Mark Garcia - Unified Communications product specialist

Interactive smartboard for $55? Yes, it can be done.

I thought this was pretty amazing to watch with some very simple items you can have an amazing smartboard for any surface.

I love gadgets so I am taking this project on. I figured it may be an interesting way to kick off a demo of OCS/Exchange with schools when I am onsite. :)

Here is a great link on how to set this up for your school here.

They are selling whiteboard IR pens here already and if you want to make your own IR pen go here.

Some cool free whiteboard software for download here.

How does faxing work with Exchange unified messaging?

I had this question from a university in the rocky mountain range.  With Exchange Server 2007 unified messaging, the UM server can directly detect a fax tone using the T.38 FOIP (Fax Over IP) standard and route inbound faxes to an extension. It does not provide the ability to send faxes outbound.  For outbound faxing, it is required to use a 3rd party Fax software product.

How can I configure the fax extension?

The fax extension can either be a dedicated fax mailbox, the same extension as the users mailbox or a separate extension paired to the user's mailbox.

What does the inbound fax flow look like?:

The inbound fax hits the IPPBX or PBX and the signal is translated to T.38 (FOIP) directly or through the SIP GW. The Exchange UM server is listening for the T.38 tone. Once the UM server detects the T.38 tone, the fax is converted to .TIF on the UM server. Next, the UM server performs an AD lookup for the extension, routes the fax message to the Hub Transport which routes it to the correct the mailbox server.

Does this require a fax card to work?

There is no additional fax HW required for this to work.

How does inbound fax work if I am voice enabled with OCS?

The OCS Mediation Server currently does not understand the T.38 FOIP standard therefore you must create a separate extension and route fax extensions directly to the UM server versus through the Mediation Server. Click here for more information.

What does the fax look like?

Similar to a voicemail, the fax arrives as a .TIF attachment in your Outlook, OWA or Activesync mobile device inbox. Here is a sample fax in Outlook:

Does this require Windows Server 2008 fax services and do they integrate?

No, it does not require Windows Server 2008 fax services and they are not integrated at this time. For more on Windows Server 2008 fax services see here.

What type of bandwidth does OCS web conferencing use?

I had this question from a large school district down in Florida and the answer is it depends on what aspects of the OCS conference you are using.

Here is a bandwidth breakout of the conference scenarios:

Application Sharing bandwidth:

Peak Bandwidth Measured in Application Sharing changes as available bandwidth changes.

Desktop Sharing and Remote Control bandwidth

Almost the exact same bandwidth requirements as Application Sharing.

VOIP audio conferencing bandwidth

50Kbps to 80Kbps per audio session minimum required

Webcam or RoundTable video bandwidth

Basic webcam 50Kbps minimum to 350Kbps maximum per video session

RoundTable panoramic video doubles this requirement to 100Kbps minimum to 700Kbps maximum per video session.

Recording Playback

To view a previously recorded Live Meeting session from a server is around 220Kbps.

Whiteboard and Poll sessions

Very light weight bandwidth requirements

For more information see this whitepaper here.

Other customer questions:

What are the correct antivirus exclusions required for OCS?

I have only seen information around excluding the OCS binaries and databases from antivirus tools.

What do I need to have installed in order to create my databases on a remote SQL server? Do they need to be installed on my OCS server?

You must install the Backward Compatibility Tools on the OCS server in order to instantiate the pool and create the OCS DBs on a remote SQL server. You can download the tools from here.

Will OCS run on 64-bit Windows Server 2003?

OCS 2007 RTM is not supported on a 64-bit Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008. This will change with OCS 2007 R2 as it will be moving to 64-bit only support. More to come in future blogs around this. Here is the official OCS team blog about the switch to 64-bit only OCS.

Will OCS run on Windows Server 2008?

OCS 2007 RTM it is not supported to run on the Windows Server 2008 operating system. This is slated to change with OCS 2007 R2. More to come in future blogs around this.

Can SQL 2005 be 64-bit?

Yes, in fact it is preferred to run SQL 2005 64-bit.

Will OCS run with Windows Server 2008 Active Directory?

Yes, OCS is supported running in a domain that contains Windows Server 2008 domain controllers.

Is there a way to speed up the Exchange Management Shell launch?

