Michael Phillips Blog » Microsoft

Windows Server 8

Michael — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 16:38:55 +0000

It seems like Windows Server 8 has a lot to offer. Hope it comes out sooner rather than later…

Server 8 will unleash a massive tsunami of new features specifically targeted at building and managing infrastructure for large multi-tenant Clouds, drastically increased scalability and reliability features in the areas of Virtualization, Networking, Clustering and Storage, as well as significant security improvements and enhancements.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/perlow/windows-server-8-the-ultimate-cloud-os/18594

Restoring Deleted Items in SharePoint

Michael — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 19:20:24 +0000

We are using SharePoint Document Libraries for some projects now. The users are mapping the Document Library as a mapped drive. Users are also creating and deleting files. For the Projects site, the recycle bin settings are default:

Items in the Recycle Bin remain there until you decide to permanently delete them from your Web site, or until the items are permanently deleted after a set number of days, which is based on a schedule defined in Central Administration. When you delete an item from a Web site, the item is sent to the site’s Recycle Bin. If you click Recycle Bin on the Quick Launch, you can see all of the items that you’ve deleted from your site. You can either restore or delete the item from the Recycle Bin. When you delete an item from the Recycle Bin, the item is sent to the Site Collection Recycle Bin.

End-user deletes the Agenda document from a document library.

The document is moved to the Recycle Bin for the site, where people can restore it or delete it.

If the file is deleted from the site Recycle Bin, it is sent to the Site Collection Recycle Bin, where an administrator can restore it or delete it permanently.

It should be possible to restore user deleted items for up to 30 days. This requires Site Administrator privileges if it isn’t in the users recycle bin.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-sharepoint-services-help/view-restore-or-delete-items-in-the-recycle-bin-of-a-sharepoint-site-HA010021434.aspx

Changes in Leadership within the Server & Tools Business.

Michael — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 14:41:07 +0000

Wonder what this will mean for the Server and Tools Business at Microsoft?

In conjunction with this leadership change, Bob has decided to leave Microsoft this summer. He will continue to actively run STB as I conduct an internal and external search for the new leader. Bob will onboard the new leader and will also complete additional projects for me

Steve Ballmer E-mail to Employees on Bob Muglia Transition: Text of an internal e-mail from Microsoft chief executive officer Steve Ballmer to employees regarding changes in leadership within the Server & Tools Business.

Hyper-V host blank black screen

Michael — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 14:46:43 +0000

I recently had a problem with a couple of IBM Blades that I was trying to deploy as Hyper-V hosts. I employ the use of a replay volume from our Compellent storage to create an image for my blades. Basically, I install one, sysprep it, and then copy the volume mount the copy as the boot volume for each of my blades. The most recent hosts that I attempted to use this technique with, would boot, but once they made it into Windows, the screen would go black and there would be no way to interact with the machine other than turning it off.

This happened on two blades in two chassis so I assumed that it must be the image. I made a new image, and it worked just fine, until I installed the Hyper-V role. Once I installed the Hyper-V role, the machine exhibited the same behavior as above.

With a short amount of searching, I came across this: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserverhyperv/thread/61fd5b0d-9d15-4f74-a970-7aafe491ef67

I have actually seen this mentioned before for something else, I just don’t recall what, but basically the problem was that the two processors in each blade were different revisions. The simple solution we employed was to swap a processor from each blade to have the two processors match. Now all is well in the land of Hyper-V. At least for the moment…

Windows cannot access the specified device

Michael — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 15:23:57 +0000

This is an old problem, but I still see it from time to time. You are trying to run and executable that you downloaded, and you are on a Windows 2003 system. You double click and get:

As you can see here, I am simply trying to install the windirstat utility to figure out what is taking up all the disk space. If you have drive space issues, and we seem to always have drive space issues, this is a great utility.

The problem is this:

Notice the Security section at the bottom. if you click on Unblock, then it looks like this:

Apply the change and the security section at the bottom goes away, and you can then run the program.

