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This is a short post to shareexciting news: Jooma! 2.5, which shipped earlier this week, now has support for SQL Server! Of course, this release contains lots more goodies, but the addition of a database abstraction layer that supports multiple databases is a huge step (support for other databases may arrive quickly now that Joomla! ison a 6-month ship cycle). This will remove headaches for anyone deploying Joomla! in multiplatform environments. You can read all about the release on the Joomla! Web...(read more)

This week’s RunAs Radio has Clint Huffman , a Microsoft Premier Field Engieer talking to Richard Campbell about understanding the health state of IIS7/7.5.  There is some excellent content in this episode and I’d strongly recommend listning to it. Clint covers aspects such as mappings, caching, failed request tracing and the IIS Log Analyzer. Rather than tell you everything that is in the podcast, listen now! - http://www.runasradio.com/default.aspx?showNum=248 RunAs Radio is an excellent weekly...(read more)

We are excited to be attending and participating at Node Summit in San Francisco this week. Among those Microsoft staffers on site are Server & Tools Corporate Vice President Scott Guthrie - who participated on a panel about Platform as a Service this morning and also gave a keynote address - and Gianugo Rabellino , the Senior Director for Open Source Communities, who was on a panel discussing the importance of cross-platform. You can read more about Scott's keynote on the Windows Azure blog...(read more)

You can find this week’s video here . I’ve been looking forward to releasing this week’s video.  IIS FTP User isolation is an interesting topic because it offers a lot of power and flexibility but it’s not very intuitive because of how it’s managed Read More......(read more)

tweetmeme_url = 'http://blogs.msdn.com/b/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2012/01/19/windows-virtual-pc-hotfix-for-amd-bulldozer-processors.aspx';

We have just published a hotfix for Windows Virtual PC that addresses a compatibility problem when trying to install on an AMD Bulldozer system.

You can download it here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2519949

Cheers,
Ben

Last month, Microsoft announced the new TV platform for XBox and a long list of content providers that will be bringing their TV and premium content onto XBox. For more detailed information, please check the press release here and here.

As someone from the IIS Media Services team where Smooth Streaming technology was born, I’m proud to announce that the majority of Xbox Live content providers are using Smooth Streaming as their video streaming technology. Also all content partners who are delivering protected premium Smooth Streaming video are using PlayReady DRM for their content protection. Our team not only provided Smooth Streaming server platform (IIS Media Services) but also delivered Smooth Streaming Client SDK to our partners to build their XBox applications upon. Combining the power of XBox platform with the wealth of TV and premium content is going to be a huge win for both consumers and content providers.

After a few years of evolution, Smooth Streaming now goes far beyond the initial scope of Silverlight online streaming. Today you can use Smooth Streaming to reach a variety of different kinds of clients/devices including browsers with Silverlight, XBox, Windows Phone, Apple iOS devices (iPhone/iPad), Windows 8 (in developer preview as of now) and TVs/STBs(Set-top Boxes). For example, Comcast’s popular Xfinity TV app for iPad/iPhone has been running on top of the Smooth Streaming iOS SDK and delivers TV content using Smooth Streaming technology (link). We also provide Smooth Streaming Client Porting Kit which can be used to easily integrate Smooth Streaming functionalities into many kinds of devices including TVs and STBs.

Smooth Streaming is right at the center of this new wave of revolution for TV and premium video delivery. The journey has just begun.

A few years ago, I was lucky enough to have a very small hand in the birth of DebugDiag. In version 1.0, I got to do some work on the analysis scripts, as well as work on one of the debugger extensions it uses for analysis. As a result of the time I spent working on it, it’s still one of my favorite troubleshooting tools. Since the original release of the tool, the team who owns it has done some great things with it, which I’m sure included fixing and/or replacing my hacky code. I freely admit that...(read more)

tweetmeme_url = 'http://blogs.msdn.com/b/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2012/01/10/hotfix-guest-may-crash-during-live-migration.aspx';

We released a new hotfix for Hyper-V today.

This hotfix addresses an issue where virtual machines may crash (with a STOP 0x000000D1, DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error) when it is being live migrated.  While this problem is relatively hard to encounter – I would encourage anyone who is using live migration to plan to deploy this hotfix in the near future, as you do not want to hit this accidentally.

