Virtualization Deal! Parallels Workstation 6 for $49.99

http://www.parallels.com/landingpage/pcworld

Want to test Windows 8, the new Metro UI, and see what everyone is talking about? You don‘t want to install the Preview on the computer you use every day because you need to stay productive.
We have the answer.
PC users across the country are testing Windows 8 using Parallels Workstation 6! Just install Parallels, download and install Windows 8 in a virtual machine, and you can test it without worry! What if the beta of Win 8 gets corrupted? No worries — just delete the virtual machine and start over with just a few clicks.
Parallels Workstation 6 lets you simultaneously run multiple OS configurations at the same time on Windows and Linux PCs, without rebooting.
Top features include:
• Windows-based & Linux-based applications on the same PC without rebooting
• Drag & drop, copy and paste, share files between Virtual Machines (VMs) as well as the host OS to simplify the movement of data
• Quick VM isolation from the host computer
• Automatically encrypt VMs to improve privacy and security
• Seamlessly move between virtual environments with SmartMouse features, adaptive hypervisor, cut and paste capabilities, shared folders and Windows drag and drop capabilities
And just for PC World readers, you can get Parallels Workstation 6 today for just $9.99!

The $9.99 deal is over, price is now only $49.99, $30 off the list of $79.99,

Get your free NFR license for Veeam Backup & Replication v6 for Hyper-V

http://platform.twitter.com/widgets/hub.1326407570.html

Veeam is offering an NFR license for MVP/MCP/MCTS:

http://www.veeam.com/nfr/free-nfr-license-hyper-v

Get your free NFR license for
Veeam Backup & Replication v6 for Hyper-V

If you are a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP), Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) or a Most Valuable Professional (MVP), you can get a FREE 2-socket NFR* license for Veeam Backup & Replication v6 for your home or work lab.

Register NOW! Get your FREE NFR license from Veeam

*An NFR (Not for Resale) license can only be used for evaluation or demonstration purposes. Read EULA for more details.

 

 

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 SP1 wins gold medal!

Searchdatacenter’s 2011 product of the year award for System Management is SCVMM 2008 R2 SP1!

http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/guide/SearchDataCenter-Products-of-the-Year-Systems-Management-winners-2011

How to access XP Mode’s Network Settings

Changing the Networking settings from Shared Networking (NAT) to the host’s physical network card (NIC) comes up a lot in the forums for XPmode-WinVPC, here are a couple ways to do it.  The XP Mode settings or any WinVPC virtual machine are accessed from Windows 7.  When selecting the NIC you want to use, make sure you select your active NIC.  Your active NIC is the one that is connected to your local network and is how you access your network.  The active NIC can be wireless or wired, or in some cases both your wireless and wired connections may be active.

1. Goto the virtual machines directory on physical computer via explorer, or paste the path below in run or search:

C:\Users\%username%\Virtual Machines

Click once to select XP Mode.  Next, click Settings from the menu bar.    Select Networking.  From the Adapter 1 drop list you can select the host’s active  NIC to allow XP Mode to be on your local network.  You will need an available IP address for XP Mode. 

2. From the XP Mode window, click the Tools menu on the XP Mode window menu.  Select Networking. From the Adapter 1 drop list you can select the host’s active NIC to allow XPMode to be on your local network. You will need an available IP address for XP Mode. 

 

In this case, the active NIC is a Broadcaom NetXtreme 57xx Gigabit controller.  Your NIC may not be the same.

Click OK to close the window.

Once the setting is changed, you need to trigger XP Mode to release the old IP address can get a new one. If you have DHCP you can: simply reboot XP Mode or drop to a command prompt in XP Mode and do the following commands

ipconfig /release

ipconfig /renew

If you do not have a DHCP server, then you will manually need to enter a unique IP address for XP Mode in the same way you did on your Windows 7 computer.

Troubleshooting:

If you get a 169.x.x.x IP address in XP Mode, there are several things that could be the issue:

1. The network card selected is not the active NIC

2. There are no DHCP servers available to lease an IP address or there are no available IP addresses on your network.

Linux Integration Services 3.2 released for Hyper-V

New version of the IC was released yesterday (1-Dec-2011).

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28188

Overview

When installed in a supported Linux virtual machine running on Hyper-V, the Linux Integration Components provide.