Using Powershell to get logon script path from Active Directory

Michael — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 20:57:31 +0000

If you want to know what logon script users are getting, this is an easy way to get that information:

Import-Module -Name ActiveDirectory

Get-ADUser -Filter * -SearchBase "OU=YourOUName,DC=YourDomain,DC=COM" -properties ScriptPath | Export-Csv "c:\script\ADUser.csv"

Note: In order for this to work, you have to have the ActiveDirectory Module loaded.

Windows 8 Plans Leaked

Michael — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:43:48 +0000

So apparently, Windows 8 planning slides got leaked. A good discussion about what is contained in the slides can be found in this blog post:

Long story short, these slide decks are chock full of internal thinking on Windows 8 — everything from customer target audiences to the Windows 8 developer market to the Windows 8 product cycle and much, much more.

While I agree with the author of the post, in that I feel bad for the person who leaked this, I do think it is pretty interesting to get a look at what Microsoft is thinking. I always find it useful to know now where they think things are going to be in the future, in the hopes that I will make better decisions about how to position myself and the company I work for to take advantage of the “new stuff” when it gets here.

SCVMM and P2V Adventures

Michael — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 19:11:08 +0000

Where I work, we have been using Microsoft Virtualization since Virtual Server was in Beta. Of course, we don’t necessarily use all of the functions and features of all the software we have, but one feature that I have used a good bit is the “Convert physical server” action in System Center Virtual Machine Manager. Until recently, I have used this with great success. We run IBM xSeries servers and I have converted something like 50 of them to virtual machines running on Hyper-V over the past several years.

In late 2007, we bought our first IBM Blade Center (which I am very happy with) and with that move we also decided to do “boot from SAN” for all of our blades. Just seemed to make sense that we wouldn’t put moving parts in a device that was designed to run so well without moving parts.

At the time, we were implementing a new ERP system and several “hanger on” type applications, and Hyper-V (virtualization in general) wasn’t something that was supported by a lot of the software we were deploying. So we have a lot of powerful blade servers, running a lot of low use applications. I have managed to eradicate several of those wasteful installations, but there are a set that I am only now getting buy-in to virtualize.

And today’s adventure begins with a Windows Server 2003 SP2 machine installed Boot from SAN on an IBM HS21-XM Blade server.

First attempt:

1. Convert physical server

2. Virtual machine name

3. Scan System

Looks good..

4. Conversion options

we can try the defaults..

5. Specify the processor and memory…

6. Select the host, path, network, start options, etc..

7. The job starts, the machine gets copied over, and …

That try resulted in a blue screen loop..

Ok… time to try the Offline conversion:

1. Proceed as above but select the Offline conversion option at step 4.

2. hmm.. conversion warnings… must correct to proceed..

Warning (13246)
No compatible drivers were identified for the device: Broadcom BCM5708S NetXtreme II GigE (NDIS VBD Client). The offline physical-to-virtual conversion requires a driver for this device.

Device Type: network adapter
Device Description: Broadcom BCM5708S NetXtreme II GigE (NDIS VBD Client)
Device Manufacturer: Broadcom Corporation
Hardware IDs (listed in order of preference):
B06BDRV\L2ND&PCI_16AC14E4&SUBSYS_03271014&REV_12

Compatible IDs (listed in order of preference):
B06BDRV\L2ND&PCI_16AC14E4&SUBSYS_03271014
B06BDRV\L2ND&PCI_16AC14E4
B06BDRV\L2ND

Recommended Action
Create a new folder under C:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2\Driver Import on the Virtual Machine Manager server and then copy the necessary 32-bit Windows Vista driver package files for this device to the new folder. The driver package files include the driver (.sys) and installation (.inf and .cat) files. Check the device manufacturer’s website for the necessary drivers.

We don’t really need to do that right…

Had some trouble with that part… finally figured out that the drivers that need to be placed in that folder are the “RIS” drivers.