You can download this fix directly from here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2636573

Alternatively, it is also being distributed through Windows Update.  Unfortunately it is only available as an optional update though – so you will need to explicitly select to install it on your servers. 

Either way, this hotfix does require that you reboot the physical server so you will need to plan the deployment of the fix appropriately for your environment.

Cheers,
Ben

Today we released a fix for to resolve an issue that can lead to guest VM’s crashing after a live migration.  This issue only impacted virtual machines that where utilizing virtual SCSI controllers and was only seen under some specific stress conditions however if you have VM’s with SCSI controllers and utilize live migration than I would recommend investigating and installing this hotfix.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2636573

Article ID: 2636573 - Last Review: January 10, 2012 - Revision: 1.0

FIX: The guest operating system may crash when you perform a live migration of Hyper-V virtual machines in a Windows Server 2008 R2 environment

 

Symptoms

In a Windows Server 2008 R2 environment, you perform a live migration of Hyper-V virtual machines. In this scenario, the guest operating system may crash. Additionally, you receive a Stop error message that resembles the following:

STOP 0x000000D1 (parameter1, parameter2, parameter3, parameter4)
DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

Resolution

To resolve this problem, install this update on the host computer where the Hyper-V virtual machines are located.

Update information To resolve this problem, install this update from Microsoft Windows Update (http://update.microsoft.com) .
Additionally, you can install this update from the Microsoft Download Center.
The following files are available for download from the Microsoft Download Center:

Download the update package now. (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=06c9e6e0-26de-44dc-a2e7-6a87fe0d5e76)
Release Date: January 10, 2012
For more information about how to download Microsoft support files, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

119591 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/119591/ ) How to obtain Microsoft support files from online services

Microsoft scanned this file for viruses. Microsoft used the most current virus-detection software that was available on the date that the file was posted. The file is stored on security-enhanced servers that help prevent any unauthorized changes to the file.

Prerequisites To apply this hotfix, you must be running Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1).
For more information about how to obtain Service Pack 1 for Windows Server 2008 R2, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

976932 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/976932/ ) Information about Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and for Windows Server 2008 R2

Registry information To use the hotfix in this package, you do not have to make any changes to the registry. Restart information

You must restart the computer after you apply this hotfix.

Taylor Brown
Hyper-V Enterprise Deployment Team
taylorb@microsoft.com
http://blogs.msdn.com/taylorb

One of things I’ve wanted to evaluate is AWStats for doing analytics on a variety of sites I run. AWStats ( www.awstats.org ) is a free Open Source (Perl based) package. One of the things I couldn't find that covered the steps to get IIS 7.5 up and running. I’m still working on a few config items within AWStats, which if you have suggestions, please let me know. Here is the order of what I did to get my server up and running. I’ll assume you have a Windows Server 2008 or 2008 R2 server with IIS Installed...(read more)

Good news for all you Java developers out there: I am happy to share with you the availability of Windows Azure libraries for Java that provide Java-based access to the functionality exposed via the REST API in Windows Azure Service Bus . You can download the Windows Azure libraries for Java from GitHub. This is an early step as we continue to make Windows Azure a great cloud platform for many languages, including .NET and Java. If you’re using Windows Azure Service Bus from Java, please let...(read more)

Good news for all you Java developers out there: I am happy to share with you the availability of Windows Azure libraries for Java that provide Java-based access to the functionality exposed via the REST API in Windows Azure Service Bus . You can download the Windows Azure libraries for Java from GitHub. This is an early step as we continue to make Windows Azure a great cloud platform for many languages, including .NET and Java. If you’re using Windows Azure Service Bus from Java, please let...(read more)

A question came up on a blog post of mine on how to redirect a domain name that doesn’t have www in it while retaining the original domain name.  Basically, to have a generic redirect to add on a www if it’s not already there. For example, how could Read More......(read more)

You can find this week’s video here . IIS FTP supports a new type of user called IIS Manager Users. This type of user can be used instead of Windows Local or Active Directory Users. They are useful if you want to manage a number of FTP users but don’t Read More......(read more)

