It has been a while since my last post on the tool. It is still being tested within a limited group. However I get many requests for the tool but cannot handle any more. Thanks for all who wanted to volunteer.
The tool will be called ‘VMC to Hyper-V import tool’, in short ‘VMC to Hyper-V’. This suggest it supports any VMC which is my goal but not yet true. The initial goal was to support import of Virtual Server VMC files as Hyper-V is a server product. But I intend to do some testing with VPC2007 VMC files as well.
The name also contains ‘import’ instead of ‘migrate’. With importing you can repeat the step as often as you like and nothing in the original VMC file gets changed. With migrate there is usually some form of conversion and sometimes it is a no-way-back process. I think import better reflects the nature of the tool.
There are a couple of small things on the todo list but they may not get into the first release. Things like Guest OS verification with regards to logical processor support or startup and shutdown behavior of the VM. I wonder if people often used the startup/shutdown behavior setting of the VM. If you do, let me know and I may try to add support for those settings.
I plan to release the tool in September.
Yet another update just before my vacation.
I have finalized the tool so it is feature complete, according to my specifications. Below is a screen shot of what it looks like today.
The tool now basically covers everything there is you can specify in a Hyper-V vm. Looking at a Virtual Server or Virtual PC configuration file, all settings which can apply to a Hyper-V vm are imported and can be modified in the UI.
Of course, BIOS settings like NumLock and boot order are Hyper-V specific but I added those for completeness. You can choose to have the SCSI boot disk swapped with the forst IDE disk. This is handy for those who have used SCSI with Virtual Server.
The tool is now being tested within a closed group at Microsoft. After I return from vacation, I plan to release this as soon as possible.
I have made several enhancements to the tool and it is almost feature complete. I have added the capability to import and modify COM port settings, Virtual Machine notes and BIOS settings.
The updated tool looks like this:
I received several posts last week related to the error above.
I am still investigating how/why this happened but it is caused by the fact that the .Net Framework 3.0 is missing from the machine where VMRCplus is being used.
So to fix this for now, install the .Net Framework 3.0 (with SP1).
When you have Virtual Server or Virtual PC virtual machines, you can use them in Hyper-V. However, this requires quite some manual steps. For the minimum, you need to attach the virtual hard disk files (.vhd files) to the hard disk drives in Hyper-V. This requires at least creating a VM from the Hyper-V wizard, opening up the settings for the newly created VM and then configuring the drives (probably IDE) with the virtual hard disk files.
But there are more settings you may want from the original VM. Things like memory, CPU resource control, DVD image, floppy image, SCSI controllers, etc. If you do want those as well, you must open the VMC file in Notepad and make the adjustments in Hyper-V accordingly. When you have many VM's, this takes quite some time. I have done this for a server with 15 machines, all with different memory settings, multiple network adapters and multiple virtual hard disks.....
Because of the lack of VMC import functionality in Hyper-V, I have developed a "Virtual Server to Hyper-V import tool". This tool basically takes a VMC file and puts all supported (in Hyper-V that is) settings in the UI. From there, you can tweak the settings; update the virtual drive image paths, choose whether to create synthetic or legacy network adapters and more. Once you are done, you connect to a Hyper-V host and create the Hyper-V VM from the original VMC configuration (or whatever you modified) with one click.
I have used it with all my Virtual Server VM's and it worked very well.
I am working on a few remaining issues and hope to have those resolved soon.
Below is a screen shot of the tool.
Yesterday, June 26th, Hyper-V was officially released to web (RTW).
You can find all info on Hyper-V here.
For me, this means I will focus more on Hyper-V than on Virtual Server. I will continue to support VMRCplus, but new releases will likely occur in sync with new Virtual Server updates.
Release 1.8.0 is available from the Microsoft Download Center. It may not be visible yet when you search for it but it is there.
Click here to download the x86 release, here for the x64 release.
This release matches the update for Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 which was released to support Server 2008 and Vista SP1. Release 1.7.0 was supposed to match that update but despite our assumption that the build would not change, it eventually did. So 1.7.0 incorrectly matches this update with build 1.1.627. The build number of the Virtual Server update is 1.1.629.
So VMRCplus 1.8.0 comes with the binaries of 1.1.629 which reflect the released bits of the Virtual Server update.
It also contains minor fixes. One is the ability to clear the 'run VM under user account'. Another is the support for Undo disks in various location of the UI. Setting the Undo disks options could be confusing which could lead to unexpected or unwanted behavior of Virtual Server. Undo disks options have been removed and context sensitive menu items have been added as a replacement. Management of Undo options has been moved to power options.
The same changes can be found in the Console Manager UI under Control. Finally, the same changes have been made in the VM Properties UI.
An update to VMRCplus 1.6.0 has been released and is now available here.
This release contains several fixes and minor enhancements.
It has been tested on Windows Server 2008 as well.
Matthijs
It has been a while since my last post. I am busy doing Hyper-V stuff these days. Trying to grasp the Hyper-V API is one of them...
Anyway, Windows Server 2008 has become available and people are installing Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 on it. Yes, you may think everyone is using Hyper-V beta on Server 2008. But there are still a lot of Virtual Server users out there. Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 is not supported on Windows Server 2008. It will be, but that will be an update to Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1.
Some people reported issues with VMRCplus and accessing Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 on Windows Server 2008. So I had to see for myself if it worked or not.
After having performed the required configuration of Windows Firewall, I was able to access the remote Virtual Server host.
My scenario consisted of three Windows Server 2008 machines. 1 DC, one member server with Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 installed, one member server with VMRCplus.
