Hyper-v Tip: Use windows key without fullscreen

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When connect to a remote VM with hyper-v manager, I have to full screen to make Windows key. Personally I think Hyper-V should have a Windows key button in toolbar like "Ctrl+Alt+Delete" button.

Actually Hyper-v manager allows you to select where the Windows keys goes when you press it. Open up the Hyper-V Settings dialog from with the Hyper-V Manager and go to the keyboard setting, you will see 3 settings.

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  1. Use on the physical computer
  2. Use on the virtual machine
  3. Use on the virtual machine only when running full-screen

The default one is #3. Once you change it to #2, you will be able to use Windows key inside VM without *full-screen* it.

You will find this helpful if you are connecting to a VM has Windows 8 Metro UI enabled. Without a windows key it’s hard to exit Metro style app and go back to start screen.

How to turn on client hyper-v in Windows 8

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In Steven Sinofsky’s this blog – Bringing Hyper-V to “Windows 8”. He talks about that Windows 8 will support virtualization on the "client" OS.  This is very helpful for developers as they typically have the need to setup additional test environment on their PC.

How to turn on client hyper-v in Windows 8

First, make sure your system meets the client hyper-v virtualization requirement, you have 64bit windows 8 OS and SLAT available on CPU.

  1. Control Panel –> Programs
  2. Turn Windows Features On or Off
  3. Check Hyper-V, Click Ok

Note: If your system does not have the required virtualization support, the client Hyper-V feature will be greyed out.

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The other cool thing is you can turn hyper-v on even if you are booting from VHD. Same server hyper-v in Windows Server 2008 R2.

Note: For Intel, the processors support SALT are Intel Core i3, i5, i7, not sure for the AMD.

TFS How to change the computer name or owner for a workspace

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The owner and computer name of the workspace are not editable in Visual Studio 2010. However, you might need it when you renamed your machine or your account is renamed. To do this, open a Visual Studio Command Prompt (2010) from program files, and cd to your workspace, then run following

Change the computer name for a workspace

tf workspaces /updateComputerName:<OldComputerName> /collection:<CollectionURL>

You need replace <OldComputerName> to your actual old computer name and <CollectionURL> to your actual TFS collection URL.

Change the owner for a workspace

tf workspaces /updateUserName:<OldUserName> /collection:<CollectionURL>

Using SCVMM 2012 Cmdlets in Powershell

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SCVMM Cmdlets allow SCVMM admin/users to do everything they can do in SCVMM AdminConsole in windows Powershell command line. In SCVMM 2008 R2, you can run following command in PowerShell to run SCVMM cmdlets.

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SystemCenter.VirtualMachineManager

But this does not work in SCVMM 2012 as SCVMM 2012 uses PowerShell module. For SCVMM 2012 now you need run following in Powershell instead

Import-Module "C:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center 2012\Virtual Machine Manager\bin\psModules\virtualmachinemanager\virtualmachinemanager"

(This assumes that you have SCVMM 2012 installed on the default location C:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center 2012 )

The PowerShell cmdlets in SCVMM 2012 change a lot in SCVMM 2012, you can get a list of all SCVMM 2012 cmdlets by typing the following at the PowerShell command shell prompt

Get-Command -Module virtualmachinemanager -Type cmdlet

And you can run Get-Help on any of the cmdlets to get the syntax for that cmdlet.

Get-Help <cmdlet name> -detailed

No refunds for this purchase error when uninstall and reinstall app on windows phone

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When you try to re-install an app that you had previously deleted from your windows phone, you might get the error there are no refunds for this purchase. 

To resolve this, follow these steps.

  1. Go to http://www.windowsphone.com, sign in,
  2. Click on "My Phone" and then on "Account".
  3. You should be able to find reinstall button for the app you want to reinstall

Windows 8 Developer Preview Key

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To install Windows 8 Developer Preview you do not need a product key for activation. However, you would be asked to enter a product key while re-installing Windows 8 Developer Preview Key.

If you need to reinstall Windows Developer Preview or use the Reset functionality, you might be asked to enter this product key:

6RH4V-HNTWC-JQKG8-RFR3R-36498

If you’re running a server version of Windows Developer Preview, you can use this product key:

4Y8N3-H7MMW-C76VJ-YD3XV-MBDKV

The key is provided by Microsoft employee BillFill in msdn forum. You can find the BillFill’s post here

Windows 8 Shortcut Key Combination

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Here is a list of new shortcuts specific to Windows 8. You might it useful when you are in Windows 8 new Metro style UI. For me I found WinKey + C and WInKey + I really helps a LOT

Key Functionality
WinKey + spacebar Switch input language and Keyboard layout
WinKey + O Disable screen orientation
WinKey + Y Temporarily view the desktop
WinKey + Enter Launches Narrator Dialog
WinKey + PageUp Snap Metro style apps to left
WinKey + PageDown Snap Metro style apps to right
WinKey + C Opens Charms bar
WinKey + I Opens Settings charm
WinKey + K Opens Connect charm
WinKey + H Opens Share charm
WinKey + Q Opens Search pane
WinKey + W Opens Settings Search app
WinKey + F Opens File Search app
WinKey + Tab Cycles through Metro style apps
WinKey + Z Opens App Bar

Improve VM deploy performance in SCVMM

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SCVMM use BITS over https to deploy virtual machine to host server. To improve the performance of virtual machine deploy, you can disable encrypted file transfers for Host Group.

  1. Open Virtual Machine Manager Administrator Console (aka SCVMM Console) on the Application Tier and connect to VMM Server
  2. Click Host on the left side pane.
  3. Right Click on All Host node, and select Properties.
  4. Select the check-box “Allow unencrypted file transfers”

Note: if you use library server, you should set Allow unencrypted file transfers for every library servers.

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The same can be done in following SCVMM PowerShell command

Set-VMHostGroup -VMHostGroup “All Hosts” -AllowUnencryptedTransfers $true

How to install DotNet 2.0 or 3.5 on Windows 8

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Windows 8 Developer Preview includes the 2.0, 3.5 and 4.5 versions of the .NET Framework. However, only 4.5 is available for immediate use after a clean install. The versions 2.0 and 3.5 of the framework are not installed by default. If you open the Add/Remove Windows Features dialog you’ll see the “Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5.1” listed, but disabled.

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To install DotNet 2.0 or 3.5 on Windows 8,

  1. Go to Control Panel – Programs
  2. Turn Windows features on or off
  3. Check ‘Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5.1′
  4. Click OK.

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