Have you noticed it takes quite a long time to open up the Exchange command shell? I timed it and it takes anywhere from 20 to 30 seconds to launch.  I found a way to knock this down to 2-3 seconds. This script updates the GAC with some of the Exchange assemblies and makes Command Shell respond well.

1) Paste the following in notepad and save it as Update-shell.ps1 (or whatever name you want):

Set-Alias ngen @(
 dir (join-path ${env:\windir} "Microsoft.NET\Framework64") ngen.exe -recurse |
 sort -descending lastwritetime
 )[0].fullName
 [appdomain]::currentdomain.getassemblies() | %{ngen $_.location}

Note: On x86 systems; replace Framework64 in the second line of this script with Framework.

2) [Optional] Close all open windows

3) [Optional] Start the Exchange Management Shell and note the time it takes to start up

4) Run the script: .\Update-shell.ps1 (or whatever you saved it as)

5) Quit all open windows, start the Shell. Notice the difference?

How do you separate OCS administration between pools in the same domain?

I had this question today from a large University in the Midwest and after some digging I found the answer to this is yes:

Here are the steps to do this:

1) Create two Universal security admin groups in ADUC such as OCSserverPool1group and OCSserverPool2group

2) Add various pool administrators to the correct group

2) Create two OUs in ADUC such as Pool1Servers and Pool2servers

3) Move all Pool1 OCS servers to Pool1servers OU and all Pool2 OCS servers to Pool2servers OU

4) Log onto OCS server you would like to delegate with either Domain Admins or RTCUniversalServerAdmins rights

5) Run the following command from the command line like this sample:

"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007\LCSCmd.exe" /domain:ocstest.loc /action:createdelegation /delegation:useradmin /trusteegroup:OCSserverPool1group

/trusteedomain:ocstest.loc /serviceaccount:rtcservice /componentserviceaccount:rtccomponentservice

/computerOU:ou=ocspool1,dc=ocstest,dc=loc /userOU:ou=students,dc=ocstest,dc=loc /usertype:user

/poolname:ocssa.ocstest.loc

More info around the command syntax:

LcsCmd /Domain[:<domain FQDN>] /Action:CreateDelegation /Delegation:ServerAdmin /TrusteeGroup:<name of the universal group that you will delegate to>

/TrusteeDomain: <FQDN of the domain where the trustee group resides>

/ServiceAccount:<RTC service account name>

/ComponentServiceAccount:<RTC component service account name>

/ComputerOU:<DN of the OU or container where the computer objects that run Office Communications Server reside>

/PoolName:<Name of an Enterprise pool or Standard Edition server>

[/ExtraServers:<FQDN of server1, FQDN of server2>]

Where:

TrusteeGroup is the group to which you are granting permissions.

TrusteeDomain is the domain in which the trustee group resides.

ServiceAccount is the RTC service account name.

ComponentServiceAccount is the RTC component service account name.

ComputerOU specifies the DN of the organizational unit containing the computer running the server to which you are granting administrative permissions.

PoolName specifies the name of the Standard Edition server or Enterprise pool in which the trustee group can administer servers; adds the trustee group to the Local Administrators group of each computer in the pool to the AdminRole of the RTC database, and to the ReadWriteRole of the RTCConfig database on the SQL Server back-end database server.

ExtraServers specifies a comma separated list of FQDNs of computers that are not part of a pool to which the trustee group requires access. You can enter the FQDN of Archiving and CDR Servers, Mediation Servers, or the internal FQDN of edge servers.

For more information on OCS server delegation see the OCS Active Directory Guide here.

Is there way to get the Office Communicator inside of Outlook?

I had a few SameTime/Notes schools who were switching to Exchange 2007 and OCS 2007 ask me if there was a way to embed Office Communicator client inside of Outlook? The answer is yes. There sample add-on available here along with source.  Here is what it looks like:

Is there a Vista gadget for Exchange or Communicator? Yes, click here. Here is what the OC gadget looks like:

Here is the Exchange Web Services gadget where you can load calendar, inbox, tasks in a gadget. It will also pop up a side window when items are clicked:

Is there a way to get OCS within my Lotus Notes client while I am migrating to Exchange? Yes, there is sample Communicator add-on for Lotus Notes here. Here is what it looks like:

I hope this provides some information around additional options for connecting to OCS.