Two months ago Microsoft published an update for the WebDAV module that shipped with IIS 7.5 in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, and this update is documented in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article ID 2593591: FIX: A hotfix is available that enables WebDAV to store the properties of file resources by using NTFS alternate data streams in IIS 7.5 This update enables administrators to configure the IIS 7.5 WebDAV module to store WebDAV-based properties in NTFS alternate data streams instead of...(read more)

tweetmeme_url = 'http://blogs.msdn.com/b/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2011/12/30/converting-to-a-fixed-virtual-hard-disk-for-a-server-core-installation.aspx';

My last challenge for getting all of my server virtual machines over to fixed-size virtual hard disks is moving some of my Windows Server 2008 R2 virtual machines.  As a reminder, the goal here is to move a virtual machine on a large dynamically expanding virtual hard disk to a smaller fixed-size virtual hard disk. I have used the same technique as I discussed here – but for obvious reasons the process is quite different, as I cannot use any of the GUI tools.  Here is the process I followed:

 

1. Login to the virtual machine using an administrative account
2. Run diskpart
3. Check your disks with list disk
4. Select the disk you want to shrink (disk 0 in my case – so select disk 0)
5. Check your partitions with list partition
6. Select the partition you want to shrink (partition 4 in my case – so select partition 3)
7. Check how much space you can save with shrink querymax
8. Shrink the partition to your desired size (in my case - shrink desired=70000 – note that the value here is how much you are shrinking the partition by, not the new size of the partition)
9. Check that you are happy with the new size with list partition
10. Exit diskpart with quit
    
11. Once you have shrunk the partition(s) use Windows Server Backup inside the virtual machine (if you have not installed this – you can do so by running start /w ocsetup WindowsServerBackup – don’t worry, this does not take up much space and does not require a reboot to install)
12. Run a full backup on a Remote shared folder and provide a file share to use for storing the back
1. I have a share setup on my parent partition for backing up virtual machines to when I am doing this
2. The command that I used for this is: wbadmin start backup -backupTarget:\\Hyper-V\Backups –allCritical –include:d: –VSSfull
   
13. While the backup is going you can actually jump to the next step.  Creating a new fixed virtual hard disk
14. Open the New Virtual Hard Disk Wizard
15. Choose to create a new fixed size virtual hard disk that is the right size for your smaller partitions
16. Once the backup is complete, and the fixed virtual hard disk is created, shutdown the virtual machine
17. Open the virtual machine settings and replace the dynamic virtual hard disks with the new fixed size virtual hard disks
18. Boot the virtual machine using a Windows Server 2008 R2 installation DVD
19. After choosing your language, choose Repair your computer (instead of clicking on Install now)    
20. Then select Restore your computer using a system image that you created earlier and click Next
21. Click Cancel on the warning that comes up, and then click Next followed by Advanced…
22. Select Search for a system image on the network, followed by clicking Yes
23. When prompted – enter the network path that you used to create the backup and click OK
24. Select your backup from the table and click Next
25. Select the disks you want to restore and click Next, Next, Finish and Yes
26. The virtual machine will reboot automatically once the backup is restored

Once this is all complete, and once you have confirmed that the virtual machine is working properly, you can delete the dynamically expanding disk and the backup.

Cheers,
Ben

tweetmeme_url = 'http://blogs.msdn.com/b/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2011/12/29/converting-to-a-fixed-virtual-hard-disk-the-hard-way.aspx';

Yesterday I showed you how to easily convert a dynamically expanding virtual hard disk to a fixed size virtual hard disk.  But, how do you do this if you want to keep your fixed size virtual hard disk as small as possible?  Well, here is the process that I use for my Windows Server 2008 R2 virtual machines:

 

1. Login to the virtual machine using an administrative account
2. Open Server Manager and select the Disk Management node under the Storage node.
3. Right click on the partition that you want to shrink and select Shrink
4. Select how much you want to shrink the partition by
1. In my case I want to shrink a 250GB partition to 70GB:
   
5. Once you have shrunk the partition(s) open Windows Server Backup inside the virtual machine (if you have not installed this – you can do so by choosing to Add Features from Server Manager – don’t worry, this does not take up much space and does not require a reboot to install)
6. In Windows Server Backup select Backup Once…
7. This will open the Backup Once Wizard.  There is only one choice on the first page.  On the second page choose Full server
8. Then select to store the backup on a Remote shared folder and provide a file share to use for storing the back
1. I have a share setup on my parent partition for backing up virtual machines to when I am doing this
9. Complete the wizard and wait for the backup to complete:
   
