The Ramblings of a Geek… » Virtualization » The Ramblings of a Geek…

Windows Server 2008 r2 Standard (OEM)

Wayne — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 16:13:26 +0000

A client recently required Windows Server 2008 server, they already had Windows Sever 2008 R1, with Hyper-v installed and required an additional server.

So we ordered a copy of Windows Server 2008 R2 for their additional sever requirements. Upon receiving this copy the license sticker got me intrigued. It had both a physical product key and a virtual product key.

The performance benefits that come with Windows Server 2008 r2 for hyper-v are more than worth while.

So could we use these product keys to install Windows Server 2008 R2 and use the virtual key as intend and get the Windows Server 2008 R2 performance benefits?

It appears you can! Take a look at this extract:

Q. If I have one license for Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard and want to run it in a virtual operating system environment, can I continue running it in the physical operating system environment?

A. Yes, with Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard, you may run one instance in the physical operating system environment and one instance in the virtual operating system environment; however, the instance running in the physical operating system environment may be used only to run hardware virtualization software, provide hardware virtualization services, or to run software to manage and service operating system environments on the licensed server.

Source: www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/licensing-faq.aspx

Which is exactly what were doing.

Virtual Box

Wayne — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 21:57:54 +0000

So I came across Sun’s Virtual Box software some time ago and tried booting a 64bit OS on it which at the time seemed a little buggy.

I decided that I would give it another go and it seems to just work….. and running on Windows 7 as well.

See for yourself…..

So if Sun can do this and give it a way for free, why can’t Microsoft enable Windows Virtual PC to have 64bit support?

Update: Download link http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

Virtual PC x64 Support

Wayne — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:10:06 +0000

I’ve e-mail and spoken with every Microsoft employee that I’ve come across and there not talking about Virtual PC x64 Support.

I’ve been told to wait for PDC. So my best guess is the Virtual/Hyper-V is going to be a built in option to Windows 7.

We’ll have to wait and see thou….

My 64 Bit Nightmare continues…..

Wayne — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 22:12:11 +0000

VMWare player crashes when you try and run Virtual PC along side…. great. When I try to open the VHD, it can’t convert. So now I have to spend time installing Windows XP/Vista clients, which I already have into VMWare…..

I’m actually thinking of building a new PC to run Windows Server 2008 on so I can do X64 Vitalization, with more easy…. just don’t want another box and I’ve spent out on 8GB Ram…. Please MS updated virtual PC to allow x64 Guest’s.

Windows SBS 2008

Wayne — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:59:03 +0000

I’ would like to be writing about Windows SBS 2008… but I’m having a hard time getting things up and running.

SBS 2008 is a 64bit OS, because Windows Server 2008 is a 64 bit OS, nothing really surprising about this.

So how do we test new software these days, we tend to use virtual machines.

Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 and Virtual Server 2005 SP1 don’t support x64 installs! They will run on 64 bit OS, such as Vista 64bit, but the CPU is only a virtual 32 bit….. come on Microsoft please fix this!

So I downloaded a trial of VMWare Workstation, it installed OK, no problem…. until I installed SBS 2008 RC0, it requires a min off 2gb ram to install… my system had 3gb… so I ordered 4 x 2gb sticks… £25 each so my PC now has 8GB Ram, great.

Apart from I don’t want to have to keep using trails to play around with SBS 2008 RC0, I just want to be able to play around when I have time too.

So posted on Channel9 and 9er, Hodo, replied saying I could download VMWare server for free!!

Great, downloaded it this evening and it’s hell….

Problem number 1, had to restart Vista to disable drive signing before VM Server worked….

Problem number 2, VMWare server doesn’t support the use for VMWare’s HDD image it’s to new how annoying, now have to reinstall again.

Problem number 3, after settling for reinstalling, VMWare hung…….

Can’t help feeling that MS and VMWare are “behind” with all this, it shouldn’t be this hard.

I’ve not tried this I assume I could install Windows Server 2008 and with the help of HyperV, get SBS2008 up and running using MS Virtual technologies.

Update: I downloaded and installed VMWare Player which is free and allows me to boot the original Workstation VM that I created.

So I’m happy that I can now evaluate, which out the Workstation timing out….

I really do hope MS fixes this is with Virtual PC…….

Vista Complete PC Backup

Wayne — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:48:08 +0000

I purchase a WD MyBook USB drive…. which I have to say I’m liking so far…. Cheapist £50 for 300GB…

Any how I ran Vista Complete PC Backup, Last night, which creates a VHD image of you PC’s HDD.

It doesn’t boot, but you can add it to existing Virtual PC as a second drive and you can access it!

Good stuff to know for any further format and reinstall’s…. although I shouldn’t have to worry about it much longer as I ordered a HP EX470! 500GB and I can add two more drives internally and external USB drives…

I wipe my PC on a fairly regular basis, just installed Vista 64 bit, with 8GB Ram and virtual machines flying with the VHD’s on the WD MyBook……

So I think I’ll have plenty of storage expansion for the future.

Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1

Wayne — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 20:58:55 +0000

This seems to have been kept very quite… Virtual Server now runs on Vista..

At last I can build small test networks…. No information on the blogs that I subscribe to….

Download

Creating A VHD file using Imaging Software

Wayne — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 16:33:53 +0000

I purchased Acronis True Image Workstation last night which claims you can restore the backed up image to a Virtual PC.

I’ve not tried it yet, but I’ll let you know the results. The complete backup thou took 4 hours to backup 80GIG!

Windows Vista VHD CompletePC File..

Wayne — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 19:42:34 +0000

I have tried this and the images doesn’t boot, I have only tried with Virtual PC 2004 SP1 and not with Virtual Server R2 as of yet, I’ll let you know.

Windows Virtual Server/PC VHD files…

Wayne — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 23:42:49 +0000

As Microsoft has opened up the VHD file format would it not be cool if you could use Ghost 9/10 to ghost that PC’s HDD into a VHD file and you could then boot that PC up?

This would be very useful…..

UPDATE: Regarding VISTA Complete PC, see here.