It looks like Microsoft renamed the next version of Configuration Manager from ConfigMgr vNext to ConfigMgr 2011.

Given the fact that 2011 is now part of the productname means that Microsoft plans the release of the product way ahead to 2011. This should buy them plenty of time to do some massive changes. Can´t wait for the next public announcement of what´s to come...

As I’ve described in a previous post I’ve restaged my laptop with a dual boot system including Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 including Hyper-V. This also means I have to start updating my Virtual PC images to Hyper-V.

Some information on how to migrate from earlier version (like Virtual Server or Virtual PC) can be found here:

• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd296684(WS.10).aspx
• http://blogs.technet.com/matthts/archive/2008/09/12/vmc-to-hyper-v-import-tool-available.aspx
• http://www.softgridblog.com/?p=34

I do not have enough disk space on my new SSD to hold all my Virtual Machine at once, which means I will have to copy my machines back and forth between my large and slower external disk to my small and very quick SSD.

Identifying which files belong to my Virtual Machines is somewhat harder in Hyper-V compared to predecessors. The structure of Virtual Machines in Hyper-V differs from Virtual PC and Virtual Server:

As you can see Virtual Machines are reference by a GUID which means I can’t easily find a way to copy the right files to my external disk. Same goes for Virtual Hard Disks and Snapshots. Luckily Hyper-V has a natively build in Export and Import functionality.

When you select the Virtual Machine to export you are prompted for the path

The Virtual Machine will now be exported to the given directory, which includes:

Importing your Virtual Machines is just as easy. Select the Import option in the Hyper-V management console.

You are prompted for the Hyper-V virtual machine location.

Two imported questions are also asked:

• Whether this virtual machine is considered to have move or copied. Move means that Machine ID’s will remain the same. Copy will create new ones.
• If you have not selected the checkbox for “Duplicate all files…” the import process will delete existing EXP and Config files at the import location. This means that this particular machine can not be imported again unless it’s exported first. Checking this box prevents this behavior. Checking the “Duplicate all files…” checkbox will also copy the virtual hard disk to the designated folder in Hyper-V.

This means I can now easily copy virtual machine back and forth.

More on importing and exporting Hyper-V virtual machines can be found here:

• http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2008/08/26/hyper-v-export-import-part-1.aspx
• http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2008/08/26/hyper-v-export-import-part-2.aspx
• http://www.petri.co.il/importing-and-exporting-your-virtual-machines.htm

I am running the DesktopControl blog for about 2 years now and was getting a bit tired of the layout it was having, so I thought I’d alter it a little bit.

I sticked with the 3 column layout but I’ve changed some other things:

• The posts are now aligned in the left (widest column) and I have two smaller columns on the right.
• Posts are now displayed in short. Clicking on Full Story will bring you to the complete post. This will prevent on having a long scrolling website in the home page.
• Got rid of some of the Gadgets in the side columns.
• Added a title bar in the top of the window.

I also added a powerful search method (Google of course) which can now search either my blog, my links or the entire web. It integrates nicely with my posts.

I still want to add a blog roll, some interesting links and a flash tag cloud. Keep posted to see them coming.

I hope you keep continue to read my blog and you are happy about the layout. Ping me any comments.

After Windows 7 was officially released I was planning to reimage my laptop to the final version. I was running the RC all that time. Also I’d ordered a solid state disk to fit my laptop and when that package arrived I decided to pull the plug on my old laptop this weekend.

Intel X25-M Postville

After I’d read some reviews I had decided to order the Intel X25-M Postville SSDSA2MH080G2C1 80GB, which is about €200 here depending on where you buy it. I was tipped to watch for the G2 in the product number. G2 stands for generation 2 and the first generation had some issues.

Application Virtualization

When you are planning reinstallation of your pc it´s always a little bit scary. What information will I loose, what application do I need to install and (in my case) what configuration do I want to setup.

Luckily I try to use virtualized applications as often as possible which means that I have a library of about 30 sequenced applications that I recently use. I only have Microsoft Office, Microsoft Virtual PC and one or two other applications locally installed

I wanted to created to a dual boot system, being able to boot to both Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7.

So I started by installing Windows Server 2008 R2 from USB key by following the instructions here. Simply read Windows Server 2008 R2 whenever Windows 7 is mentioned.

The result was a stunning install time of about 12 minutes!! Just to be clear this isn´t imaging technology. Just a regular next – next finish Windows Installation.

Windows 2008 as a workstation

Because I would be using Windows Server 2008 also a regular system I tweaked it a little to make it look and feel like a regular OS instead of a server OS. I enabled the Desktop Experience and Wireless features in Server Manager and followed some additional tweaking by using this article (like enabling Audio and no CTRL-ALT-DEL logon).

SSD Performance

I knew my new SSD was fast, but I wanted to check how fast it actually was. So I downloaded HD Tune (free) and did a test. The result was a very respectable average read speed of 175 MB/s (186 MB/s max) and an access time of 0.1 ms.

Next up was installing Windows 7 but I had only one disk (one partition) set up in my machine. Well since Windows 2008 and 7 now support the mounting of VHDs out-of-the-box I wanted to install Windows 7 in a VHD.

I enabled Hyper-V on my Windows 2008 installation and created an expandable HDD of 30 Gb on my machine (in C:\Windows7\WIN7ENT.vhd).

Install Windows 7 in to VHD

Next I followed the instructions here to install Windows 7 on to that Virtual Hard disk. Basically the steps provided were correct but I had to address some alterations.

At step 5 I could not connect to the Windows Server 2008 installation because it stated that the Recovery tools were not compatible with that particular installation.

I work around that issue (more by accident than intentionally) by selecting the other option in that screen: to revert to an earlier created image. It than stated that no images were found and asked to point to the image. I cancelled that window and found myself in the Recovery tool windows after all (step 6).

In step 7 I did not create a Vdisk, because I already created one in Hyper-V. So I simply did the steps:

select vdisk file = c:\Windows7\WIN7ENT.vhd
attach vdisk

and continued the setup of Windows 7. This setup also was mind blowing fast and installed under 10 minutes!

The end result is that I can dual boot between Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. I have two disks in Windows 7: a C-drive (which is the Virtual Hard disk) and a D-drive (which is the primary physical hard disk where Windows Server 2008 is installed). So I can share documents and data between the two Operating Systems through the physical disk.

When Windows 7 is looking at the virtual hard disk it sees it as a 30Gb disk (obviously) and it calculates the disk space with this number.The funny thing is though that when I look in Windows Server 2008 I suddenly have a lot more disk space available because the file now suddenly is only 7Gb.

Last but certainly not least I load my sequenced applications and can use them both on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008. I actually created this blog post with a virtualized Live Writer which runs on both OSs.

And thanks to my colleague Patrick Damen for providing an install for all our corporate settings (like websites, rpc over http, certificates, backgrounds and themes etc.)

I hope this post helps some people when they decide to reinstall their machine at some point.

I’m catching up on email after a holiday and it seems that Configuration Manager 2007 Service Pack 2 has been released.

Service Pack 2 for Configuration Manager 2007 delivers new platform support for Windows 7 client, Windows Vista SP2, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2. In addition, Service Pack 2 delivers continued innovation with Intel vPro technology, support for Branch Cache enabled environments, and continued development for 64 bit architectures.

Feature Summary:

• New Operating System Support
• New Features in Out of Band Management
• Asset Intelligence Certificate Requirement Removal
• 64-bit Architecture Development
• Improved Client Policy Evaluation
• Branch Cache Support

Download here.