The Hyper-V RTM is here, and should be downloadable today, according to this TechNet blog. As anyone who reads this blog knows, I'm a big fan of Hyper-V and I'm really glad to see it RTM. This may be a MS v1.0, but it's a solid product that brings serious hypervisor-based virtualization down to a price point for the rest of us. And, frankly, I like it better in a myriad of ways than the major competitors. Yes, there are things I want that aren't there yet. But this is a real winner and it's certainly made my life and environments a whole lot better.
Update: There's an excellent blog post by Rick Claus on the Canadian IT Pro Connection. Good reading with all the details and links that work.
Charlie.
OK, I knew that I could use "/" in PowerShell just about anywhere that Windows CMD wanted "\" - PowerShell is smart enough to figure out what I mean in almost every case. So:
PSH> cd c:/temp
works exactly the same as:
PSH> cd c:\temp
This works the same for executing commands and in PS1 scripts, making life easier for those of us who learned our scripting (and our command lines) at the Korn (or Bourne or bash or even C) shell prompt. And, I might add, this works in every version of PowerShell.
What's new, however, is that forward slashes now work in plain old Windows CMD windows. Yup, on my Vista SP1, and my Server 2008 boxes both. Open a "DOS" window (really cmd.exe) and try it.
C:\Users\Charlie> cd /
C:\> cd /d D:/download/PowerShell
D:\download\PowerShell>
Hunh. Who knew? Nice addition, Microsoft. Combine that with the support for symlinks and you've almost got something useful. But really, I'll stick to my PowerShell window 99% of all command line work. Really the only time I need a CMD window is when haven't yet been able to install Posh yet.
Charlie.
The public beta of Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 is now available on the Microsoft Connect site for download. This is a major update for WHS - not only does it fix the corruption issue that has plagued WHS in certain scenarios, but it also adds full support for Vista 64-bit clients. I've been working with this for months now, getting more and more excited, but unable to talk about it. FRUSTRATING! But the wraps are off now, and I can tell you that the fixed WHS ROCKS! Seriously. It's faster. A LOT faster. It works with TiVo's TiVo Desktop 2.6.1 to serve up hundreds of GB's of recorded television. It backs up all my key computers here, including my two 64-bit laptops, and my 64-bit desktop. And it stores backups in a LOT less space than you'd think. Because WHS is smart about storing backups - it only stores a single copy of any duplicated data. So if you've got Office installed on three separate machines, chances are there's a lot of duplicates there. And WHS is smart enough when it saves the image of each of the three computers to only save one copy.
But backups are only as good as the ability to restore, and this is where I'm really happy. The restore JFW! (just effing works!) I know, because it saved me a tonne of work last week. For reasons I'd really rather not go into, I had to do a complete rebuild my Acer Ferrari laptop. Now I have been backing the Ferrari up without thinking about it for weeks, along with 9 other computers in my network, including the SBS server. Automatically. In fact, I've never done ANY configuration - just joined the Ferrari to the Home Server. (And note that we run in a Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 domain here, and I didn't have to exit the domain or do any changes to my normal domain environment at all.)
So, how easy (and foolproof) was the restore? Couldn't possibly have been easier. I took the dual-boot restore CD, put it in the Ferrari's DVD drive, plugged the Ferrari into the network, and turned the power on. When it booted to the CD, it offered me two choices for a boot image - one with less than 512 Mb of RAM, or one with more. The Ferrari has 2 GB, so that was an easy choice. Then I hit enter a couple of times, gave it the password to the Home Server, and in 38 minutes it had completely and perfectly restored my system drive. Popped the CD out, and rebooted and I was in business. I didn't need to know anything special or do any tricks - it just worked.
I'm completely convinced - this is the single best ordinary user PC backup I've ever seen. And I've written dozens of chapters on backups in our various books, and used many, many different programs to do backups. None have been as easy, as space efficient, and as painless to restore with. I love it. If you never use WHS for anything else, buy it for the backup alone. But while you've got it, take advantage of all the other stuff as well. Make it your TiVo server. Store your family's files, music and photos on it. Use it to connect to your computers at home when you're on vacation (it uses the Remote Web Workplace technology from SBS, and we all know how well that works!)
In short? This is a winner.
Charlie.