Try number 3 (or 30, I lost count)…

1. Proceed as try number 2, ignore warning because we did put the driver in there, and

Blue screen loop…

Hmm… maybe this is just not meant to be. Did some more searching and found this article:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/robertvi/archive/2009/10/07/after-installing-hyper-v-integration-services-on-the-next-reboot-the-vm-displays-bsod-0x0000007b.aspx

Basically, there are some people seeing the exact same blue screen that I was seeing, except this was after the install of updated integration components. But I wasn’t installing integration components yet… or was I?

Ok so maybe it was getting that far and just “blowing up” after the install of the components. Good thing about this being a P2V, I can go back to the source machine pretty easy and check the registry:

Looks like we may have an answer here. Change the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Wdf01000\Group entry to be WdfLoadGroup instead of base.

It is my guess, that this would have worked even with the online conversion option.

A fatal error occurred while trying to sysprep the machine.

Michael — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 01:08:22 +0000

Today, while getting ready to deploy an updated Citrix farm for a set of Line of Business applications, I got an error during the sysprep process. The machine in question is a 2008 64 bit machine. It has Citrix and all the applications installed. It is also a Hyper-V VM.

I created an answer file and when I run Sysprep I get a popup that says: A fatal error occurred while trying to sysprep the machine.

Hmm.. so I look at the logs and here is what I find:

2010-06-03 10:42:33, Error      [0x0f0085] SYSPRP LaunchDll:Could not load DLL drmv2clt.dll[gle=0x0000007e]
2010-06-03 10:42:33, Error      [0x0f0070] SYSPRP RunExternalDlls:An error occurred while running registry sysprep DLLs, halting sysprep execution. dwRet = 126[gle=0x0000007e]
2010-06-03 10:42:33, Error      [0x0f00a8] SYSPRP WinMain:Hit failure while processing sysprep cleanup providers; hr = 0x8007007e[gle=0x0000007e]

I found lots of references to Windows Media Player, and that you can’t have sharing enabled. Not a problem on this machine. Not any help either.

I did find this article helpful: http://myit4u.wordpress.com/2010/03/17/launchdll-could-not-load-dll-drmv2clt-dll/

Guess what?! Those aren’t shown in on a Windows Server 2008! Our workaround was to install the Desktop Experience feature on the server.

I added the “Desktop Experience” feature did the sysprep and then uninstalled it on each of the new machines. Rather a pain, but I didn’t have a lot of time to work on figuring out a better answer.

My 5 seconds of fame…

Michael — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 05:11:40 +0000

So this week, I am at MMS 2010. I try to come to MMS every year, because it gives me a chance to get away from the office (if not really away from work), and allows me to get some time to look at, learn about, and hopefully gain insight into what Microsoft is thinking about when they design the products I use, and the systems I maintain. It is almost like a working vacation. Away from the daily grind of my work life, I get to really let the inner geek out and get excited about the things that I enjoy in my job.

The opportunity to have conversations with the people that work on creating these products and people that use them in various environments is also very refreshing and useful. This gets better over the years, because I have begun to recognize the people that have the answers I am looking for or the ideas that I can use.

Last year, when I was at MMS, I happened to be standing too close to an area where they were conducting interviews…

Today, while I was walking through the Expo, I saw someone that looked familiar, and he started talking to me before I even figured out where I recognized him. He started talking about a video and how it had been talked about, and I was thinking “he obviously has me confused with someone else”. Then I recognized who he was, and started getting nervous…

He opened up his laptop and showed me the a video called “What’s on your mind”. It was evidently the intro video to one of the keynotes at TechEd last year. I show up in a few spots, but mostly, I think, because they like my swimming pool analogy…

Find me at 25 seconds through 30 seconds…

http://nukeitmike.com/video/whats%20on%20your%20mind.wmv

Thanks to Stephen Rose from Microsoft for remembering me and allowing me to post the video on my blog.