One of my favourite fellow MVPs, Barb Bowman, posted a rant today about the latest Microsoft product to ship with no support for 64-bit users. In this case, a "professional" photographic tools application, Pro Photo Tools v1.

For shame, Microsoft. It's your OS. Support it! Barb is, as usual, right.

Charlie.

SCVMM 2007 is Microsoft's outstanding product for managing multiple Virtual Server instances across your enterprise. Frankly, I loved it. It made dealing with VS so much easier, and allowed me to build a library of solutions that I could quickly and easily deploy on any server in my environment. It was a huge time saver, and really easy to work with. All in all, one of the best Microsoft "version 1" products I've worked with. But then I moved my environment to Hyper-V, since I had to be able to support 64-bit guests. (Actually "child partitions" in Hyper-V terms.) Both Cougar and Centro (more properly known as "Windows Small Business Server 2008" and "Windows Essential Business Server 2008" or simply SBS2k8 and EBS) are based on Windows Server 2008 x64, so I clearly needed to move to Hyper-V.

Unfortunately, SCVMM 2007 doesn't support Hyper-V, at all. So I've been impatiently waiting for a version of SCVMM that did. And now, finally, there is a public beta for SCVMM 2008. The link here is to a self-nomination page for the beta, but if you have trouble with the link, just go to Connect, log in, and find the link for SCVMM 2008.

Charlie.

One of the changes in Hyper-V RC0 is that you can no longer use a mouse in a remote RDP session until  you have the Integration Components installed into the VM. Well, that's a royal pain if you don't happen to be sitting at the console of your server. However, there is a workaround - run the VMConnect application locally on you Vista 64 desktop (or laptop), but use it to connect to the remote session.

When you install the Hyper-V Remote Management components on your Vista box, it installs both virtmgmt.msc, the Hyper-V Manager console, and VMConnect.exe. Both are installed in %ProgramFiles%\Hyper-V, which is not on your path by default. So, I use a couple of little PowerShell aliases to get around the problem. In my $profile, I've added the following two lines:

set-alias hyperv -value "C:\Program Files\Hyper-V\virtmgmt.msc"
set-alias vm -value "C:\Program Files\Hyper-V\vmconnect.exe"

now, to connect to a VM, I simply type:

PSH> vm <hostname> <vmname>

and I'm in business.

Charlie.

I ran across a perfect commentary on how the life of a Microsoft MVP works, in this comic on the xkcd site. Of course, it was sent to me originally by my wife. Wonder what she was trying to tell me...

Adobe has finally announced that PhotoShop CS4 will have a 64-bit version. Gee, took them long enough. The C-Net article on this is here.

Charlie.

If you've upgraded to RC0 of Hyper-V, you can run into a problem creating a new VM that is based on Server 2008 RTM, since the Integration Components (IC's) are out of sync. This means you won't have the drivers for the new synthetic NIC, for example. And if you're working over an RDP session to the parent partition, you'll have major mouse problems in the VM as well. So, the workaround is to get the new IC's loaded into the VM as quickly as possible. To do that, you have two choices:

• Create the VM with a legacy NIC so you can connect to a network share where you've stored the Windows6.0-KB949219-x64.msu file (or the x86 version if this is a 32-bit VM)
• Create an ISO file with the .msu inside the ISO and then mount the ISO for the VM.

You can use your favourite tool to create the ISO - we generally use MagicISO, but unfortunately it's currently somewhat broken in Vista SP1 or Server 2008 - you can't activate it.

Now, as soon as Server 2008 has finished the basic install and you have logged in to the initial GUI session, press Shift-F10 to open a command window. Connect to the network share if you're using the first method, or change directory to the DVD drive letter if you're using the second. Run the appropriate MSU file (Windows6.0-KB949219-x64.msu for 64bit). This will install the IC's and you can finish configuring your installation. A bit of a kludge, but this should all get sorted by the time we get to RTM. Or at least I hope so.

Charlie.