How can I quickly validate my ActiveSync, SMTP, Autodiscover, Outlook Anywhere infrastructure from the Internet?

I just came across this very nice testing tool called the "Exchange Server Remote Connectivity Analyzer" that was created and hosted by Microsoft for customers and schools to use to validate your ActiveSync, SMTP, Autodiscover, Outlook Anywhere configurations all from single Internet web site. I needed this type of tool many times back in my consulting days.

The site is www.testexchangeconnectivity.com . It is very handy for troubleshooting or validating your infrastructure when you get a call from a professor stating his Windows Mobile phone no longer syncs, etc.

Here is the Remote Connectivity Analyzer main screen:

Here is an SMTP test sample:

Here is an ActiveSync test sample:

This is a very useful tool since you can quickly determine the state of your Exchange 2007 world from the outside without having to be on the outside. Note: When testing be sure to only use TEST accounts, do not use production accounts!

Can I install OCS into an Active Directory Forest deployed as a Single Label Domain?

I just had a school that deployed a single label domain in Active Directory (e.g no .com or .edu for their domain namespace) ask me this question. I searched around but I couldn't find anything in the OCS supportability document.

The answer from the OCS product team is:

"According to KB 300684 most Internet registrars do not support this and Microsoft is blocking deployment of SLD with Windows Server 2008. We have not tested this scenario for these reasons and therefore will not support it if a customer deploys this way. They may try it out in a test lab but production deployment is at their own risk."

So to net it out:

If you have a SLD Forest and you want to deploy OCS you will be in uncharted waters. It certainly may work and I have heard of customers who have it working but it is not supported since we did not test nor do they test this scenario with service packs, hotfixes, etc.

So what is Microsoft Live@edu and Exchange Labs exactly?

Just a quick note that I am changing my role into a pure Unified Communcations Technology Solution Professional in U.S. Education starting this week. I will also be helping customers with Live@edu and Exchange labs implementations, etc. 

Schools are asking me what is Live@edu, who is it geared towards, and what is Exchange labs?. Below is my 10,000 foot answer:

What is Microsoft Live@edu?:

Live@edu is a free Microsoft cloud services offering to K12 and higher education students, alumni, and parents (except Exchange labs) with the following features:

• Leverage existing school email domain by adding a subdomain such as "my" (e.g. student@my.school.edu) 
• Hosted e-mail: Either Hotmail 5GB quota or Exchange labs 10 GB quota (see below)
• Office Live Workspace - collaboration on documents, etc.
• Windows SkyDrive - this is a 5GB per user storage in the cloud for files, photos, etc.
• SharedView beta - think of this as hosted LiveMeeting lite for 15 users
• Windows Live Spaces - place for group project, campus clubs, personal pages
• Windows Live Messenger - #1 IM client
• Windows Live Alerts - SMS notifcation for news, events, etc.
• Mobile - mobile email, IM client, or ActiveSync -push email

Are faculty and staff free as well?

They can get on a waitlist to participate for a Faculty and Staff beta program which is free during the beta but they may be subject to licensing costs when the program goes full production.

What is Exchange Labs?

Exchange labs give students and alumni a more professional e-mail experience with use of the full Outlook client, Outlook Web Access, and ActiveSync (push email to mobile phones such as Windows Mobile and iPhone), similar to what they may use in the workplace. It also provides enterprise-class management tools, like archiving and distribution lists, as well as GAL and calendar integration for users  (e.g. faculty and staff) on Exchange hosted on-premise.

What is a feature break down between Exchange Labs and Hotmail?:

How do I integrate with my on-premise email?

There are a few options to synchronize with on-premise directories with Option 3 providing real time sychronization:

Option 1: Eduexpress

One at a time creation or bulk upload

Option 2: Command line application

Batch scripts that export users with the Live@edu offering

Option 3: Microsoft Identify and Lifecycle Management

A server hosted on-premise at your school that auto-provisions users, groups, etc on the Live@edu offering

Click here for more on account creation/deployment scenarios.