Driver support: Linux Integration Services supports the network controller and the IDE and SCSI storage controllers that were developed specifically for Hyper-V.

Fastpath Boot Support for Hyper-V: Boot devices now take advantage of the block Virtualization Service Client (VSC) to provide enhanced performance.

Timesync: The clock inside the virtual machine will remain synchronized with the clock on the virtualization server with the help of the pluggable time source device.

Integrated Shutdown: Virtual machines running Linux can be shut down from either Hyper-V Manager or System Center Virtual Machine Manager by using the “Shut Down” command.

Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) Support: Supported Linux distributions can use up to 4 virtual processors (VP) per virtual machine.

Heartbeat: Allows the virtualization server to detect whether the virtual machine is running and responsive.

KVP (Key Value Pair) Exchange: Information about the running Linux virtual machine can be obtained by using the Key Value Pair exchange functionality on the Windows Server 2008 virtualization server.

Integrated Mouse Support: The cursor is no longer bound to the VMConnect window when used with the Linux Graphical User Interface.

====

New/updated from 3.1 release:

• Synthetic Mouse Support: The virtualized mouse device is no longer bound to the VMConnect window, and can now be used with a RDP session.
• Merged Device Drivers: We now present a single device driver for both IDE and SCSI devices (hv_storvsc).
• Windows 8 Fix: The synthetic network device (hv_netvsc) can now be used with a Windows 8 host, eliminating the hang on boot that was previously seen.
• SCVMM Fix: This release fixes the issue as described in KB2586286.
• Improved Setup Experience: Users now only need to run install.sh (as root) to automatically detect the correct architecture and install the appropriate drivers.

 

Windows VPC Networking Options explained

Reposted from the Windows Virtual PC help file (it always amazes me how many people ask for explanations about this on the forums, when they have the answer in their local help file):

Configure networking for virtual machines

You can configure networking to provide virtual machines with different types of network connectivity. A virtual machine can have as many as four network adapters enabled, each of which can be configured to use a different type of networking. You can use the following types of networking in a virtual machine:

• Internal network. This option provides networking between virtual machines only. This type of network connection is useful when you want to provide a networking communications channel to the virtual machines on one physical computer while isolating the virtual machines from all external networks, both wired and wireless, as well as the host operating system.
• <Network adapter name> (on host operating system). This option is sometimes referred to as “bridged mode”. It uses a physical network adapter to connect the virtual machine to a physical TCP/IP-based network as a separate computer. The virtual machine appears and operates like a separate physical computer on the network. You use this option by selecting the name of the physical network adapter that is connected to the network you want to use. You can choose from both wired and wireless network adapters.
• Shared networking (NAT). This option is available for the first network adapter in the virtual machine. It allows the virtual machine to share one connection to a physical TCP/IP network with the host operating system. When you use this option, the virtual machine is not listed as a separate computer on the network. This is useful if you regularly move the host between different network configurations, if you want to connect the virtual machine to the Internet through a broadband or dial-up connection used by the host, including a virtual private network (VPN) connection, or if there is a shortage of IP addresses. However, performance is not as fast as the performance offered by bridged mode.
  If the Windows 7 host uses a wireless WAN (WWAN) device to connect to the Internet and you want a virtual machine to be able to use this connection, you must configure the virtual machine to use shared networking (NAT).

	Note
	A network adapter that is disconnected from all available networks is listed as Not Connected. You can connect a network adapter to a network regardless of the state of the virtual machine. However, a virtual machine must be off before you can add or remove a network adapter—it cannot be running or hibernated. For information about closing a virtual machine, see Close a virtual machine.

To configure networking for a virtual machine

1. Open the settings for the virtual machine. Do one of the following:
   • In the Virtual Machines folder, right-click the name of the virtual machine, and then click Settings.
   • From the virtual machine window, click the Tools menu, and then click Settings.
2. In the left pane of the Windows Virtual PC Settings page, click Networking.
3. To add or remove a network adapter, click the new number of network adapters you want. When you add a network adapter, it is disconnected.
4. To connect the network adapter to an available type of connection, select it from the drop-down list next to an available network adapter.
5. Click OK to save the change.

 

Caught! The elusive XP Mode password window!

After reading dozens of threads where the poster says there was a never a prompt for them to enter a password for XPMode, I’ve finally tracked down this elusive beast while setting up my new work laptop.

Behold!