OK, we've all complained about unnecessary services and silent installs, but to give them credit, Microsoft has done a pretty good job of cutting back on that sort of thing. Heck, they even allow installing a server without a GUI, finally. So I recently broke down and bought an iPod. I had a Zune, and it was pretty lame, but when the new software (v2.x) got installed, it became totally useless. Time to break down and buy an iPod - at least it also supports Audible books, which is a big plus for me. So, I get a nice little iPod Nano, 2nd generation. 2 GB is enough for me, and I can even swim with it thanks to H2O Audio. But ever since I installed the mandatory iTunes, which also installs the horrible QuickTime, my system has been slow to start up and a bit odd behaving. So, I started investigating. First to go was killing the QuickTime startup. I don't want it, don't need it, and don't want it. Plus, it kept phoning home to see if it could update or sell me an "improved" version. No thanks!

But that wasn't enough, apparently, since it was still slow starting up. And now I noticed a new service running "Bonjour Service". I NEVER installed or asked for anything called Bonjour, and it won't uninstall from add/remote programs. Grrr. Ah, I see, it's a service. And it's got some DNS sniffing software it runs. NOT nice, definitely NOT something that should be running on my network. So, I disabled the service, rebooted, and uninstalled and then ripped the registry to remove every trace of it. And you know what? My iPod still works just fine, and the Apple iTunes doesn't even complain. So, why install it? I don't know, but I'm NOT a happy camper. Anyone know a way to get software onto an iPod without having to use iTunes?

Charlie.

Update: Barb Bowman suggested I look at Anapod, from Red Chair Software. Looked interesting, and even claimed to do Audible support (though there are indications that it only does Audible Type4, which is a nuisance.) So I downloaded the trial software, installed it, and found out it's a BRAIN DEAD 32-bit only application that doesn't work with 64-bit Windows. Uninstalled. Filed in /dev/null. When, oh when, will folks figure this out?

For those of you testing or using Hyper-V as your virtualization solution, the good news is that they appear to be on track for a final release by the end of the summer. Microsoft has just announced the release of the Hyper-V RC. This update adds Vista SP1 and XP SP3 support, and includes the Hyper-V Manager for Windows Vista SP1.

If you've been using the beta version of Hyper-V that shipped as part of Windows Server 2008, or an earlier version, you'll have some specific steps to follow to update your environment, but once you get everything converted, you should be good to directly upgrade from the RC to the final release.

Update: The Vista Hyper-V Manager tools are now available for download. There are tools for Vista 32-Bit and for Vista 64-bit.

Charlie.

In the public 64-bit Windows newsgroup, we often get questions about memory usage, and a recent post there made me realize that there are some basic misunderstandings about the relationship between memory, virtual memory address space, and RAM. 

32-bit Windows uses a flat memory address space, thus is limited to 4 GB of memory addresses. This is divided up 2 GB for individual user programs, and 2 GB for the operating system. It doesn't matter if you have 4 GB of RAM, or 512 Mb of RAM, it's the same virtual memory address space. This means that in order to directly address the memory used by video cards, and other such things on your computer, the OS has to be assign those specific addresses to that memory, and it's locked away and can't be seen - effectively making your memory address space smaller. But each user program that runs gets its own 2 GB of virtual memory address space, regardless of the RAM in your machine. There are even programs that can access >2 GB of memory address space, IF you configure Windows to allow it - using the /3GB boot switch. This effectively limits the OS to only 1 GB of virtual memory address space for its own operations, however, causing the operating system to effectively starve if there's a lot of I/O or other demands on the OS itself, so it isn't recommended for ordinary usage. Especially since only specially written programs can take advantage of it.

Now, RAM. If you have 8 GB of RAM, running 32-bit Windows Vista, you simply can't see any of the RAM >4GB - there's no address space to communicate with it. So, if you have >4GB of RAM, you _need_ 64-bit Windows. (There is one exception to this, using something called /PAE, but it's not supported on all versions of 32-bit Windows and has a significant speed penalty, so is
generally not recommended.)

