premium content.

In addition, the latest ATI 1.19 Firmware which enables Copy Freely for CableCARD™ recordings is now available via Windows Update.

See the full details on the Windows 7 Media Center Team blog at http://thegreenbutton.com/blogs/windows_media_center_team_blog/archive/2009/11/06/digital-cable-advisor-now-available.aspx.

This is by far my favorite feature of Windows 7 !!!

Windows 7, Exchange 2010 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Launch – slides now available

2009-11-06T18:48:02Z

All of the slides from the launch events are now posted and available for viewing. If you create a slideshare account, you can also download the PowerPoint file. Here are the relevant locations for the materials:

Windows 7 - http://www.slideshare.net/keithcombs

Windows Server 2008 R2 - http://www.slideshare.net/chenley

Exchange Server 2010 - http://www.slideshare.net/harold.wong

RDP 7 for Windows XP and Windows Vista - now available for download

2009-11-02T22:44:37Z

Now that we have released Windows 7 & Windows Server 2008 R2 to manufacturing, we wanted to share our plans to make the Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) 7.0 client available to Windows XP and Windows Vista. RDC 7 will ensure that when connecting to Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 from an XP or Vista machines you are able to take advantage of the rich, advanced RDP7 features such as Media Player Redirection, True Multi-monitor support, etc.

Get the new download @ http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/results.aspx?pocId=&freetext=969084&DisplayEnglishAlso=on&DisplayLang=en.

See the RDP team blog post on the subject with all the juicy details at http://blogs.msdn.com/rds/archive/2009/08/21/remote-desktop-connection-7-for-windows-7-windows-xp-windows-vista.aspx.

Sprint launches 4G mobile network in Dallas and other markets

2009-11-02T15:03:07Z

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 2, 2009-- The wireless future just arrived in Dallas-Ft. Worth. Sprint (NYSE: S) today announced the launch of Sprint 4G mobile broadband throughout the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. As a result, streaming video, fast file downloads and uploads and turbo-charged web browsing are no longer just home, office or coffee shop benefits. Sprint 4G customers can enjoy a blazing fast wireless mobile broadband experience across the city, whether they’re working at a remote location, relaxing in the park, sitting at a favorite eatery or as a passenger on the freeway or public transportation.

Dallas-Ft. Worth is one of the first communities to enjoy 4G wireless connections from Sprint, the first national wireless carrier to test, launch and market 4G technology. Sprint 4G delivers download speeds up to 10 times faster than 3G.¹ Sprint 4G is like a hotspot designed to reach across Dallas-Ft. Worth. View 4G coverage at www.sprint.com/4G.

See the rest of the press release at http://newsreleases.sprint.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=127149&p=irol-newsArticle_newsroom&ID=1349316&highlight=.

Head on over to the Sprint 4G area at http://www.sprint.com/4G.

DNSSEC Security Guide – update now available

2009-10-30T05:04:16Z

DNSSEC is a suite of extensions that add security to the DNS protocol. The core DNSSEC extensions are specified by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in RFCs 4033, 4034, and 4035, with additional RFCs providing supporting information. This guide provides detailed procedures and conceptual information to help you deploy Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) in your organization using Windows Server® 2008 R2.

DNSSEC is an important new feature that provides the ability for DNS servers and clients to trust DNS responses. This adds an additional layer of protection to your network by guaranteeing that the information received from a DNS server has not been modified or tampered with in any way.

The guide also provides information about using the Name Resolution Policy Table (NRPT). The NRPT is a new feature available in Windows Server 2008 R2 that allows you to configure DNS client settings and special behavior for specified names or namespaces. The NRPT is a key component used to configure client settings for DNSSEC-protected zones.

Get the updated guide @ http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=7a005a14-f740-4689-8c43-9952b5c3d36f.

Windows XP and Windows 7 Migration and Coexistence

2009-10-28T04:03:49Z

What do you need to consider when making the move to Windows 7? If you are running Windows XP there are a number of items to worry about. How do you migrate applications, personal data, etc.?

We often focus our attention on the enterprise tools, but I thought it made sense for this article to focus on a single machine upgrade using a consumer point of view. There are some things you can and can’t do, so I thought I’d go on a little adventure to see what the road to Windows 7 was like.

Please note: I am not addressing most of the activation issues I see discussed on the internet. I did however research what we’ve publicly documented and published, and have provided several important references in this article.