10. While the backup is going you can actually jump to the next step.  Creating a new fixed virtual hard disk
11. Open the New Virtual Hard Disk Wizard
12. Choose to create a new fixed size virtual hard disk that is the right size for your smaller partitions
1. Here I am making a 70GB virtual hard disk for my WDS server:
   
13. Once the backup is complete, and the fixed virtual hard disk is created, shutdown the virtual machine
14. Open the virtual machine settings and replace the dynamic virtual hard disks with the new fixed size virtual hard disks
15. Boot the virtual machine using a Windows Server 2008 R2 installation DVD
16. After choosing your language, choose Repair your computer (instead of clicking on Install now)     
17. Then select Restore your computer using a system image that you created earlier and click Next
18. Click Cancel on the warning that comes up, and then click Next followed by Advanced…
19. Select Search for a system image on the network, followed by clicking Yes
20. When prompted – enter the network path that you used to create the backup and click OK
21. Select your backup from the table and click Next
22. Select the disks you want to restore and click Next, Next, Finish and Yes
23. The virtual machine will reboot automatically once the backup is restored

Once this is all complete, and once you have confirmed that the virtual machine is working properly, you can delete the dynamically expanding disk and the backup.

Cheers,
Ben

tweetmeme_url = 'http://blogs.msdn.com/b/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2011/12/28/converting-to-a-fixed-virtual-hard-disk-the-easy-way.aspx';

As I discussed yesterday – I have been working on converting my virtual machines from dynamic virtual hard disks to fixed virtual hard disks.  There are a couple of ways that you can do this.  The easiest way is to just convert the disks using Hyper-V.  To do this you need to:

1. Shutdown the virtual machine (do not put it into a saved state)
2. Open the virtual machine settings and select the virtual hard disks one at a time
3. Click the Edit button on the settings page:
   
4. This will open the edit virtual hard disk wizard with the selected virtual hard disk.  Choose the Convert option:
   
5. Next, enter a file name for the new fixed virtual hard disk:
   
6. Wait for the virtual hard disk to be converted (this will take a while)
7. Change the virtual machine settings to point to the new, fixed, virtual hard disk
8. Boot the virtual machine
9. Once you have confirmed that everything is working properly, delete the old dynamic virtual hard disks

While this process is fairly easy to follow – it has one big drawback.  The fixed virtual hard disk will take up the maximum space of the dynamically expanding virtual hard disk.  For some of my virtual machines I had created small dynamically virtual hard disks, so this worked well.  But for some of them I had created foolishly large dynamically expanding virtual hard disks.

Tomorrow I will document the process that I used for these virtual machines.

Cheers,
Ben

tweetmeme_url = 'http://blogs.msdn.com/b/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2011/12/27/time-for-some-server-maintenance.aspx';

I have had a couple of days off for Christmas, and once the children were happily playing with their new presents, my mind naturally turned to some outstanding server maintenance that I needed to do.

Top of my list was completing the process of switching all of my servers over to fixed virtual hard disks.

There are two reasons why you should use fixed virtual hard disks in production environments:

1. Performance.
2. Avoiding oversubscription of disk space.

Given that my servers are only used by me and my family – performance is not a big concern.  And for a long time now I have been using dynamically expanding virtual hard disks for all my server virtual machines.  But recently I had a big problem.  One of my virtual machines started chewing up huge amounts of space.  The result was that my Hyper-V server ran out of space and paused all of my virtual machines (to stop any of them from crashing).  When this happened I did some emergency space management, but left most of the virtual machines still using dynamic virtual hard disks.

Converting a virtual machine from a dynamic virtual hard disk to a fixed virtual hard disk can be quite tricky.  So this week I am going to blog about some of the tips-and-tricks that I have picked up in the process of switching over to fixed virtual hard disks.

Cheers,
Ben

IIS Community Newsletter - December 2011 edition released http://www.iisnewsletter.com/archive/december2011.html Enjoy Steve...(read more)