Dugie’s Pensieve

If you’re trying to install Windows 2008 (or in my case 2008 w/ Hyper-V) you are probably going to get the following error:

*** STOP:  0×0000005C (0×000000000000010B, 0×0000000000000003, 0×0000000000000000, 0×0000000000000000)

The solution is to go into the BIOS (F2 at boot) and go to:  Advanced | ACPI Configuration | Advanced ACPI Configuration | IRQ0 Legacy Routing for HPET = [enabled]

Thanks to Chris Midgley for the heads up!

Yup, the announcement was made today at TechEd IT Forum 2007.  Hyper-V will be available in 64 bit versions of:

• Windows 2008 Standard - $999 USD / 1,082 AUD
• Windows 2008 Enterprise - $3,999 USD / 4,335 AUD
• Windows 2008 DataCenter - $2,999 USD (per processor) / 3,250 AUD

Strangely enough you can also purchase editions of Windows without Hyper-V, which will be ~$28 cheaper.  I have my thoughts on why they did this, but I’ll do some digging first before posting a commentary.

So what happens now?  Well I imagine every man and his dog will start writing reports on TCO/ROI that look like this =)

Q:  What is http://www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt and why is it in my proxy logs?!

A: Windows Vista includes a feature called Network Connectivity Status Indicator (NCSI).  For more information see, "Appendix K Network Connectivity Status Indicator and Resulting Internet Communication in Windows" and a snippet is below:

NCSI might communicate with a Web site to determine whether a network has Internet connectivity.  A page called ncsi.txt (http://www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt) containing the following line of text with no terminating new line or other non-printing characters: "Microsoft NCSI".  NCSI can be disabled by changing a registry setting.

Coming to you live from the Windows Home Server Session presented by Todd Headrick and Joel Burt.  The guys have got 4 different servers here from different vendors.  There are pictures below, with an Aussie $20 note for perspective.

UPDATE:  No the speakers, didn’t put the $20 note there.  I did, it’s an Australian thing.

I’m not going to cover what home server is, so for the full review see Paul Thurott’s review.  I will to a write up on the features I use at a later day.  But I have to finish building my arcade cabinet first.

Here is some assorted snippets from all the questions asked during the session today:

• Home server does not use raid, but can duplicate the data to multiple drives.
• Home server installs from a DVD media
• Largest home server storage to date (that he knows of) is 25 drives with 12 Tb of storage
• 35 Software applications are available to run on top of Home Server to do different stuff.
• The inbuilt backup is for Windows XP and Windows Vista machines
• Apple Macs can use the home server as a file server Read the rest of this entry »

Below, is an extract of the  FAQ section for Virtualization and Volume Activation 2.0 whitepapers:

Q. Do virtual servers or virtual machines (VM) add to the KMS count?

A. No. Only physical computers are added to the KMS count.

Q. Can I KMS-activate virtual machines and guest operating systems?

A. Yes, but keep in mind that virtual machines are not added to the KMS count.

Q. Can I MAK-activate virtual machines and guest operating systems?

A. Yes. If MAK activation is used, it is subject to the same hardware tolerance restrictions as on physical machines. This means that if the host hardware changes, the virtual machine may require reactivation. MAK activation of virtual machines is also applied against the MAK activation limit, thus decreasing the activations remaining on the MAK.

Q. What is the guidance for deploying Windows volume editions in virtual machines?

A. When the virtual machine is created, it is recommended to run sysprep /generalize to reset activation and other system-specific information as the last step before storing or capturing the VM image. Optionally, if you do not want to generalize all computer settings, you can run slmgr /rearm to reset the product activation timers only. This can be done a maximum of 3 times.

It is important to run either sysprep /generalize or slmgr /rearm the system before storing an image. This prevents the activation timer from running down while the product is in storage.

Q. Does KMS for Windows 2003 run within a virtual machine?

A. No. KMS for Windows Server 2003 is not supported in a virtual machine. An updated version of KMS for Windows Server 2003 supporting KMS in a virtual machine will be released by Windows Server 2008 launch.

Q. Does Windows Server 2008 support KMS on a virtual machine?

A. Yes. KMS is supported in a virtual machine in Windows Server 2008.

Q. Can I run VAMT on a virtual machine?

A. Yes.

I’ve just finished a technical session on Volume Activation 2.0 with Julius Sinkevicius, a Senior Product Manager, Windows Server Division.

I was impressed to see the amount of thought and planning Microsoft as put into managing licensing/activation with Virtual Machines.

It is recommended to use KMS infrastructure with a dynamic environment for virtual machines (aka:  Microsoft Quick Migration, or VMware VMotion)

MAK activation is not recommended, because there is the risk that a Windows 2008 VM will potentially "deactivate" when moving between hosts.

