Month: December 2008

Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool V2.0

Microsoft has released a second version of the Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool.  This tool allows you to apply security patches to virtual machines that are not running.  This new version adds support for:

  • Hyper-V
  • Virtual Machine Manager 2008
  • Windows Server 2008
  • ConfigMgr 2007 SP1
  • ConfigMgr 2007 R2
  • WSUS 3.0 SP1

This solution allows you to secure your templates in you libraries or powered off-virtual machines.  This mitigates the risks associated with:

  • Deploying templates that are likely otherwise out of date and insecure.  It takes a lot of time to manually deploy a template machine, update it and convert it back to a template again.  This solution automates the process.
  • Some machines that are virtualised don’t get powered up very often.  This means that they are a risk to power up on the network if they have missed security updates.  Offline servicing allows you to automatically resolve this issue.

This product works with VMM 2007 (for Virtual Server only) and VMM 2008.  You can download it from here.

EDIT:

I talked about using this to work with sysprepped images.  I’ve done some reading and this does not appear to be one of the scenarios where the offline servicing tool works.  How does it work?  It moves an offline machine from the library to a host.  The updates are applied and then the machine is shut down before being returned to the library.  It is clear that this is only to be used on VM’s that are rarely occasionally powered up and are kept in the library when not deployed.

Windows User Group Event: Small Business Server 2008 and Essential Business Server 2008

David Houston will be hosting an event about Small Business Server 2008 and Essential Business Server 2008.  As you may already know, both of these products were launched a few weeks ago.  SBS 2008 is the small business solution aimed at businesses with 5-50 PC’s.  Essential Business Server 2008 is a 3 server solution aimed at medium sized enterprises with 50-300 PC’s.  SBS is probably one of the most common deployments of Server in Ireland and it’s inclusion in the Microsoft partner pack makes it well worth knowing.  EBS will make it’s way into many Irish networks as people start to look at Windows Server 2008.

Agenda

David is an expert on these technologies.  The content being covered will include:

  • What are SBS and EBS?
  • Who is SBS and EBS aimed at?
  • What is in SBS Std and Premium?
  • What is in EBS Std and Premium?
  • What are wizards? What are they useful for?
  • Virtualising SBS on Hyper-V
  • Windows Mobile Integration

About David Houston

David Houston has been involved with SBS since SBS 4.0, and has been running the SBS Ireland user group for the last three years. He is also involved with support, developing and maintaining SBS groups worldwide through SBS GroupLeads, and has been part of the SBS community for many years. Involved in Community Events with Partner Outreach.

When and Where?

The event will be at 19:00 until 21:00 at the Radisson SAS Royal Hotel in Dublin 8.

Registration

Admission will be free to members of the Windows Server 2008 User Group.  If you are already a member then you will receive an invitation via email.  If you are not a member then please sign-up (for free). 

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BTW, the user group was renamed from the Windows Server 2008 User Group to the Windows User Group.  We wanted to add in the desktop OS and not to restrict ourselves to one version… especially seeing as that Windows Server 2008 R2 will go out as a public beta early in 2009.