Gathering the Resources

The first stop on my little adventure was the local OfficeMax. I stopped by the retail store to purchase Windows 7 Professional Upgrade. Yes, I actually spent real money and everything. I know this seems odd, but I like to run the same thing you do and I don’t have upgrade media and keys with my TechNet subscription (which I find odd).

I decided to setup Windows XP on a fairly state-of-the-art laptop. The victim in this case was a Lenovo ThinkPad. I could have used my oldest laptop or desktop, but it didn’t seem to make sense to deal with the slower speeds of those machines. Windows 7 is already installed on my Dell Latitude D820. I might as well use something newer and faster for testing.

I wanted to look at the issues associated with migrating to Windows 7 and using Windows Virtual PC XP Mode. So I constructed some scenarios in my mind and set out to test them. Some of my conclusions are probably wrong so I look forward to your feedback.

Moving to 64 Bit Computing

The version of Windows XP I installed was Professional but it was the 32 bit version. It’s been a pretty long time since I’ve run Windows XP and hit the usual first issue. I needed to grab the latest Intel SATA driver for my machines SATA AHCI mode and build a floppy disk for installation. Brings back old memories. Good old F6 at install time. Glad that feature is now history.

The rest of the Windows XP install was easy enough. I installed the integrated version of Windows XP and SP3 so updating it after that wasn’t too bad. After I had the OS all ship shape, I proceeded to install a wide variety of applications and data. I installed some old apps like Dreamweaver 8, and some new applications like Office 2010. I installed some printers and copied my personal data.

When it was all said and done, I had a nice little Windows XP machine with a smattering of applications, connected printers, and user data. The next step was of course to backup my work. You never know how many iterations of testing you might go through so taking “snapshots” of your work along the way is smart. In order to do that, I purchased Acronis True Image Home 2010. Man, I really like that product. Yes, I purchased it with my own money. I’ve used Ghost for years but I’m really liking the Acronis product now.

So the question is, “Can I upgrade from Windows XP Pro x86 to Windows 7 Pro x64?” The answer is of course yes and no. To the best of my knowledge, we have never supported a cross architecture in-place upgrade (x86 –> x64). And it can’t be done with Windows 7. We also don’t support upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 even on the same architecture. So what do you do?

Windows Easy Transfer (WET)

Before we get to the meat of the upgrade/install process, you should consider how you plan to move personal preferences, documents, music, pictures, favorites, etc. Be sure to check out some of the steps the Windows Client team documented. In my case, I skipped some of the upgrade checks and downloaded the latest and greatest transfer tool.

Head on over to http://windows.microsoft.com/windows-easy-transfer. There are 32 and 64 bit versions for Windows XP and Windows Vista. A word of warning here. The version for Windows XP only gathers and creates the .MIG file. In other words, you cannot use this tool to transfer this data into a Windows XP Mode virtual machine. It does however migrate data to Windows 7 VERY nicely. The user interface lets to pick and choose what to backup and restore at a very granular level.

If you plan to migrate data from Windows XP to a XP Mode virtual machine, you must use the Windows XP Files and Settings Transfer Wizard. The problem with using this tool is that it is an all or nothing proposition. You cannot pick and choose what is restored. I have a better recommendation below for XP Mode use.

Custom Installation

When I did my Windows 7 Pro x64 Upgrade media install, I was offered two different choices by the setup program. They aren’t overt choices but they are there. The first is to install on the same disk and partition as the current installation of Windows XP. If you do this, Windows XP, all of the apps, and all of the user data will be moved to a subdirectory called windows.old.

Keep in mind you are going to need a considerable amount of free disk space for all of this to occur. In my case I am using a 250GB laptop drive and the Windows XP install, apps and data are only consuming about 35GB. So I had plenty of available disk space. The end result is pretty interesting for a couple of reasons.

First, grabbing your personal data from windows.old is fast and easy. You can easily move your docs, pictures, music, etc. via cut and paste. Since it’s all on the same drive, the move is nearly instant. No waiting around for a wizard to pull the data out of a proprietary file format.

Second, when you delete windows.old you are left with nothing but Windows 7 and and personal data you decided to grab. This is effectively a clean install at that point and because you did this in the supported way we expect, you should not hit any issues with the upgrade key activation.

