Dugie’s Pensieve

Well like this of course :)

It’s my msn piccy for the next few days - getting into the festive 12 days till christmas thing.

Well what more can be said?  Maybe that there will be Xbox 360s as well, and the ASUS Asteio D22 Media Entertainment System as well!    …oh yeah and it’ll be an awesome night cause there is no PPT slides, it’s just all demos  :) 

The Last BIG [Brisbane Infrastructure Group] Session is on for the year, and naturally it’s on everything you can do with Vista Media Centre — a nice end to the year.  So if you are in Brisbane on the Tuesday 19th and Vista Media Centre is your thing, drop in, say g’day and see everything in action!   

Register on the BIG web site for all the details: http://www.aususergroups.org/Default.aspx?tabid=663

See you there!

Only just getting round to posting this (2 weeks late), but KB 897614 Windows Server System software not supported within a Microsoft Virtual Server environment was updated on November 30.

The line that interested me the most was: ISA Server 2006 is currently supported running within Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2.

A snippet of the KB is below:

The following Windows Server System software is not supported within a Microsoft Virtual Server environment:

• Speech Server requires telephony hardware not available in a virtualized hardware environment. Therefore, Speech Server is not supported when run within Virtual Server.
• ISA Server 2000 is currently not supported running within Virtual Server.
• ISA Server 2004 is currently not supported running within Virtual Server.
• ISA Server 2006 is currently supported running within Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2.
• SharePoint Portal Server is currently not supported running within Virtual Server. Support for SharePoint Portal Server within Virtual Server is expected in a future release.
• Identity Integration Server 2003 is currently not supported running within Virtual Server.
• The Identity Integration Feature Pack is currently not supported running within Virtual Server.

According the the Network Load Balancing (NLB) support team, NLB is not supported within a Virtual Server image.

I got an e-mail earlier in the week asking if there was a “definitive list” of VPC images (both TestDrive and others) on the Microsoft website. 

We’ll I don’t know of a definitive list, but here are 8x VPCs that I know of on Microsoft Downloads:

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 VPC, 3.2Gb
• Internet Explorer 6 Application Compatibility VPC Image, 495Mb
• “Orcas” - September Community Technology Preview (CTP), 3.6Gb
• Visual Studio 2005 Team System Basics Training, 5.2Gb
• SQL Server 2005 TD VHD 2.4Gb
• Windows Server 2003 R2 TD VHD 1.4 Gb
• ISA Server 2006 TD VHD 1.5 Gb
• Exchange Server 2007 TD VHD 1.4

UPDATE:  an updated list can be found in the blog post, repost of virtual machines

I’ve had a big couple of week, and have been neglecting my blog.  So here is a retrospective look at what is on my mind at the moment (pun intended):

• I’m going to add a Wiki to VirtualServer.tv — personally I think blogs are a great way ‘to ride the wave’.  But to absorb the greatest amount of information in the shortest time a wiki is better .
• My thumb in the air prediction for 2007:  Virtualization will be all about the presentation and the management.  I think the clear winners will be the vendors who make virtualization “sinfully easy to use”.  Parallels and Altiris are make strong ground in this department.  I think IT shops will care more about day-to-day operations and not what’s under the hood.
• Fellow Virtualization blogger and all round good guy, Dave Marshall blogged about Vendors Virtualizating Their Wares.  Longer article, good read.
• I’m coming across more home grown Virtualization deployments that could have been done better.  They are not done badly, just could have been better.  I sometime wonder why that is? 
• On the point above I wonder of Virtual Server will ever get its own Trouble Shooting Assistant or Best Practice Analyzer like Exchange?
• A few days ago I updated the BIG website getting in with the Christmas spirit — Maybe I should try and beat Ben Armstong to a Christmas Theme for Virtual Server?

Oh dear, where do I start? At the beginning I guess.

I’m trying to get a 5V 1A USB plug for my motorbike.  The idea is to actively power/charge my KJam and GPS on long bike trips.  That way I can listen to music, record trip times, and stuff.

…So I was trying to wire up a decent headphones into [rather inside] my motor cycle helmet.  I ummm dropped my helmet, on bracket that was holding my Kjam and DC converter.

Everything is more or less ok though.  Busted visor pod on the side of my helmet and the pcb on the converter , the usb plug on the bottom of my Kjam is an odd shape, and I shorted a fuse for the accessories line on my bike.

All up I guess there is only $50 worth of damage, but I think I might have to rethink my plan of attack with some bluetooth headphones or ’something’.

