Month: August 2009

Microsoft Licensing For Virtual Environments

This is not fun reading.  It’s complex as hell.  Go read the SPUR documents if you have insomnia or you want your world to start spinning.  Microsoft just published this:

“Licensing Microsoft Server Products in Virtual Environments (Word file, 4.30 MB) is an overview of Microsoft licensing models for the server operating system and server applications under virtual environments. Licensing Microsoft Windows Server 2008 to Run with Virtualization Technologies (Word file, 1.39 MB) describes how Windows Server 2008 and other Microsoft server products are licensed when they are used with other virtualization technologies.”

How To Deploy VPN/RAS Connections Using Scripting and GPO

This download documents how to use PowerShell and Group Policy to configure RAS/VPN connections on Windows clients if you are using the native technologies for RAS/VPN.

“This article describes how to use Group Policy, Powershell and the Remote Access Service (RAS) application programming interfaces (APIs) to configure and deploy VPN connection settings to client computers ready for use by users. The solution also describes how the Task Scheduler service can be used to configure scripts or programs that are run whenever a VPN connection is made to the VPN server. The advantage of this solution is that it is not platform specific, and can be used on all of the currently supported versions of Windows.”

WSUS 3.0 SP2 Available

Windows Server Update Services is Microsoft’s free patching solution for Microsoft networks.  It patches the OS and applications.  If you’re not patching then please check this product out … NOW.  The new release adds support for Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 7 and features of the new OS’s, e.g. BranchCache.  That would allow for a central WSUS server with clients directly accessing it over the branch office network.  The first client in the branch office would cache the updates and it’s neighbours would access the downloads from the cache rather than needlessly hitting the WAN. 

BranchCache is a feature of Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 Enterprise (Software Assurance)/Ultimate only.  Odds are most of us will continue to run branch office WSUS servers.

“Windows Server Update Services 3.0 Service Pack 2 (WSUS 3.0 SP2) delivers updates to corporate environments from Microsoft Update. This release adds new features and fixes issues found since the release of the product.

WSUS 3.0 SP2 delivers important customer-requested management, stability, and performance improvements. Some of the features and improvements include the following:

  • Integration with Windows Server 2008 R2.
  • Support for the BranchCache feature in Windows Server 2008 R2.
  • Support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 clients.
  • Compliance Report
  • Windows Update Agent (WUA) offers a collection of performance enhancements, user experience improvements, and bug fixes software updates.

WSUS 3.0 SP2 can be installed alone, or as an upgrade of WSUS 3.0 SP1.
This package installs both the WSUS 3.0 SP2 Server, WSUS 3.0 SP2 Administration Console components and WUA client for down-level operating system. You must install the server components on a computer that is running on Windows Server 2003 SP2 or later versions. You may install the Administration Console on a remote computer that is running one of the supported operating systems, see below the Supported Operating Systems section.

WSUS 3.0 SP2 Server Installation on Windows Small Business Server 2003
If you are installing the WSUS 3.0 SP2 product on Windows Small Business Server 2003, follow the instructions in Installing Windows Server Update Services 3.0 on Windows Small Business Server 2003.”

Windows 7 Language Packs Available

This was posted by MS yesterday.  Note that you need software assurance on the desktop to avail of Windows 7 Enterprise Edition.

“As of this morning, August 25th, the following language packs are available for download from Windows Update. Please note Traditional Chinese –Taiwan will be released at a later date.

These language packs are available to our enterprise customers running Windows 7 Enterprise and Windows 7 Ultimate RTM versions only. Customers on the Windows 7 Release Candidate are not eligible for these language packs.

For information on the general availability of Windows 7 Ultimate and all other version, please refer to Brandon’s post here.

Languages:

  • Arabic
  • Brazilian Portuguese
  • Bulgarian
  • Chinese – Simplified
  • Chinese – Traditional – Hong Kong
  • Croatian
  • Czech
  • Danish
  • Dutch
  • English
  • Estonian
  • Finnish
  • French
  • German
  • Greek
  • Hebrew
  • Hindi
  • Hungarian
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Lithuanian
  • Norwegian
  • Polish
  • Portuguese
  • Romanian
  • Russian
  • Serbian Latin
  • Slovak
  • Slovenian
  • Spanish
  • Swedish
  • Thai
  • Turkish
  • Ukrainian”

Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Deployment Services (WDS)

As you may have noticed, I’ve been doing some lab work on Windows 7 deployment recently.  Last night I upgraded the MDT 2010 build to an RC.  Within 15 minutes I was in a position where I was able to deploy a clean build Windows 7 machine and do an upgrade from XP to Windows 7 while conserving the user’s state on the machine.

Ben Armstrong (the Virtual PC Guy) blogged overnight about his experience with WDS on Windows Server 2008 R2.  That was my next step: I want to get the LiteTouch.ISO mounted on there so I can run it on the network.

My MDT lab is 4 virtual machines running on Windows Server 2008 R2:

  • Domain controller with DHCP/DNS.
  • MDT server, MDT-SVR
  • Virtual PC 1: Windows 7
  • Virtual PC 2: Windows XP with a user state and a snapshot I can restore after Windows 7 upgrades

I loaded WDS (Windows Deployment Services) onto MDT-SVR in Server Manager.  It’s pretty simple from there:

  • I configured the role.
  • I added the Windows 7 images from the mounted ISO.
  • I used the discovered boot image to create a capture image and loaded it.
  • I’d previously extracted the x86 Integration Components (drivers) for Hyper-V.  I added those as a package called Hyper-V.
  • I added the drivers to both boot images.

No using DISM or command prompt yet.

Now I booted up a VM with PXE Boot (F12).  I changed the boot order of the VM to get that working reliably.  Wait .. PXE in Hyper-V?  Yes, you CAN do it.

Next thing you know, the VM has loaded the pre-boot environment discovered via BOOTP/DHCP.  I picked a boot image and deployed Windows 7.

Time taken? 10 minutes.  OK, I had already extracted the drivers and I knew WDS from W2008/W2003.  But it was pretty easy!

EDIT #1: I’d say it was less than 15 minutes later before I could log into the new Windows 7 VM running on Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V.

Some VMM 2008 R2 Documentation

Microsoft released a few documents yesterday: