What a great day for me….I passed the 70-693 PRO: Microsoft Server 2008 R2, Virtualization Administrator! After two hours I pressed the END button, and finished with a score of 850/1000. 
To complete all the virtualization modules, I also want to pass the 70-669 TS: Windows Server 2008 R2, Desktop Virtualization. This is a target before the summer this year 
When you’re optimizing your VDI machines, one of the challanges are the Windows Themes. The Windows Themes are generating a lot of IOPS, so maybe you want to prevent users to change the Windows Theme.
You can use the following command to disable the Windows Themes Service:
Powershell Set-Service ‘Themes’ -startuptype “disabled”
You can also create a script that runs at computer startup.
With the following registry key, you can remove the Network from Windows Explorer. Users cannot browse the network anymore.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\NonEnum\{F02C1A0D-BE21-4350-88B0-7367FC96EF3C}]=dword:00000001
A nice solution to deploy this registry key to all your desktop computers in your organization, is to use Group Policy Preferences. This is a new feature within Windows Server 2008.
Use can use the following steps to configure this:
1.) Create a new GPO whtin the Group Policy Management Console
2.) Open the new GPO en navigate to the Computer Settings. (It’s a HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE settings)
3.) Navigate to Preferences \ Windows Settings \ Registry
4.) Create a new Registry Item
5.) Actie: Update
6.) Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
7.) Key Path: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\NonEnum
8.) Value name: {F02C1A0D-BE21-4350-88B0-7367FC96EF3C}
9.) Value type: REG_DWORD
10.) Value data: 1 (Decimal), 00000001 (Hexadecimal)
When you installing a server using PXE boot, you’ve to use a legacy NIC interface. This is because a normal NIC interface doesn’t support PXE boot. After succesfully installing this server, you would change the legacy NIC interface with a normal NIC interface. The performance is much better because this will use the VMbus to commuicate with the parent partition!
You can follow the steps below to change the legacy NIC interface with a normal NIC interface.
1.) Shutdown the Virtual Machine
2.) Open the Properties of the Virtual Machine
3.) Select the Hardware tab
4.) Select the Network Adapters and click Remove
5.) Click Network Adapter and choose Synthetic network adapter
6.) Apply the changes
7.) Start the Virtual Machine
8.) Open the Network Connections
9.) When you want to rename the NIC interface, you’ll receive the following error:
“Cannot rename this connection. A connection with the name you specified already exists. Specify a different name.”
10.) Open the system properties of your server
11.) Select the Advanced tab and click Environment Variables
12.) Creat a new System Variable
Variable name: Devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices
Variable value: 1
13.) Open the Device Manager of your server
14.) Show the hidden devices
15.) As you can see there still is the legacy NIC interface we’ve deleted earlier.
16.) Select that NIC interface and choose Uninstall
17.) Again open the Network Connections and rename it
18.) Don’t forget to give the server a static IP, Subnet, Gateway and DNS
Now your server is using a Synthetic Network Interface (VMbus communication).
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you have a bunch of virtual machines (VMs) where the OWNER value is set to UNKNOWN or domain\administrator and you wanted to set a value owner without having to modify them one VM at a time? There’s a PowerShell command that you can use to accomplish this.
Get-VM -VMMServer “FQDN of the SCVMM Server” | where {$_.Owner -eq “Unknown”} | Set-VM -Owner “domain\accountname”
Get-VM -VMMServer “FQDN of the SCVMM Server” | where {$_.Owner -eq “domain\Administrator”} | Set-VM -Owner “domain\accountname”
Microsoft publised the roadmap for 2011. As you can see there’re a lot of new versions available in Q3 and Q4….YEAH!!
Today I’ve a strange problem in my testlab! I’ve installed a copple of Windows 7 virtual machines and joined them to the domain. The testusers using roaming profiles whit some folder redirection to the home drive.
When the first user logged in, the desktop was completely black! Nice, but there’s a background configured in the Group Policy…..hhhmmm! This is a known bug by Microsoft and there’s a hotfix available, KB977944
After I installed the update, reboot my virtual machines, everything works like a charm
Save the following dates in your calendar! Tech Ed Europe 2012 will be held 25th-29th June at the Amsterdam RAI Exhibition Centre in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
This time no long trip to Germany, but driving with my own car to Amsterdam!
