The Windows Server team has blogged about an important new patch for Hyper-V.
“On a Windows Server 2008-based computer that has the Hyper-V role installed, or on a Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008-based computer, you may experience one of the following issues:
- When you try to connect to a virtual machine, you receive the following error message: Cannot connect to the virtual machine because the authentication certificate is expired or invalid. Would you like to try connecting again?
- When you start a virtual machine, you receive the following error message: ‘VMName’ failed to initialize.
Could not initialize machine remoting system. Error: ‘Unspecified error’ (0x80004005).
Could not find a usable certificate. Error: ‘Unspecified error’ (0x80004005)”.
Basically, a certificate is created on the host that is valid for one year. When it expires you may experience issues with VM’s starting or connecting to running VM consoles.
You can request this download now. It requires a reboot.
Alternatively there is a workaround:
- Shut down or save all virtual machines.
- Restart the Hyper-V VMMS.
- Start the virtual machines.
EDIT #1:
I just got the update. The zip file only contains a text file called placeholder.txt. Someone has made a booboo.
EDIT #2:
I posted the patch issue on the private MVP newsgroups and Ben Armstrong escalated it to the team in question. It was simple human error which we’re all guilty of 🙂 It should be all sorted now. You just need to re-request the patch to download and get a new password. Thanks for taking care of this so quick Ben and the patch team.