Windows Vista Performance and Tuning

Overview Series: Windows Vista® Performance and Tuning
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ab377598-a637-432c-a3c8-1607ab629201&DisplayLang=en

Windows Vista and SP1 focus on delivering greater performance and overall system responsiveness. By striking a balance between speed and responsiveness, Windows Vista and SP1 deliver a level of performance that has the greatest positive impact on the system's usability.This guide looks at the following areas of performance improvement:• Making configuration changes that help a computer feel more responsive when you use it.• Using hardware to boost the actual physical speed of a computer.• Making configuration changes that help a computer to start faster.• Making the computer more reliable may help increase performance.• Monitoring performance occasionally so that you can stop problems before they get too big.

Hyper-V Planning and Deployment Guide

Hyper-V Planning and Deployment Guide
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5da4058e-72cc-4b8d-bbb1-5e16a136ef42&DisplayLang=en

This guide includes information about hardware requirements and limits, supported guest operating systems, and instructions for installing the role and management tools.

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Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator Version 2.07

Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator Version 2.07
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=12cb3c1a-15d6-4585-b385-befd1319f825&DisplayLang=en

This is the latest version of the Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator for Windows 2003, XP and 2000.
The Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator enables connection of a Windows host to an external iSCSI storage array using Ethernet NICs. This download can be installed on Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000. For Vista and Windows Sever 2008, the iSCSI initiator is included inbox. The Microsoft iSCSI software initiator makes it possible for businesses to take advantage of existing network infrastructure to enable block-based Storage Area Networks without having to invest in additional hardware.
Supported architectures include x86, x64(both Intel and AMD), and IA64 platforms

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Reading: Windows Physical Memory Limits

There is a new very good post from Mark Russinovich Blog speaking about Physical Memory limits in Windows 32 and 64 bits. Another great reading about Windows platform internals that i would recommend.

Pushing the Limits of Windows: Physical Memory
http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2008/07/21/3092070.aspx

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Recommended reading: System Center Solutions

I would recommend to read the following newly published documents about Microsoft System Center:

Managing Data Server Compliance

System Center provides a range of data center management solutions that help customers to proactively manage their environment. System Center delivers an integrated and extensible suite of solutions for configuration management, server compliance, end-to-end monitoring, and data protection and recovery that help lower costs while improving the overall operational efficiency of the data center.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=f5db44ae-7017-43fc-a65b-4948173c409d&DisplayLang=en

Managing the Dynamic Desktop
For IT professionals responsible for deploying, managing and securing the desktop resources of their organizations, new challenges are emerging. Workforce and work style changes require access to applications and data in more ways than ever. Users now expect work environments to reflect their mobile lifestyles. Organizations are supporting this user mobility, as they believe employing these users will lead to productivity improvements and a competitive advantage...
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5602e0c4-fc01-43d0-b707-4850b3c10105&DisplayLang=en

End to End Monitoring
Data centers are undergoing tremendous change. Enterprises are increasing their investments in the data center to take advantage of economies of scale and improved security. At the same time, more IT services and applications that require increased service levels for uptime and responsiveness are moving into the data center...
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=84069127-256c-4c59-bc54-7e452881a99d&DisplayLang=en

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Visio 2007 Add-In for Rack Server Virtualization

If you need to draw your virtual infrastructure there is a new add-in for Visio may be useful for you in elaborating your diagram.

"Rack Server Virtualization Add-in provides the capability to pull the rack-server data either from an Excel spread sheet or from the user and render the Visio diagram."

Microsoft Office Visio 2007 Professional Add-In for Rack Server Virtualization (Virtual Rack)http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=3250331a-0116-4064-92d1-50b9b0727b75&DisplayLang=en

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PowerShell networking cmdlets and... PowerShell stickers!

/nSoftware delivers a package called netCmdlets to improve the newtwork manageability trough Windows PowerShell. The distribution include useful PowerShell cmdlets to accomplish tasks with the major network protocols such SNMP, LDAP, DNS, HTTP, SMTP, FTP and much more. You can download an evaluation version here:
http://www.nsoftware.com/PowerShell/netcmdlets/default.aspx

Another wonderful thing /nSoftware is offering is a little gadget: the PowerShell stickers for your car and your laptop... you can order at the following link: http://www.nsoftware.com/PowerShell/promo

I just now placed an order and will hope to receive it very soon!

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Windows Server 2008 Workstation Converter

This is a very useful tool to convert your Windows 2008 Server in an excellent workstation with Windows Vista functionalities and also take advantage of Windows Server roles such Hyper-V.

Windows Server 2008 Workstation Converter
http://www.win2008workstation.com/

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Andrea Tedeschi Blog Linkedin Profile andrea (at) andreatedeschi (dot) com

Generating PowerShell help in MS Word

The Powershell Team posted today a nice script to combine in a Word document all the topics from the Get-Help command. You can copy the script text in a .ps1 file or simply paste it in your script editor and run it. Here I'm using PowerGUI Script Editor:

Don't forget to remove any blank line from the code, otherwise you will get an error like the following:

Here's the post from the team Blog:
http://blogs.msdn.com/powershell/archive/2008/07/18/dude-where-s-my-manual.aspx

The original PowerShell graphical help in HTML format is available at the following links:

Windows PowerShell Graphical Help File
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3B3F7CE4-43EA-4A21-90CC-966A7FC6C6E8&displaylang=en

Windows PowerShell Graphical Help File (Version 2.0)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=FEFB2572-559A-46FE-978D-5A00490B20FA&displaylang=en

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Recommended download: Infrastructure Planning and Design

There is an updated version of the IPD guide on the Microsoft website that i would recommend. The IPD guides are the new System Reference Architecture and are very useful in understanding Microsoft Server technologies and scenarios. The current release contains alsothe virtualization themes, covering Windows Server Virtualization (Hyper-V and Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1) and now so also System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 and Operations Manager 2007.