The Microsoft Virtualization Executive Summit is coming to Sydney on Monday 5th March 2007

Mike, Volker and now the Microsoft Virtualization site have already blogged it, but I thought I’d give it a more local flavour :)

A snippit from the Virtualization Summit Registration website is below:

1-Day Virtualization Summit
Technical decisions are as far reaching as business decisions.
This 1-Day Summit specifically for Technical Decision makers is designed to provide you the necessary knowledge and technical details of Microsoft Virtual Server R2 and related technologies to support you in determining and planning your Virtualization roadmap.

Topics of discussion will include:
 ? Microsoft Virtualization Roadmap
 ? Impact of Microsoft Virtualization technologies for your business.
 ? New Licensing models with Virtual Server 2005 R2 and implications
 ? Microsoft Virtualization Products
 ? Virtualization Platform demo
 ? VHD Re-Distribution Program
 ? Virtual Server 2005 R2 Redistribution program
 ? Go To Market Business opportunities enabled by Microsoft 2006 initiatives.
 ? Collaborative Discussions + Networking
 

Happy Birthday to me!  Wow, it’s been 12 months since my last Birthday (funny that) — time went really quick this year.

As always I got some of my pressie’s this morning, the rest I have to wait until after dinner tonight.  I scored:

• 8×3 ‘Maxwell Williams’ plates for BBQs on the deck
• An AstroBoy shirt from Japan - it’s my thing I have from the 80’s
• 2 bottles of ‘everyday’ drinking scotch  :)
• Gold Class tickets for the new Bond film, Casino Royale
• and a 750 Gb drive for the Media Centre

…Rumour has it there is a 30 year old bottle of scotch waiting for me this afternoon - I can’t wait!!

Awwww it’s not fair!!  Parallels Desktop for Mac build 3036 Beta is available for download — and it looks like it has some really cool features.    ….and as the name suggests only runs on Mac.

Check out all the cool features from this thread on the Parallels Forum, I’ve snipped the one that interest me:

• Virtual Machines Catalogue. A very useful feature for those having more than one VM – now all of them are available through centralized VM catalogue which appears on each Parallels Desktop for Mac instance start in case you have more than one VM
• One-click Virtual Machine Aliases:
   Automatically created by OS installation assistant or by drag-and-drop from title bar pressing Command-Option keys combination
   Clicking on Alias automatically starts the Virtual Machine
   Shutting down the VM automatically closes Parallels Desktop for Mac application
• Drag and Drop files and folders between Windows and Mac. A long awaited feature that lets you seamlessly drag and drop files and folders from Windows to Mac OS X and vice versa.
• Coherency. Shows Windows applications as if they were Mac ones. Try it and enjoy best of both worlds truly at the same time. No more switching between Windows to Mac OS.
• Connect/disconnect USB devices schema improved. No more “wait 5-10 seconds” message on USB device connecting to Parallels Desktop for Mac.
• Power On/Power Off/Suspend/Resume/Pause animation. Just try and see. :) We’re very interested in your feedback about the feature.

Words fail me, “I want a Mac?!“.  I’m impressed, The guys at Parallels  are really getting into their product.  If you browse through the forum you can them working with the beta community and shaping the product.  Worth a read.

I mean really, who would have thought that a piece of software [other than Halo] would inspire me so much to go out and buy hardware?  Check out this screen shot of “Coherency” from the forum:

Hmmmm…

Put simply the IE6 VPC is nice - very much “appliance style“, fire it up, and start using it to test your websites, until April next year when it expires. 

….and I’m very cool with that.  I imagine [the different product teams at] Microsoft are just starting to take their first steps into distributing pre-configured OSs as VMs and I think they have done a stellar job so far!  Personally I reckon things will get better and better from here.  Kudos to the IE team for getting it out there and making it available.

Some general points I noticed with the IE6 VPC:

• Grab that 495Mb VPC Image from Microsoft Downloads - You’ll need to go through WGA
• The installer/extractor is different from the TestDrive images, supports the /Q/T/C switches - but just works
• The extracted VHD ifs 1.4 Gb
• There is no VMC, so you have to create you own?   This I thought is odd
• The VHD isn’t Sysprepped, so it just roars to life
• It has a very nice swishy wallpaper
• Check you regional settings, default is as always US time :)
• You can go to and use windows update
• Virtual Machine additions 13.724 are installed - this build is higher than versions in vhd test drive
• IE6 has a bunch of genuinely useful tools to download and run.

I found it odd that you had to create your own VMC?  I imagine there are a bunch of reasons why eula/licensing/networking/etc - but I’m only guessing.  Off topic, I really liked the stylish wallpaper:

Anyway that’s pretty much it.  One last thing though, I did notice this in the EULA:  “You may not change or convert the virtual hard disk image from the VHD format.“  So I’m not sure how that affects people out there using the VMware freebies.  

I might jam off an e-mail and ask.  Keep you posted.