What additional features are included with the newly released (June) Exchange Labs Release2?:

• Remote PowerShell
• Web services
• Dynamic Distribution Lists
• ILM support
• Single Sign On Support
• Rules for Bad Word Filtering
• Lock down email to a domain
• OWA Premium Logo and Branding
• Proxy Addresses
• 24 OWA Languages
• Account Aggregation
• Improved Options Page navigation

Conclusion

I hope this provides your school with some high level insight into what Microsoft Live@edu offers as well as Exchange Labs. Thus far, there certainly is a huge amount of interest and adoption rate of Live@edu by both K-12 school districts and universities. The most attractive part about this Microsoft cloud service is it requires no funding, no on-prem servers (other than an ILM server potentially) and minimal administration. 

I will be posting more information around Live@edu integration scenarios, common customer questions and lessons learned.

For more information on Live@edu click here and for Exchange labs click here. 

Windows Mobile 6 and GPS already here

The new upcoming iPhone 2.0 has GPS with Google maps support only. Should I get excited now?  I guess so but just so you know certain Windows Mobile phones have had built-in GPS support for sometime now.  You can search for a list here at pdadb.net which has a nice list of Windows Mobile phones with a GPS icon.

I knew my XV6900 phone had built-in A-GPS support when I bought it. I decided to try it out ahead of time with an unreleased version of Windows Mobile 6.1 ROM and upcoming GPS and RevA support. Wow. The RevA EVDO speeds (about 3x faster bandwidth then current EVDO) really make streaming video/TV (from Orb or Slingbox) and web browsing an awesome experience. 

Here is an example of what you can do with a 3rd party application called Live Media GPS from Inca Mobile, Built-in GPS, Windows Mobile and Virtual Earth. 

I streamed this video from my car as I drove up the mountains here.  It is a very very slick use of our technologies and I can only think of the possibilities for use cases here like police, fire, forestry, etc. I may even try this on a hike to see what it does.

Another useful feature is using the built-in GPS with Live Search Mobile.  An awesome experience. It has turn by turn directions and it scrolls the Virtual Earth map as you drive down the road. It is pretty awesome seeing a satellite aerial view of where you are on your phone which is something you can't get from in-car or car based GPS systems yet. Type www.live.com on your Windows Mobile and download Live Search.

       Live Search Mobile                          Turn by Turn directions

          GPSViewer free tool              Virtual Earth Zoom capability

Mobile Live Search also has the ability to search for cheapest gas and you can speak what you are searching for. I use that all the time when I am visiting a school.  I say "Sushi, Tuscon, Arizona" for example and it will list all the sushi in the area with ratings. Then I can lock into that address and get directions to that location using "Current GPS location" and I am all set with turn by turn directions. It even works walking down the street. Very nice example of our Software + Services strategy.

I can lock in to GPS sats within about 30 seconds with a free tool called GPSviewer and I often get about 15 sats lock on my location.  All and all there are some very cool things coming to your Windows Mobile phone very soon.  You can already buy GPS software like TomTom, Garmin, etc. which can get you voice directions, and can work in remote areas where you do not have data services. 

Windows Mobile 6.1 is awesome as it is much faster, has threaded SMS, zoom IE browser, better calendar, better GUI, better battery life, etc. Check out the new Windows Mobile 6.1 features here.

If you are in the market for a new Windows Mobile phone, I recommend you make sure it has built-in GPS since the integration with our cloud services is going to be incredible in the coming years.

Preliminary Guidelines for Running Exchange Server 2007 on Hyper-V

The Exchange product team is going to announce our preliminary strategy for Hyper-V and Exchange Server 2007 tomorrow at Tech-Ed. I posted my quick interpretation of what is coming.

 

Here are some quick notes you can reference:

• 60-days post RTM of Hyper-V we will provide detailed support statement of support for Exchange Server 2007 hosted on Hyper-V
• Disk Performance from Exchange 2007 on Hyper-V was shown to be almost the same
• You can scale up from 1 to 4 virtual processor for Exchange 2007 on Hyper-V
• Performance of Exchange Server 2007 has been tested to be around the same as physical (within 96%)

Areas not supported for Exchange Server 2007 running on Hyper-V:

• Running Exchange Server 2007 on host OS with Exchange in guest OS
• Hyper-V snapshotting or differencing disks not supported with Exchange 2007 guests
• Oversubscribing to virtual processors not supported for Exchange Server 2007
• Quick migration for Hyper-V not supported for Exchange Server 2007 unplanned failures
• VHD disks cannot be more than 2TB in size
• Hardware VSS not available with Exchange 2007 guests
• UM role not supported as guest
• 64-bit Windows Server 2003 guest OS - must be Windows Server 2008 64-bit guests only for Exchange 2007