Notice how the Next button is grayed out?  You can’t proceed with the install until you enter a password.

Default installation folder is:

C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Virtual PC\Virtual Machines\

Does your CPU have what it needs to run Hyper-V 3.0 with Windows 8?

Mark Russinovich does it again with a sweet little tool, CoreInfo.

Coreinfo is a command-line utility that shows you the mapping between logical processors and the physical processor, NUMA node, and socket on which they reside, as well as the cache’s assigned to each logical processor.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cc835722

You will need to download, extract and run as an administrator with the -v option.

-v	Dump only virtualization-related features including support for second level address translation. (requires administrative rights on Intel systems).

here’s my i7-2620m: ( the “-” means not present, the “*” means present/supported)

Also:
Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU       M 560 @ 2.67GHz
x86 Family 6 Model 37 Stepping 5, GenuineIntel
HYPERVISOR      –       Hypervisor is present
VMX             *       Supports Intel hardware-assisted virtualization
EPT             *       Supports Intel extended page tables (SLAT)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU       X 980  @ 3.33GHz
Intel64 Family 6 Model 44 Stepping 2, GenuineIntel
HYPERVISOR      -       Hypervisor is present
VMX             *       Supports Intel hardware-assisted virtualization
EPT             *       Supports Intel extended page tables (SLAT)

Parallels Workstation 6 for Windows and Linux released!!

It’s been a long time since Parallels gave the Win/Linux community any workstation love!

I bought the upgrade to 4 back in 2009!  They had a small booth at the Cloud Expo in Santa Clara.

Too bad I missed Kurt S. from the Connectix days.

http://www.parallels.com/products/workstation/

Top Features Include:

Tested and certified on a wide variety of Windows editions and  Linux distributions to support your efforts across multiple environments.

• VM configuration capabilities for CPU and RAM allocations on a  per VM basis to help enforce good neighbor policies.

• Configurable VM isolation for advanced testing scenarios.

• Adaptive hypervisor improves performance for active window  applying the computers power where you need it most.

•  Fast virtual machines with Intel VT-x2 support (VPiDs, EPT & Flexpriority) taking  advantage of the latest hardware improvements.

• Plug and play support for a wide range of USB 1.1 and 2.0 devices.

• USB smart connections remember assignments or default to your desired configuration  eliminating reconfiguration.

• Easy virtual networking to enable moving between offices, networks and more.

• Drag and drop, copy and paste, share files between Virtual Machines as well as the host OS to simplify the movement of data.

• Coherence simplifies interaction by integrating application from multiple VMs onto the host desktop for easy access.

• Configure undo-disks to automatically reset VMs to their original starting state enabling rapid testing scenarios and share computer support for labs and  classrooms.

• Remotely start, stop & reset virtual machines without physically sitting at the computer extending administrators management reach.

• Access VMs and their applications from iPads and iPhones with Parallels Mobile allowing you to take your workstation with you, virtually.

• Easily convert physical environments into virtual machines with the Parallels Transporter application.

• Automatically encrypt virtual machines to improve privacy and security.

Supported Host OS Software

32-bit:

• Windows 7

• Windows Vista SP1, SP2

• Windows XP Pro SP3

• Windows XP Home SP3

• Debian 6.0

• Fedora 14, 15

• RHEL 6, 6.1

• SLED 11 SP1

• Ubuntu 10.10, 11.04

64-bit:

• Windows 7

• Windows Vista SP1, SP2

• Windows XP Pro SP2

• Debian 6.0

• Fedora 14, 15

• RHEL 6, 6.1

• SLED 11 SP1

• Ubuntu 10.10, 11.04

Hyper-V as a vSphere VM/Nested x64 OSes on VMWare ESXi/Workstation 8

I’ve been playing around with the new vSphere 5 Hypervisor (ESXi5) lately and I came across a few cool tricks from virtuallyghetto (http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2011/07/how-to-enable-support-for-nested-64bit.html):  running x64 VMs on ESXi5 while itself is a VM under Workstation 8 and running VMs under Hyper-V server under ESXi.

Running a Hyper-V VM while Hyper-V is itself a VM under ESXi5 does work, it’s not really something you’d want to do, unless you’re masochistic.  I was able to get Windows 2000 Pro running walking as a VM successfully.  The stability of ESXi seems to be greatly affected by doing this also, since my ESXi host hung at some point overnight.