I was logged on as a domain administrator. I allowed VMRCplus through Windows Firewall and enabled the 'Remote Administration' exception on both member servers. That was it, I could connect just fine.
Now, you may not want to run as domain administrator but use a regular user account. I tried that too.
I logged on to the VMRCplus machine with a regular domain user account (you can do that on Windows Server 2008).
But VMRCplus failed connecting to Virtual Server. One reason is that I did not give this account permissions on Virtual Server. So I gave this 'user' account Full Control of Virtual Server (not the host machine, just Virtual Server). It still failed because of insufficient DCOM permissions. So that was easily fixed by setting the proper permissions. I ran dcomcnfg, opened the properties of the computer, selected Edit Limits for 'Launch and Activation Permissions' and added the user account and gave it Remote Launch and Remote Activation permissions.
When using multiple accounts, I suggest using a 'Virtual Server Users' group and give that group the required permissions as outline above. You would then only have to add the user accounts to that group who need access to Virtual Server.
On connecting to a remote VS host from Vista, you may receive a dialog from VMRCplus with the message:
"The object exporter specified was not found"
Check the firewall settings on Vista. Use the 'advanced' snap-in and verify the active profile Windows Firewall is using for VMRCplus. Also verify that an inbound rule exists.
On connecting to a remote VS host, you may receive a dialog from VMRCplus with the message:
"QI for IEnumVARIANT failed on the unmanaged server"
This may be caused by InstallShield. For a solution see http://support.installshield.com/kb/view.asp?articleid=q106194
Release 1.6.0, as discussed earlier in the TechNet Magazine related post, is now available from the Microsoft Download Center.
You can get the updated release here.
Matthijs
The October issue of TechNet Magazine covers VMRCplus. I wrote that article for the Utility Spotlight in August. However, I updated the content in September.
That is why you may notice screen shots of a different VMRCplus. The release on the Microsoft Download Center is 1.5.0 which was the first public release. That release is also on the companion CD of the Virtual Server 2005 R2 Resource Kit.
But VMRCplus did not cover all functionality of Virtual Server at that time. Development continued and led to a new dot release, 1.6.0.
So what is new in 1.6.0?
First of all, the UI reflects Virtual Server terminology. Both Paul and I had used a mix of Virtual Server terminology and internal (SDK) terminology. To reflect the terminology used in the web administration UI of Virtual Server, the terminology of VMRCplus has been updated.
Second, VMRCplus now offers configuration of scripts on both the Virtual Server and Virtual Machine level. This was missing from the previous release.
Third, VMRCplus offers configuring promiscuous mode on the network so you can trace traffic in the virtual switch. This is something Virtual Server does not offer in the web administration UI.
Of course there have been minor enhancements like storage of Console Manager coordinates, conflict handling when a shortcut already exists (something Virtual Server fails to resolve).
The COM and LPT port assignment logic has been fixed (most of it did not work).
The x86 installer package no longer installs on x64. This has been done to prevent issues with 32-bit VMRCplus on 64-bit Virtual Server.
Error handling has been enhanced and several issues have been fixed.
The updated release can be downloaded from the Utility Spotlight page. It currently offers 1.5.0 but this will be fixed at the end of next week.
In this post, I assume you have configured Windows Firewall correctly to allow traffic from VMRCplus. Please read the other post if you did not.
When connecting to a remote host from Vista, I got the RPC message even with Windows Firewall set up properly.
Scenario 1: UAC is enabled and I am a member of the local administrators group.
- When I start VMRCplus and connect to a remote host, I get the RPC message.
- When I start VMRCplus elevated (right click on a shortcut to VMRCplus and select "Run as Administrator") I still get the RPC message.
- When I start VMRCplus from an elevated command prompt (run cmd "as administrator") it works. ??????????
So it seems there is a difference between using "Run as administrator" on the VMRCplus shortcut and starting VMRCplus from an elevated command prompt.
Scenario 2: UAC is enabled and I am a member of the local users group.
- When I start VMRCplus and connect to a remote host, I get the RPC message.
- When I start VMRCplus elevated (right click on a shortcut to VMRCplus and select "Run as Administrator") and authenticate to the UAC dialog using a local administrator account it works.
So if you run into the RPC message on Vista with a properly configured Windows Firewall, you may want to try the steps above corresponding to your scenario.
I was helping troubleshooting the 'RPC Server is unavailable' issue this week. The message was shown on a Vista client with VMRCplus connecting to a remote host.
Although I have included this issue in the VMRCplus help file (VMRCplus.chm) I realized that the information may not be enough. It took considerable effort to get VMRCplus working on Vista where the Windows Firewall simply blocked the traffic.
So what was the issue?
Windows Firewall contained an exception for VMRCplus. And the path pointed to the correct location of VMRCplus which, in the default installation, is %ProgramFiles%\microsoft vmrcplus\vmrcplus.exe.
Everything seemed OK but still the RPC message showed.
I deleted the exception and was hoping for Windows Firewall to popup the Unblock/Keep blocking message. But nothing happened except for VMRCplus being persistent with the RPC message. Adding the exception back in did not help either.
The solution in this case was to delete the exception, reboot the client and start VMRCplus again.
At that point, the Windows Firewall popped up the dialog which offers to either unblock or keep blocking VMRCplus. Selecting Unblock still showed the RPC message because it was 'too late' at that point. Connecting again did not succeed either. I had to exit VMRCplus and start it up again.
Now the Windows Firewall allowed VMRCplus through and I could finally connect.
From my experience in troubleshooting this issue it is necessary to have the Windows Firewall exception for VMRCplus in place prior to launching VMRCplus. But if it's there and you still get the RPC message, follow the path as described above.