Recommendations for running Exchange Server 2007 on Hyper-V:

• All Exchange role HW planning should be done with same diligence as physical HW
• Use dedicated spindles for Exchange storage and not same as guest OS spindle
• FC or SCSI HBAs presented to host/root OS and presented as passthrough SCSI
• With iSCSI, also use passthrough to guest OS and dedicated NIC to avoid virtual switch
• Should not be used as a means to consolidate physical mailbox roles
• CCR and SCC are being tested but not to be combined with Hyper-V quick migration
• Plan for up to 2000 mailboxes per Exchange guest OS

Summary

Virtualization is certainly an area of interest to many schools but please wait until the official support guidance has been released by the Exchange product team before deploying production Exchange 2007 on Hyper-V even when it is released.

As far as mailbox server virtualization goes, if you can afford to put your mailbox role on a physical dedicated server this would be my personal recommendation going forward to avoid the additional layer of management of Hyper-V for Exchange administrators. I can see Hyper-V being used with Exchange 2007 for redundancy (redundant Hubs, CAS), small branch locations where a physical server doesn't make sense, etc.  I could also potentially see this as a virtual SCR passive site if this is fully supported. 

The Exchange team will provide us more scenario and use cases in the coming months.

What are my Office Communicator client options?

 Here is another common question I get from schools. What options do I have to connect to Office Communications Server 2007 from a client perspective? 

Office Communicator Client 2007

The first client option is the Office Communicator Client that is available for your PC.

Supported OSes for the Office Communicator Client:

·  Windows Vista® operating system, 3

32-bit editions

·  Windows XP SP2 Professional Edition

·  Windows® 2000 SP4 Professional Edition (requires Windows Media Player® 9 and Microsoft Windows Installer, version 3.0). SRTP (Secure Real-time Transport Protocol), which Office Communications Server uses to encrypt voice and video, is not supported by Windows 2000.

Messenger for Mac 7

The next client available is the recently released Communicator client for Mac called Messenger for Mac 7.

Mac minimum requirements to run:

·  Processor: PPC/Intel MHz

·  Mac OS X 10.4.9 or later

A nice feature is this can be used with a students Hotmail/Windows Live account or with your Office Communications Server 2007.

Here is a feature comparison list:

Office Communicator Web Client

If you would rather not deploy a client to desktops you could leverage the Office Communicator Web Client. This is useful for roaming students, student dorm PCs and Macs.

Supported browsers:

Communicator Mobile Client

For the mobile users, students, you can setup a quick IM session with your Windows Mobile device using the Communicator Mobile Client (CoMo).

Here is the new Blackberry client for OCS:

More Blackberry screenshots:

Supported Phones:

WM5.0, WM6.x and newly added Blackberry support

You can't use the VOIP components similar to SKYPE for your mobile phone but you can call contacts using your mobile service.

Office Communicator Phone Edition (Tanjay)

The last Communicator client option available to your end users is the Office Communicator Phone Edition.

These phones also log into Office Communications Server and are called UC devices. As you can see above, the device provides a detailed presence status of users via the LCD screen.

I hope this gives you a better summary of all the Office Communicator client options available to your school when you deploy Office Communications Server. For more information on OCS and Communicator clients click here.

Why run Exchange Server 2007 on Windows Server 2008 vs Windows Server 2003?

I seem to be getting this question a lot from schools as to what is the value of running Exchange 2007 on Windows Server 2008.

I have compiled a list from sources and I also have added my own personal thoughts:

Higher reliability

With self healing NTFS and other reliability enhancements in Windows Server 2008, it just makes sense to put your mission critical email system on this server OS to increase your Exchange 2007 uptime.

Multi-subnet clustering and other clustering enhancements

If you want to deploy a Exchange 2007 CCR cluster that is split across the WAN then you either need to stretch your VLAN across the WAN with Windows Server 2003 clustering (single subnet support only) or leverage the new multi-subnet support in Windows Server 2008 clustering. There are also additional clustering enhancements that make it easier to set up a majority node set, better cluster error logging, etc.