The Windows Server Virtualization .zip archive consists of one Word document plus a Power Point presentation. The document treats the most common scenarios about planning and deploying server virtualization, consolidation, backup, storage and network architecture.

Infrastructure Planning and Design download page
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ad3921fb-8224-4681-9064-075fdf042b0c&DisplayLang=en

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HP Performance Optimized Datacenter

As SUN Microsystem did more than two years ago (http://www.sun.com/products/sunmd) and the more recent IBM Green Project announcement in June (http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/presskit/21440.wss) now also HP is offering datacenters as shipping containters. This 40-foot container (formally named POD) has the ability to store up to 3.500 CPU's and 12.000 HDD's.

HP Performance Optimized Datacenter
http://h30424.www3.hp.com/pod/?jumpid=go/pod

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Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool

The Microsoft Solution Accelerator Team recently announced the release of a new tool to allow the management and patching of the offline virtual machines. This will allow an administrator to update an offline set of virtual machines with the latest patches, avoiding the security risks associated to exposing an outdated system into the network when putting back online the virtual machine.

The Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool works with System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 and with either Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 or Microsoft Windows Server Update Services to manage the updates.



Finally, this tool will compete with VMWare Update Manager plug-in who has the ability to manage updates on ESX nodes so also Linux and Windows guest. So this is another more competitive feature that brings Microsoft Virtualization and Hyper-V at the top level of this market channel.

More informations available on the official page:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc501231(TechNet.10).aspx

The customers can download the tool here:
Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=8408ecf5-7afe-47ec-a697-eb433027df73&DisplayLang=en

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How to test Hyper-V with Failover Clustering

This link to the Microsoft Download Certer will help all people who wants to approach the Failover Clustering in Hyper-V to take advantage of the High Availability solution offered by the combination of these two technologies. Here you can find an easy step-by-step guide on how to configure the failover cluster and make your virtual machines high availables. You will need an Active Directory environment and at least two phisycal nodes with Hyper-V requirements and two network adapters (on this argument I will post an article soon) and an iSCSI SAN device or a third host to emulate the iSCSI SAN (for example with WinTarget software). At the end of the setup you will test the planned and unplanned failovers.

Step-by-Step Guide for Testing Hyper-V and Failover Clustering
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=cd828712-8d1e-45d1-a290-7edadf1e4e9c&DisplayLang=en

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How to graphically manage Windows with PowerGUI

I believe we should to mention this nice open source project based on Windows PowerShell that allows you to graphically manage your Windows systems using the PowerShell commands so also create and store your own script's archive. The PowerGUI contains a pre-built Active Directory, Exchange 2007, Operation Manager 2007 and Networking Power Packs with the most common shell scripts. Later you can see some screenshots of the tool...

Visit http://www.powergui.org to download and install the PowerGUI.



A sample to get the list of running processes with statistics (Get-Process).



This is the PowerGUI built-in script editor:



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Speeding UP the PowerShell

The following solution is taken from the Windows PowerShell Team Blog. If you work with the PowerShell you noticed an annoying delay when opening the console, at the following link you will find definitely the solution for this issue. You can copy the code, run the PowerShell as Administrator and simply-paste-it-and-enjoy...

Here's the post:
http://blogs.msdn.com/powershell/archive/2008/07/11/speeding-up-powershell-startup.aspx
and here's the code:
http://blogs.msdn.com/powershell/archive/2007/11/08/update-gac-ps1.aspx

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PowerShell management Library for Hyper-V

On CodePlex you can download a very useful library for Hyper-V management trough Windows PowerShell. The library consist of more than 60 functions to manage VM's (start, stop, suspend, get properties, enumerate and much more). The archive contains also two functions and a .reg file to import and configure your machine to mount and unmount your virtual hard disks on the parent partition by right-clicking directly on the .vhd files.

Here is the project link: http://www.codeplex.com/PSHyperv
Version 0.9 Beta: http://www.codeplex.com/PSHyperv/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=15127

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Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and BitLocker

Recently Microsoft has published on its download site an interesting document about how to secure Hyper-V installations with BitLocker technology on Windows Server 2008. The solution is very useful in certain situations (for example, server consolidation on remote locations where physical security may be an issue) when you want to protect your installations from unhautorised access.

Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and BitLocker Drive Encryption

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2c3c0615-baf4-4a9c-b613-3fda14e84545&DisplayLang=en

To use Bitlocker you require a TPM enabled hardware, and to format your hard disk according to indications. You can find all information you need on BitLocker at the following link:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/aa905065.aspx

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Linux Integration Components for Hyper-V are RC2

For those interested in running a Linux Operating System on the guest partition on Windows Server Hyper-V there is a good new: on the Microsoft connect Web Site are now available the integration components for Linux RC2 with some improvement (but still in development).

- Mouse support for syntetic mouse device
- FastPath Boot Support to provide better performances

You can download the new IC's from here:
Linux Integration Components For Microsoft Hyper V
https://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=495


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Hyper-V Monitor Gadget for Windows Sidebar

Hyper-V Monitor Gadget for Windows Sidebar is a nice gadget for Windows Sidebar to accomplish some basic tasks on Hyper-V machines. Take a look at this URL:
http://mindre.net/post/Hyper-V-Monitor-Gadget-for-Windows-Sidebar.aspx

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