Microsoft have 6x Whitepapers that have been published today and are available for download "Volume Activation 2.0 Technical Guidance".

Jeff Woolsey has just finished speaking at the Windows 2008 Workshop here in Seattle.  I’ll type up the notes tonight, but there was one slide, I thought was particularly interesting and worth sharing now.

Microsoft Internal IT currently uses Microsoft Virtual Server to host production roles, and are saving HUGE amounts of power and space in their dataceter. 

I previously blogged about Microsoft IT and Virtual Server in my older posts Virtualization Podcast and 7% of Microsoft’s production servers are virtualized.  (On a side note I finally got to meet Devin in person yesterday).

So let’s get to the super gossip.  As I mentioned Microsoft are saving huge amounts of power and space, check out the picture above or the table below:

No, that’s not a typo - Microsoft are saving 517 amps of power using Virtualization!

UPDATE:  I’m going to track down some updated power information in watts.  Keep you posted.

We’ll I’m here in (not so) Sunny Seattle.  The flight over went smoothly, and even the change at LAX went well.  I only got the bag search, and a pat down. Lucky me!

Anyway, now I’m currently sitting in the Microsoft Conference Center with about ~70 others.  All the cool kids are here Paul Thurott is sitting a couple of seats down.  I saw Steven Bink around here too - Still trying to find Alessandro Perilli.  UPDATE:  He’s sitting right behind me =)

We’re all here at the Windows Server 2008 Technical Workshop.  It’s a 3 day workshop covering the 2008 wave of products.  Each day has about 8 technical sessions, delivered by a healthy mix of customers, product teams and vendors. 

Rather than blog each session, I’ll post assorted tidbits in a rollup at the end of each day.  Tomorrow is Hypervisor and all thing Virtualization.

Wednesday I’m off to the EEC (Enterprise Engineering Centre).  The EEC has $40 million USD of hardware and networking equipment - so it’s gotta be cool.  Expect that post to be a long one :)

Better go, Quest is about to demo their new sexy 2008 suite of software.

UPDATE:  The sun is out, and althought a little brisk, its very nice outside.

After a day of cutting, glueing and and drilling, the cabinet is beginning to take shape and looking pretty good.

Only this morning, I started with a couple sheets of MDF/plywood and a jigsaw.  By lunchtime I had the outline of an arcade machine:

And this afternoon, I have this:

Not bad for a day’s effort — I’m really impressed with my progress so far.  There are still a few remaining panels to cut out and glue.  We have rain and thunderstorm here in Brisbane at the moment, so trying to keep everything dry is slowing me down.  I’m not sure if I’ll get too much more done this weekend.

I’ll try and do some more during the week after work.  If I make some good progress I’ll jam together another update before I fly out to Seattle on Saturday.

Keep you posted.

The first step in building my Home Server was decide on an arcade cabinet type (See Update #0 for the story so far).  There are six or seven different types of cabinet (Wikipedia has the complete list) - but I wanted an upright cabinet.

My original plan was to buy a second hand arcade machine, and refurbish it.  As it turned out, buying a second hand cabinet is not that easy in Australia.  Most machines were ~$800+, or pickup only from Sydney (which is 12 hours drive away).

So I decided instead to make my own, with a self imposed budget of $500 AUD.

After a bit of research, I found out quickly, that the arcade controls, can be a time consuming pain in the ass if you don’t know what you’re doing - I admit, I don’t know what I’m doing, so I bought the pre made arcade controls from Xarcade.  Good choice I thought :)

Side Note:  Strangely enough, you just don’t see old school arcade machines anymore, nowadays they tend to be car racing simulators, so measuring up an existing cabinet wasn’t as easy as I thought it was going to be.

I ended up taking a ride to a laundromat out near Ballina just get “hands on” and old arcade machine — I probably didn’t need to, but I knew there was one there, and it was a great excuse to go for a ride :)

 Getting Dimensions, via Google.

• In the end it was just me and google, trawling the web looking for resources
• Getting dimensions was tough - most sites have 404s or just not there anymore.
• I found wiki.arcadecontrols.com, a great place to look around for ideas
• 1.8 m high seems to be the normal height — deluxe cabinets are 2.2 m high (and too expensive for timber)
• If found Jeff McClain’s page a great site for ideas
• and decided on using on Pier’s dimensions
• As for the cabinet width; measure the width of your doors and where you want to put it inside.   No point building it if it wont go inside =)
• My width is 700 mm  

Tracing the Cabinet

• I sketched a couple of plans onto sheets of timber - get a feel for what it would like.
• And make sure the monitor would fit
• For personal preference I moved 77.56 a bit higher, so it was above my knee
• I flattened 60.106 a little bit, to fit the premade controls

Now it all looks, pretty good, so I’m off to starting cutting it out!