Networking improvements

Windows Server 2008 introduces SMBv2 which in some cases has been reported to increase copy performance by up to 50% across the LAN/WAN.  If you plan on leveraging either CCR or SCR which essentially copies transaction logs across the network from an active to a passive or standby server it would make complete sense to leverage this increased network performance.

Additionally, it supports an increased number of RPC connections which means you can really scale some of your heavier RPC client users such as your Outlook Anywhere population.

Finally, if you plan on going to IPv6 your Exchange servers would be ready to support this from a server OS perspective down the road.

IIS 7.0 improvements

If you plan on using a CAS server for OWA, Outlook Anywhere or ActiveSync it would just make sense to use a higher performing web server for this. I don't have the raw performance data but I can tell you that in the past, the IIS versions have typically increased in performance by around 20-30% for each version.  I certainly can notice my OWA server render and respond quicker running on IIS 7.0. With the addition of output caching and other performance enhancements it would make sense to leverage these new features.

Additionally, IIS 7.0 provides a greater level of security with its modular approach to only install what is needed which provides a reduced attack surface. If you are publishing your CAS server to the Internet again you would want to do so with the most secure approach.

Finally, IIS 7.0 provides a better administrative experience via easier GUI, powershell scripts, better troubleshooting with tools such as request tracing, etc.

Easier deployments

Since all the default components for Exchange 2007 are installed on Windows Server 2008 it provides you a faster deployment. Additionally, installation of Windows Server 2008 even manually has been greatly improved so you don't have to wait around to click next, etc. 

If you couple Windows Server 2008 with the newer automated deployment technologies such as Windows Deployment Services you can quickly deploy Exchange and the OS unattended if you want via F12 network boot for example.

You don't have to worry about upgrading at a later point. You are set.

The final reason to deploy Exchange 2007 on Windows Server 2008 is you don't have to worry about extended support agreements, etc when mainstream support ends for Windows Server 2003 in July of 2010. You are current.

Conclusion

I hope this provides you some insight into deploying Exchange 2007 on Windows Server 2008 now vs waiting. For more information on Windows Server 2008 features click here.

My Hyper-V RC0 install experience

For my new role, I needed to build out a Hyper-V server in order to demo MOSS, Exchange 2007 and OCS for education customers.  I am new to Hyper-V so I documented a few things I have learned along the way.

Sample Hyper-V demo server

The first thing I needed was to purchase a decent Hyper-V server. I assembled an 8GB RAM and Quad core server.  Here is a sample of what I built out for around $1400:

Validate virtualization support with your CPU

I needed to verify the CPU supported Hyper-V and I did a look up here to make sure the chip I was buying had 'Intel Virtualization Technology' support or with AMD chips you should look for 'AMD-V' support.

If you already own a capable server and want to check to see if it has virtualization support you can use some tools such as:

GRC freeware application called SecurAble which shows CPU output like below which tells you if you have HW virtualization support.

           My laptop with Virtualization disabled in BIOS

There is also CPUid that can provide deep CPU information as well. 

I recommend you use those CPU checker tools in addition to checking with Intel or AMD to validate virtualization support.

What needs to be enabled in the BIOS to support Hyper-V

In the BIOS of my new Hyper-V server I needed to enable the following prior to installing Hyper-V with an Intel chip:

IntelVT

IntelXD

which are both required for Hyper-V to run.

Install Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V RC0

Next, install Windows Server 2008 on your host server (I used 64-bit Enterprise) and you also need to download Hyper-V RC0:

Grab 32-bit RC0 Hyper-V here

Grab 64-bit RC0 Hyper-V here

For the next step, run Hyper-V setup. I ran the install file for Hyper-V but where did it go in the OS?:

By running the Hyper-V install it essentially made the role available to Windows Server 2008 but it is not installed on the server yet.

To add Hyper-V as a role:

Open Server Manager

Click Roles object

Click 'Add Role'

Select 'Hyper-V' role

Follow wizard

You should see this when it is fully installed:

Create 64-bit guests

Install a guest OS such as Windows Server 2008.  Let it finish.

Login to the guest.

Why do my Windows Server 2008 hyper-v guests not show any network adapters?

By default, you must leverage the 'legacy adapter' or install the hyper-v RC0 on each VM to leverage the default 'Network Adapter'.

