Virtualization

Hyper-V Manager MMC download - x86 / x64

Originally spotted here.

Make sure you exclude .VHD, and .AVHD files from being scanned because it can and will cause file lock issues/contention between your AV scanner and/or the Hyper-V services.

Ditto can be said for VMWare .vmdk files.

Some people are running into this issue with the new Hyper-V beta and it will error out with an error that will not typically lead you down this path while debugging the problem.

For instance on my external drive, I have a folder named "Virtual Machines" and I exclude the whole directory tree. That might be a bit excessive but it tends to prevent problems.

Guest OS support additions (integration components):
Windows Server 2003 (x86) SMP, Windows Vista SP1 (x86) and Windows XP SP3 (x86)

Improved performance:

1. Performance fixes for scalability and throughput for workloads.
2. VMs using pass-through disks will see a substantial performance improvement.
3. Installing Hyper-V VMs via network (RIS/PXE/WDS) is greatly improved.

You will want to read over KB 949219 before blindly updating your Beta VMs to RC VMs. I personally have run into some issues trying to import my older VMs into the new build.

The main Hyper-V website, which also is not online quite yet, is going to be located here.

From the announcement here, you can find more information on the new build.

Update: You can download the x64 build here and x86 build here. Release notes here.

I wasn't aware of this but you can expand VHDs easily with Hyper-V. Of course, they can't be in use at the time, but afterwards a simple "diskpart" command with the VHD in question not mounted as the boot drive (i.e. You can't expand Drive C: if you booted Windows on that VHD as Drive C:).

Open the Edit Virtual Hard Disk Wizard by selecting Edit Disk... from the Hyper-V manager and select the virtual hard disk you want to expand.
Read more about it here.

Sad but true, I used to use a little Ghost VM that ran off a CD and would do a sector-by-sector copy to a new larger VHD not too long ago. No need for that anymore!

It is as easy as checking HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SystemInformation\SystemProductName to see if it contains the string Virtual. There are also some other system call tricks, like revealing if the OS is a Server Core, located here.

It looks like, if you wanted to, you could gather most of the information with PowerShell too. It looks pretty straightforward.

The best way to try out the new Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1, I think, is in a virtual machine. You can download a pre-made VHD that works under Virtual PC / Virtual Server / Hyper-V here. You can also find link to other versions of IE VHDs here.

Ever take desktop snapshots and then find them years later?
I have dug up old snapshots of my OS/2 installs from way back when, in the past.

In the spirit of that same adventure, here is what my desktop looks like as of tonight.
Who knows what it will look like in a year, but if you can't tell, I have one theme for computer usage - "drive it like you stole it". If you have 3GB of memory, you might as well put it to good use.

I have a history of being hard on systems and thankfully I have some solid ones lately. I've had some die a horrible death in smoke and flames.

Click the thumbnail for the full screen image: