• Hyper-V Monitor Gadget for Windows Sidebar version 3.0 is now available. http://snurl.com/2rnjv
• Version 2.1.1 of Active Directory Reports is available now. I discussed version 1 a while back.
• VMware ThinApp pricing: $6050 + $47.19 per client. Quite expensive for my taste. http://snurl.com/2rnfs
• VMware ThinApp 4.0 RC available. The final is slated for July 10. http://snurl.com/2o6xc #
• Harris Survey: Microsoft’s reputation far outweighs Apple’s. http://snurl.com/2o6zm Not that I believe in such surveys. #
• The Windows roadmap I discussed in my article about Windows 7 is available now.  #
• Remote Desktop Connection 6.1 for Windows XP SP2. RDC 6.1 is included in SP3. There is an update for XP SP2 now : http://snurl.com/2osvh #

It was hard to miss that the final of Hyper-V was released today. Maybe it has something to do with the kind of feeds I subscribed to, but it seems to me that the media coverage is comparable to when Windows Server 2008 was released. We updated our RC1 test installation and have encountered no problems so far. I have also tried the beta of Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (VMM 2008). After I installed the VMM agent on the Hyper-V-Server I had to restart the VMM admin console, but after that everything seemed to work flawlessly. I only played with it a little though. I am not aware of a release date of VMM 2008 RTM. I don’t think the wait would be long.

Our overall experience with Hyper-V RC1 was quite positive. We have had a few issues, but in each case it turned out that it was a configuration mistake. We also virtualized a Linux server (SuSE Enterprise 10), and didn’t have any problems with it. We are going to make some performance tests with the Linux VM soon. We had some performance problems with a content management system (Eprints) under Linux on VMware Server 1, so I am curious to see how much better Hyper-V will be here. Note that we do know that Eprints works fine on VMware ESX. Nonetheless, this thing is just too expensive in my view.

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You don’t work with Hyper-V? This might change soon. Then you probably would like to have Hyper-V Monitor, a tiny gadget for the Vista sidebar. It displays the status of all your Hyper-V virtual machines. It supports multiple Hyper-V servers and you can also use it to connect to a virtual machine.

For this, you have to install the Hyper-V Manager for Vista SP1 first. Then you have to tell Hyper-V monitor where VMConnect.exe is located. Usually, it is under C:\Programs\Hyper-V. Note that only a double click on a virtual machine will establish a connection. I first tried it with a single click because the mouse pointer changes to a finger when you move over the VM.

It also seems to me that the tool is a bit buggy. I got a couple of script errors while configuring it. But once everything was configured it worked flawlessly.

Hyper-V Monitor Gadget

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This is another post in my series about application virtualization. More than a year ago Symantec bought Altiris, a vendor well known for systems management. I was quite surprised when I heard about the deal because the look and feel of Altiris products is somewhat different from Symantec solutions. This also applies to Altiris’ Software Virtualization Solution (SVS). I tested the tool and have shared some of my insights in this post.

I encountered the first problem when I wanted to download SVS. The download page showed four different file names which all sounded quite similar: Software Virtualization Solution 2.1 Logon Hook, Software Virtualization Solution 2.1 SP1 Integrated Installation, Software Virtualization Solution 2.1 SP1, and Software Virtualization Solution 2.1 SP1 Professional. There is a short note which is supposed to clarify what those product names mean, but I must admit I didn’t really understand it, so I downloaded the professional version.

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Networkworld learned that Microsoft plans to release Windows 7 in or near January 2010. It seems as if Microsoft is preparing a new paper titled “An Update on the Windows Roadmap” for enterprise and business customers. (Update: the paper is available now.) If Microsoft can keep this date, then Windows 7 would already be available in 18 months. I must admit I have serious doubt that this schedule is trustworthy. I mean there is not even a beta available. All we saw are some nice videos about multi-touch. Nobody knows what other features Windows 7 might bring. Is it really possible that Microsoft managed to keep the development of a new operating system under wraps this time?