In troubleshooting this missing adapter in the guest OS, I noticed I now had two NICs listed in my network settings on my Host server, one virtual NIC with my IP stack bound to it and my physical NIC with only the switch protocol bound to it.

I asked the Hyper-V product team why it is configured this way and they told me:

"When you create an “external” switch, the physical NIC becomes “owned” by the virtual switch and is no longer used by the host.  The host gets a new (virtual) adapter to use instead.

The physical NIC should only have the switch protocol bound to it.  The Virtual NIC added by Hyper-V should have all other the protocol bounds to it -- and it you can NOT bind the virtual switch to it (enforced by the switch protocol).

The host uses the virtual NIC (thus all protocols except TCP are bound to this virtual NIC).  The virtual NIC connects to the virtual switch (internal to Hyper-V).  The virtual switch connects to the physical NIC (thus only the switch protocol is bound to the NIC)."

Good information to know about the host server NIC configuration on a hyper-v server.  I also ran into the next good thing to know.

Hyper-V host NIC tip:

Leave the physical NIC alone when the virtual switch protocol is bound to it. DO NOT add in protocols such as the TCP/IP protocol to the physical NIC with the virtual switch enabled. If you do, you may encounter undesirable results or errors. I did this as a test and I had to boot safe mode with networking and uncheck the TCP/IP stack from the physical adapter to be able to actually log back into the Hyper-V server.  I provided some feedback to the Hyper-V product team around making sure this is spelled out clearly with warnings, etc.

When you are done creating your VMs you should see something like this:

Conclusion

I am very pleased with Windows Server 2008 and our Hyper-V RC0 solution.  I have created many VMs and they all run smoothly.  It really did not take that long to learn my way around Hyper-V administration and how things work. The nice part is I can now create 64-bit guests with snapshots, etc so it is perfect for my demo needs as I can rollback changes, etc.

If you haven't played with Hyper-V yet, I recommend you download Hyper-V RC0 and put this in your labs to get familiar with this prior to our final release. Don't put RC0 in production as things may change for the final release. For more information on Hyper-V go here.

I love the new HTC Vogue XV6900 phone...

I have been using our mobile phones since the beta days and I have to say this Windows Mobile 6 Professional (PPC) phone is certainly one of the best I have owned. I wasn't sure about the white to start but I like it now and I can always 'skin' it later. It weights only 3.8 oz so it is very small. It is certainly smaller than the iPhone.  It also has the new HTC TouchFlo capabilities that is really slick so I can flick through 4 screens and people have modified that to accommodate as many as screens as you want.

I decided to take it a step further with some customizations to make it even better. First, I installed WisBar Advance and WisBar Advanced Desktop from Lakeridge Software in order to really change the way my screen looks.

Next, I installed a custom TouchFlo 'cube' written by some other WM phone modders, I added in a bunch of other modifications written by others WM fanatics such as a Vista dialer, Vista keyboard, a really slick Weather application, a zoom browser from Piscel (we need to add our Pocket IE with this), an animated lockscreen slider, and finally an iPhone like today screen, etc. It really is an incredible phone now.

Here are some screen shots of what I did:

      Animated Fire lock screen           Today Screen with Wisbar  

  2nd Today Screen with Wisbar   Piscel Browser drag web pages

      Piscel Browser Zoom                              Weather app

           Weather app radar                    Custom TouchFlo cube 

   Custom TouchFlo cube side II

The nice part about my phone is I downloaded most of this from the web for free from various sites on the web such as Lakeridge Software forums, PPCGeeks HTC Touch forums, etc. Some of these Windows Mobile modder folks are super talented as you can see above and I was able to easily tweak their screens to my liking. 

I did purchase the Wisbar apps for the custom menus, icons, and custom today screen from Lakeridge for $20 bucks total. Well worth it. I know you guys will argue that an iPhone is still better and believe me it is very well done but the cool part about the Windows Mobile platform is the fact I can do any sort of modifications I like to the phone such as above and install any applications I like such as GPS apps, arcade games, game console emulators, productivity apps, IM, etc.

There is a nice shootout with iPhone and the HTC Touch here.  If you haven't played with some of the newer generation Windows Mobile 6 phones and upcoming 6.1 phones I strongly recommend you try one out.