Developer OneNote

Category: Azure

  • Solution for Unresponsive Win8 Guest VMs

    If you’re going to run Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012 in a virtual machine on Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V, please install this hotfix patch http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2744129 on the Hyper-V host server,

    Without applying this hotfix, you may experience one or more of the following issues:

    • The Windows 8/Server 2012 virtual machine becomes unresponsive.
    • The Windows Server 2008 R2 host server displays a stop error message and restarts automatically.

    Update: the http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2744129.has been added to Windows Auto Update.

  • SCVMM 2012 RTM Available for download

    SCVMM 2012 RTM is available for download for MSDN subscribers. You can start download it here. The SCVMM 2012 RTM version is 3.0.6005.0. Microsoft has published the SCVMM 2012 RTM help document and cmdlets help.

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    If you upgrade to RTM from RC, you can enter the product key in Admin Console UI About dialog Enter product key button.

    Update 4/16:  The first update rollup for VMM is already out http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2686249. The update includes fix for both SCVMM Server, Self Service Portal and Admin Console. You will need to update all roles in you have them installed on different machines.

    In System Center 2012, Microsoft extends the System Center branch to Cloud and Data Center management solution, the new System Center 2012 suites including

    • System Center App Controller
    • System Center Configuration Manager
    • System Center Data Protection Manager
    • System Center Operations Manager
    • System Center Orchestrator
    • System Center Service Manager
    • System Center Unified Installer
    • System Center Virtual Machine Manager

  • How to tell if your CPU Supports SLAT

    SLAT-enabled processor is the requirement of Hyper-V RemoteFX feature which is introduced in Windows Server 2008 R2. It’s the requirement of Windows 8 client Hpyer-V feature as well.

    For INTEL CPU models, following CPU models are SLAT-Capable

    • Server: E5500 or higher.
    • Desktop/Laptops: I3/I5/I7/I7-qm

    There is a handy tool named CoreInfo from systeminternals that can check if your CPU is SLAT-Capable, it’s pretty easy to use:

    1. Download from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cc835722
    2. Launch an elevated command prompt
    3. Run “CoreInfo.exe -v”

    If you see EPT * Supports Intel extended page tables (SLAT) then you are good.

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    Following are copied from https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/1401.hyper-v-list-of-slat-capable-cpus-for-hosts.aspx

    Servers that support SLAT

    • Any AMD server CPU based on Barcelona or later architectures. Some early Barcelona editions didn’t have RVI, but they’re relatively rare. Check this AMD list.
    • Intel server processors numbered E5500 and higher.
    • Any Intel CPUs based on Nehalem, Westmere, or Sandybridge micro-architectures. (There may be exceptions, but I’m not aware of any.)

    Desktops that support SLAT

    • Intel processors whose names start with ‘i’, e.g. i3, i5, i7, i9. (There may be exceptions, but I’m not aware of any.)
    • Any Intel CPUs based on Nehalem, Westmere, or Sandybridge micro-architectures. (There may be exceptions, but I’m not aware of any.)

    Laptops that support SLAT

    • Lenovo T410, T510, W510, W520, T420s, T520, X201
    • Samsung 900x
    • Dell Precision M4600

  • Hyper-v Tip: Use windows key without fullscreen

    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.

    image

    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.

  • Using Hyper-V in Windows 8

    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/Laptop.

    Hardware Requirements

    Hyper-V supports creation of both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems in VMs. To run Client Hyper-V, your computer must:

    • Be running a 64-bit version of Windows 8.
    • Have a CPU that supports Second Level Address Translation (SLAT), To determine if your CPU supports SLAT, go to How to tell if your CPU Supports SLAT

    Enabling Client Hyper-V

    1. In the Windows 8 Control Panel, tap or click Programs, and then tap or click Programs and Features.
    2. Tap or click Turn Windows features on or off.
    3. In the Windows Features dialog box, select the check boxes for the Hyper-V items that you want to install, and then tap or click OK. image
    4. Tap or click Close.

    Note: You must restart your computer to complete the Hyper-V installation. After restarting the computer, you can use Hyper-V Manager or Windows PowerShell to create and manage VMs. You can also use VM Console to connect to VMs remotely.

    Enabling Client Hyper-V with Command Line Tool

    • Use Windows PowerShell. At the Windows PowerShell prompt (using administrator credentials), type the following:

    Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V

    • Use the Windows Command Prompt. At the Windows command prompt (using administrator credentials), type the following:

    Dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Hyper-V –All

    What Isn’t Included in Client Hyper-V?

    Difference between Windows 8 Client Hyper-V and Server Hyper-V

  • Using SCVMM 2012 Cmdlets in PowerShell

    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 FilesMicrosoft System Center 2012Virtual Machine ManagerbinpsModulesvirtualmachinemanagervirtualmachinemanager"

    (This assumes that you have SCVMM 2012 installed on the default location C:Program FilesMicrosoft 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

    Update: Microsoft has published the SCVMM 2012 cmdlets help to TechNet, check it out http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh801697.aspx

  • Improve VM deploy performance in SCVMM

    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

  • HAL_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Error when install Windows 8 Developer Preview on VPC

    When you install the Windows 8 Developer Preview on Virtual PC in 64-bit windows. Your installation would fail with the blue screen of sad:

    : (
    Your PC ran into a problem that it couldn’t handle, and now it needs to restart
    You can search for the error online: HAL_INITIALIZATION_FAILED

    image

    (more…)

  • IDE/ATAPI Account does not have sufficient privilege to open attachment

    You might get following error after you move or replace a virtual disk drive file of a hyper-v virtual machine.

    An error occurred while attempting to start the selected virtual machine(s).

    'TestVM' failed to start.
Microsoft Emulated IDE Controller (Instance ID
{83F8638B-8DCA-4152-9EDA-2CA8B33039B4}): Failed to Power on with Error 'General
access denied error'
IDE/ATAPI Account does not have sufficient privilege to open attachment
'D:VMTestVMTestVM.vhd. Error: ‘General access denied error'
Account does not have sufficient privilege to open attachment
'D:VMTestVMTestVM.vhd. Error: ‘General access denied error'

    This is because the permissions on the new virtual hard drive (D:VMTestVMTestVM.vhd in this case) are incorrect. Here is the steps to fix this permission file.

    1. Open Hyper-V manager, Right click settings of the virtual machine
    2. Find the Virtual Hard Drive and choose “Remove”.
    3. Re-add the same Virtual Hard Drive back to the machine.
    4. Now start the VM again, it should boot successfully.

  • Could not load file or assembly TraceWrapper, Version=1.0.523.0

    There are two versions of the TraceWrapper.dll in SCVMM install CD. One is x86 version and the other is x64 version. When you build your application on top of SCVMM library Microsoft.SystemCenter.VirtualMachineManager, it’s very important to pick up the correct version TraceWrapper.dll. In general, you should copy the 32 bit dll if you are using 32 bit system, copy 64 bit dll if you are using 64 bit system. Otherwise following BadImageFormatException would occur during runtime.

    Could not load file or assembly ‘TraceWrapper, Version=1.0.523.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35’ or one of its dependencies. An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format.

    However, you should keep using 32 bit TraceWrapper on a 64 bit system for following scenarios:

    • You need debug your app in Visual Studio directly. In this case, process launched from Visual Studio debugger runs in WOW64 mode.
    • IIS is configured to run in 32 bit mode. In this case, all working processes run in WOW64 mode.

    This is because in 64 bit windows, processes in WOW64 mode are 32 bit processes and can’t load 64 bit TraceWrapper.dll.