On the other hand, it makes sense to release Windows 7 as soon as possible just to get rid of Vista’s bad image. However, one thing is for sure, if Windows 7 really comes in 18 months, then it will just be Windows Vista SP1 with some new gimmicks such as multi-touch. It is hard to believe that Microsoft is able to introduce those fundamental changes of the Windows core that occupied a large part of the discussion about Windows 7 in such a short time. I am talking about this micro kernel and the new modular structure. If we are lucky, then we will also see some better integration with Windows Live.

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• How to install Data Protection Manager 2007 to a Windows 2008 Server http://snurl.com/2luso #
• Seems Windows Search 4.0 improves Vista’s performance. http://snurl.com/2luub It also available now for Vista x64 http://snurl.com/2luuv #
• Yet Another Pro-Vista Argument: IE7 on Vista has Fewer Vulnerabilities than Even Firefox http://snurl.com/2luz9 #
• Top 10 tips to speed up Vista http://snurl.com/2lv44 The tips in this article are quite useful if you have performance problems with Vista #
• Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) RC is available at Microsoft Connect. #
• IE team congratulates Mozilla on Firefox 3 release. This demonstrates that a great Firefox isn’t really a problem for MS. #

Some days ago, I linked to a new KB article about the changes in RDP 6.1 in a tweet. While the information there is quite useful, it does not explain what happened to the console switch. It seems to me that there is still much confusion about this issue. I just read in the German magazine “Windows Server Praxis” that the console parameter of the RDP client has been renamed to “admin”. However, this is not entirely true because the admin switch has new functions too.

RDP 6.1 is only supported by Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) 6.1 which is included in Vista SP1, Windows XP SP3 and Windows Server 2008. There is no separate download of RDC 6.1, but the system administrator blog has a description about how to get it running on Windows XP SP2. I suppose there is a similar solution for Vista RTM.

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eToolz is a nifty GUI tool that allows you to perform a number of network queries: DNS, ping, traceroute, WHOIS, mail-check, HTTP-header, time (NTP), Google pagerank, top level domains and port numbers.

For some of these queries, you would usually go to the command prompt in Windows; for example, the DNS query would be just nslookup. eToolz allows you to query for A, PTR, NS, MX, and SOA records. The Ping tool offers the options pause, bytes, timeout and count, and traceroute lets you configure the number of hops and the timeout. Even though eToolz is a standalone program (it doesn’t have to be installed), it will store the IP addresses, host names, etc. that you enter, so the next time you want to ping a certain host, you can just select it from a drop-down-list. I think, in most cases, you will be faster with eToolz than with the command prompt tools because it can save you some typing exercises.

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You probably know that you can set the CPU affinity with Task Manager (right click on a process). This comes in handy, as sometimes it is useful to run a certain program just on one processor core. I usually do this if I have an app that runs amok and utilizes all my CPU resources. Restricting this program to one CPU core gives me back some processor power. You can also decrease the CPU priority, but in my experience, this doesn’t always help.

Since quad core CPUs are becoming common, even on desktop computers, there are more options for making use of processor affinity. For example, you could reserve some of your CPU cores for an application that needs more resources. Virtualization solutions are typical candidates for this. Unfortunately, managing processor affinity with Task Manager is a bit cumbersome. That’s where Edgemeal Get and Set CPU Affinity comes in.

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Some days ago, I posted an overview of application virtualization which contained a list of several solutions. Some readers referred to additional tools and so I created a new list. I suspected that there might be more of them than the four I was aware of, but I was quite surprised by how many different application virtualization solutions there actually are. Virtualization.info compiled a more comprehensive list. However, it contains solutions that are not available anymore in this form, because they have been purchased and altered by their new owners. Thus, I created a new list and added a short comment to each product.