Whether a particular program that uses 1 GB of _memory_ will have all of the program in RAM is a decision that the operating system makes. It may decide to offload some of that to virtual memory, or may leave it all in RAM, depending on the other requirements of the system.

In 64-bit Windows, the memory address space is 16 TB. 8TB for user programs and 8TB for the operating system. 32-bit programs running in 64-bit Windows run in the WOW64 subsystem. Each 32-bit program is assigned a 4 GB virtual memory address space in the WOW64 subsystem - with no requirement for the OS which is still running in the 8 TB of virtual memory address space it gets.
So, if your 32-bit program is written to take advantage of >2GB of memory (using the LARGEMEMORYADDRESSAWARE compiler switch), it will automatically see a full 4GB.

Charlie.

Interesting review of Arctic Cooling's CPU heatsink/coolers on AnandTech today. I've been using and very much liking the Freezer Pro line of coolers from them for a while, finding them extremely quiet and very effective. Well, Anand agrees with me, and honestly, he's much more thorough and scientific about it. I have used these coolers on Opteron, Athlon 64, and Intel 775 socket motherboards, and they're now part of my standard order when building a new system. I've personally noticed a >5 C drop in temperature on a board where I had originally built it with the standard AMD fan on a 3800+. And the noise reduction was also quite noticeable. So, for ~$25 each? Well worth the money!

Charlie.

While I'm talking about Hyper-V and Server 2008, let me thank Ben Armstrong for a great post on how to get Hyper-V setup and configured on Server Core. Of course, as I just posted, I needed a bit of Terminal Server RemoteApps help to get it all working.

Charlie.

Originally known as "TS Rail", the RemoteApps feature of Windows Server 2008 makes Terminal Servers an absolute essential on everyone's network. There is no way I won't have a TS running full time from here on out, and RemoteApps is the reason. So, what's so cool about it? Utter transparency. The application behaves just as if I were running it on my local machine, but I don't have to have it loaded there - just on the terminal server. And it's a great workaround for applications that are ONLY available on Server 2008, or for any direct management of Server 2008 from your desktop, since we all know that the new AdminPak still isn't available for Vista. So, what got me excited about it today? Getting around a major PITA with Hyper-V. Here's the scenario:

• New Hyper-V server running Server Core (hp380-core-08, 192.168.51.8)
• It's in the other office
• It's not in the same domain as my desktop (it's in example.local)

There's no way to configure Hyper-V on the new server. I can't Remote Desktop to it (different domain, and it just doesn't like it.) Even if I could, the Hyper-V Management Console won't run on it because it's Server Core. So, what to do?

1. Remote Desktop in to the TS (hp350-ts-05, 192.168.51.5, running the x64 version of Windows Server 2008, build 17119, the public Hyper-V enabled version.)
2. Open ServerManager, add the Remote Administration feature, including the Hyper-V Tools
3. Open the Hyper-V Manager and connect to the HP380-core-08 server.
   
4. Open Administrative Tools ->Terminal Services -> TS RemoteApp Manager
5. Click on Add RemoteApp Programs in the Actions pane. Click Next.
6. Click Browse, navigate to Hyper-V folder, and change the File Name type to All Files (*.*).
7. Select virtmgmt and click Open. Repeat 6 and select vmconnect. Click Open.
8. Click Next and then click Finish.
9. Highlight the two files in the RemoteApps Programs section and click Create Windows Installer. Select the defaults for the wizard to create two .MSI files.

Now all you need to do is copy those MSI files to your local workstation, and install them like any other programs.

Once you've installed them, you can run the Hyper-V Manager, or the Hyper-V Connect application (the "VMRC" of Hyper-V) on your workstation. Even though Microsoft hasn't made either of these available for Windows Vista 64bit yet.

So, I used the Hyper-V Manager application to create a new VM (hp380-srv-03), and connected to it using the vmconnect application as shown here:

Now this is cool. And gives me the tools I need, on my desktop, transparently.

Charlie.