I highly recommend using the windows.old method of custom installation because this seems to be the safe and effective approach. You still have to install your desired applications into Windows 7, but look at the bright side. You are starting off with a nice clean system and you can carefully evaluate which applications you really need. We’ll talk about some application compatibility issues in a minute.

The other choice when using the Custom Installation option is to wipe the hard drive. This involves formatting the drive and is obviously a destructive process. You had better make sure you have working backups and copies of your data before going down this path. See this article for the proper procedure. See the Windows 7 Troubleshooting and Help area for other topics. And by all means contact our support organization if you managed to get painted into a corner and need help.

Application Compatibility and XP Mode

An amazing number of tools and articles have already been written about how to move applications from Windows XP to Windows Vista and now Windows 7. I am not going to go into all of that here because the topic is large and has already been covered in detail. I would however like to mention something new.

We added some new capabilities to Windows 7 via a free download called Windows Virtual PC. Windows Virtual PC lets you run a special Windows XP virtual machine that is tightly integrated with the Windows 7 desktop.

XP Mode will run a couple of ways. As you can see at right, you can run the virtual machine windowed on the Windows 7 desktop. You can also run applications that are executing in the vm but appear as if they are running native to the Windows 7 desktop.

When I first installed the XP Mode vm, I intended to use the Windows Easy Transfer wizard to migrate some settings from the original Windows XP environment of the physical machine to the virtual machine. I learned the hard way this is not possible. Thank heavens for taking backup snapshots along the way. I then tried to use the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard but that wasn’t an ideal solution either. It wanted to dump everything into the virtual machine and that IS NOT the intention of the vm.

Windows Virtual PC and XP Mode are intended to provide that last resort capability for one or two applications that simply won’t run otherwise. It is not intended to be your production environment. Therefore you should not need to use WET or the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard to migrate data to the XP Mode vm. Use it for the one or two apps you require, but use Windows 7 for everything else.

Dual Boot

You can of course dual boot Windows 7 with another operating system. This is also referred to as multiboot. There are a number of methods to doing this and just for fun I decided to create a multiboot environment where Windows XP is on the original disk partition with Windows 7.

As you might have guessed, I installed Windows 7 using a native-boot VHD thus creating a multiboot environment. That worked but keep in mind this is totally an unsupported configuration. Let me repeat that. As far as I can tell, we do not support a multiboot environment where Windows 7 is deployed like this. If you want to learn how to do this, see the references below.

Summary

Moving from Windows XP to Windows 7 can be very easy. I realize I only touched lightly on the application compatibility topic, but as I mentioned above, there are many articles on how to solve app compat issues. Many of those issues have already been solved by our partners and independent software developers.

As you can see above, there are a number of approaches to migrating or coexisting with Windows 7 and Windows XP. I only looked at a single machine over the course of a couple of days. For those of you supporting multiple machines, we do of course have a strong set of tools to help you assess your environment, automate the upgrades, and deploy Windows 7. I’ll be writing more about the enterprise tools, but I thought you might enjoy the consumer tasks and tools first.

Screencasts

I actually recorded several screencasts during the research for this blog post. In the end, I decided not to publish them. The primary reason is because I felt the tools and techniques are pretty easy to understand. That and my flabber was gasted when I learned the WET tool could not be used in the XP Mode virtual machine. At that point it became apparent I had the wrong approach to XP Mode and simplified the tasks you might consider. Feedback is welcome.

Other Information and References

TechNet Windows 7 App Compat area - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/aa905066.aspx
Windows 7 setup and Install Forum - http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproinstall/threads
The Windows Team Blog Win7 Movement FAQ - http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windows7/archive/2009/09/24/moving-to-windows-7-faq.aspx
Windows XP to Windows 7 - http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/help/upgrading-from-windows-xp-to-windows-7
Windows 7 Upgrade Key – activation messages KB article at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930373/en-us.
Dual Boot from VHD - http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2009/05/22/dual-boot-from-vhd-using-windows-7-and-windows-server-2008-r2.aspx for the first blog post I did.
More Native Boot from VHD Tool exploration - http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2009/06/17/automating-boot-from-vhd-os-installation.aspx.
Native Boot VHD BitLocker testing - http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2009/09/05/windows-7-dual-boot-revisited-with-bitlocker.aspx.
Simplified Native Boot from VHD instructions - http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2009/10/15/using-hyper-v-without-re-installing-your-world.aspx (for Hyper-V newbies).