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• PacketTrap pt360 pro now supports Cisco NetFlow. This feature helps optimize networks for peak performance.
• Remote Desktop Connection 6.1 brings better support for Windows Server 2008: http://support.microsoft.co…
• Microsoft Network Monitor 3.2 Beta is available at Microsoft Connect. Description of the new features: http://snurl.com/2jahr
• Abbreviation for Microsoft Application Virtualization alas Softgrid is now App-V http://snurl.com/2jafr
• Comprehensive guide to Server Core. Recommended!  #
• I added MojoPac and Application Jukebox to my list of application virtualization solutions. http://snurl.com/2gdwi #
• VMM 2008 supports Hyper-V RC1 now. You can download it at Microsoft Connect. #
• VMware renamed Thinstall to ThinApp and released version 4.0. http://snurl.com/2ge5c #

Some weeks ago, I blogged about a little script that allows you to turn off Vista’s UAC temporarily by killing the Windows Explorer process and restarting it with administrator rights. In a comment, Marty remarked that one doesn’t have to kill the Explorer process if one configures Windows Explorer to start in a separate process. Now, I just stumbled across a blog post that explains how to elevate Windows Explorer, which is essentially the same topic. I suppose many of you didn’t follow the discussion in my original post, so I thought I would repeat it here with some new insights.

This is not only about disabling UAC, though. It is also helpful if you want to edit a file in the Windows or Programs directory. You probably know that you can’t just do that by opening the file through Explorer. If you try it this way, your editor won’t be able to save the file. It doesn’t help if you elevate Explorer before you open the file, either. The reason for this is that Explorer is already running, since the Windows desktop is also an Explorer process.

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This is the fourth post in my series about application virtualization. One of the products I listed in my last post was Xenocode Virtual Application Studio. Since then, I’ve tested this tool and was a bit surprised how easy it is to handle.

However, my first attempt to install the tool failed. The MSIInstaller complained that “C:\Program Files\Common Files\ODBC\Data Sources\” was missing. It was a Vista machine and so I thought it was a compatibility issue. Installation under Windows XP was done in a less than a minute. A few days later I tried it again on the same Vista PC and that time, the installation ran through without problems.

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Submitted by Josh Stephens – Blog: Geek Speak

This free desktop dashboard continuously monitors Microsoft® Exchange servers to deliver real-time insight into Exchange services, mail queue sizes, and host server health. With Exchange Monitor at your fingertips, you’ll be able to track Exchange health at-a-glance and ensure this mission-critical app never fails you.

SolarWinds free Exchange Monitor makes it easy to:

• Quickly identify and troubleshoot Exchange server problems, preventing email delays and calendaring issues
• Spot growing mail queues that can indicate bigger issues, like transport failures, Internet connection failures, and virus activity
• Leverage out-of-the-box settings based on best practices to start monitoring Exchange immediately
• Prevent performance issues before they impact users with built-in red, yellow, and green health indicators
• Monitor critical server health indicators, including disk space, CPU utilization, and memory utilization, to ensure optimal hardware functionality

SolarWinds Exchange Monitor

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This post is the first in a series in which I will explore the advantages, the disadvantages, and the essential features of application virtualization solutions. I will also review some products which will make you realize how different the approaches to application virtualization are. You’ll find the links to all articles in this series at the end of each post. German speaking readers might also be interested in my introduction to application virtualization in the magazine Computerwoche.

Wikipedia defines it application virtualization as “an umbrella term that describes technologies that improve application compatibility and manageability by encapsulating applications from the underlying operating system on which they are executed.” The main idea is to run programs in a virtualized environment on a desktop system.

The difference between hardware virtualization solutions, such as VMware Workstation or Virtual PC, and application virtualization is that in the latter case the underlying operating system, the host if you will, is executing the program. But it seems to me that there is no clear dividing line between the different virtualization solutions. For example, you could say that Vista supports application virtualization as well, because it can virtualize folder structures and the registry for legacy apps. Hence the virtualization solutions differ only with respect to the objects they virtualize. Some virtualize a full-blown computer and others only the programs folder.

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