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Only SQL 2008 SP1 is supported on Windows 2008 R2.

If you tried installing SQL 2008 from its DVD\ISO you surely got this error message:

In order to install SQL 2008 together with SP1, follow these Steps:

1. Install the prerequisites of SQL 2008:
   • .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 (from Server Manager –> Features –> .Net Framework 3.5.1 Features)
   • Windows Installer 4.5
2. Extract the service pack to a folder on the server using the following command:
   • SQLServer2008SP1-KB968369-x64-ENU.exe /x:C:\SQL2008SP1
3. Run the service pack to install the Setup files
   • C:\SQL2008SP1\x64\setup\1033\sqlsupport.msi
4. Run the Setup.exe file from the SQL 2008 source media by specifying the /PCUSource parameter:
   • Setup.exe /PCUSource=C:\SQL2008SP1

Hi guys,

We held two open houses this week, one on February 22nd at MediaTech Haifa and the other on February 24th at Microsoft Raanana.

I would like to thank the large number of people who attended, it was great hearing your comments and questions.

Attached below are all the PowerPoint decks from the events:

For your reference, these are the major agent versions (as of December 24th, 2009):

1. DPM 2007 SP0 – 2.0.5820.0
2. DPM 2007 SP1 – 2.0.8793.0
3. DPM 2007 SP1 (with KB963102) – 2.0.8824.0
4. DPM 2007 SP1 (with KB968579) – 2.0.8836.0
5. DPM 2007 SP1 (with KB970867) – 2.0.8844.0
6. DPM 2007 SP1 (with KB970868) – 2.0.8851.0
7. DPM 2007 SP1 (with KB976542) – 2.0.8861.0

Microsoft has released a DST update for windows mobile based devices.

Follow this link for details and downloads:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977014

Check out this web page:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/dd565807.aspx

You’ll find plenty of useful links about Hyper-V, including :

• Planning
• Installation
• Guidance
• Deployment
• Management
• Pre-Deployment Tool

and More..

A bit of an Israeli pride..

Core Configurator 2.0 is now available to download from: http://coreconfig.codeplex.com/

If you are unfamiliar with this tool – it is a graphical tool that allows you to configure a whole bunch of system settings on a Windows Server Core installation:

Core Configuration tasks include:

• Product Licensing
• Networking Features
• DCPromo Tool
• ISCSI Settings
• Server Roles and Features
• User and Group Permissions
• Share Creation and Deletion
• Dynamic Firewall settings
• Display | Screensaver Settings
• Add & Remove Drivers
• Proxy settings
• Windows Updates (Including WSUS)
• Multipath I/O
• Hyper-V including virtual machine thumbnails
• JoinDomain and Computer rename
• Add/remove programs
• Services
• WinRM
• Complete logging of all commands executed

Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) is a new feature that was introduced in Windows 2008 R2.

If you want to read more about it, how it works, and how you can enable it. There is a lot of material out there that you can refer to:

• Windows 2008 R2 NLB & Failover Clustering
• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd759255.aspx
• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd630633(WS.10).aspx
• http://blogs.msdn.com/clustering/archive/2009/03/02/9453288.aspx
• http://blogs.msdn.com/clustering/archive/2009/02/19/9433146.aspx

Well, after you’ve setup your cluster, enabled CSV, and added clustered disks to CSV, it is now time to copy your VHD files to those CSV disk. The big question is, which cluster node should you perform this operation on?

We’ll, to make a long story short – Copy it to the node that owns the CSV disk!

The reason this is important is that if you are running the copy on the coordinator node (the node which owns the CSV volume of interest), the writes are all local writes. If you are running the copy on any other node, the writes are actually redirected over the network (because they are extending writes to the file) and not done directly to the volume.

Hope this will save you some much needed time

I’ve summarized several notes about Hyper-V and VMM. It may be useful for you to take it into account when planning or handling Hyper-V platforms.

1. Enabling NLB on a VM
Follow this procedure in case you need to enable NLB on a VM running under Hyper-V 2008. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953828
Note that when your VM is running under Hyper-V 2008 R2, you will no longer need to specify a certain MAC. You will only need to check the option to “Enable MAC spoofing”.
Follow this link for detailed steps: http://robwhitehouse.com/virtualisation/enable-nlb-in-a-hyper-v-guest/

2. Max CPUs per VM
This Technet article shows the max number of allowed CPUs per VMs : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc794868(WS.10).aspx

3. Disk alignment
Set the disk alignment on two levels:

1. On the storage level. Set the alignment of the LUN so that the disk that the Host OS sees will see blocks the same as you storage device.
   Follow this link for best practices for Hyper-V on NetAPP : http://www.netapp.com/us/communities/tech-ontap/tot-hyperv-best-practices-0911.html
   Follow this direct link for the complete document, where you will find additional information regarding disk alignment : http://media.netapp.com/documents/tr-3702.pdf
2. Within the VHD. After aligning the partition on the LUN on the Host server, you should also align the partition that exists within the VHD file. The above link to the NetAPP documentation shows this procedure as well. You should notice, though, these point:

i. 2008 R2 allows you to mount a VHD to the host (without booting it to a VM). This allows you to create / change / align partitions from the host itself, before creating the VM.

ii. Aligning the VHD is only relevant for fixed virtual disks. Alignment of Incremental or dynamic disks won’t last, due to the nature of the file.

4. IDE / SCSI
Your boot disk has to be connected to an IDE controller on the VM (SCSI controller is a synthetic device http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2008.10.hyperv.aspx?pr=blog ). Connect all Other drives to a SCSI controller for better performance.controller.

5. Pass Through Disks
For best application disk performance, use Pass-Through disks. Pass-Through disks will give the VM direct access to a physical drive. For more information on this feature: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc768521(BTS.10).aspx

6. Moving VMs from 2008 to 2008 R2
After moving VMs from a Server 2008 to Server 2008 R2 be sure to install the integration services again.

7. General Host / VM Performance
Follow this link for explanation about measuring basic Memory / CPU / Disk performance: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2008.08.pulse.aspx?pr=blog . Pay special attention to the disk monitoring. It is very likely that you’ve placed several disk intensive VMs on the same LUN.

8. Disconnect ISO files
When working on a Hyper-V cluster, make sure that you disconnect any ISO file from a VM when you’re done using it. Otherwise, when moving or live migrating your VM, it may fail because it wouldn’t find the ISO to connect to on the other node.

9. What’s new in VMM 2008 R2
http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/virtualmachinemanager/en/us/whats-new-r2.aspx

10. Disk size planning
When planning the size of the disk holding the VM’s VHDs, make sure that you have enough free space to save also the VM’s snapshots and entire memory. When Saving / Moving or Live Migrating the VM, the VM’s entire memory content is saved to disk.

The process of mailbox-enabling a user for Exchange 2003-based mailbox was preformed using the Active Directory Users and Computers SnapIn. Using this SnapIn, you could choose to place the mailbox on a DB located on an Exchange 2007 server. That, of course, would be the wrong way to go. The appropriate way of creating a mailbox on Exchange 2007 is to use the Exchange Management Console or the Exchange Management Shell.

Creating an Exchange 2007 mailbox using the mentioned snapIn would leave you with a mailbox that is missing some attributes. These attributes are required for normal operation under Exchange 2007 environment. Your mailbox will appear as “Legacy Mailbox”, rather then “User Mailbox” in the EMC. Usually, “Legacy Mailbox” means that this is a mailbox located on an Exchange 2003 within the same Exchange Organization.

The fix is simple.

Open Exchange Management Shell and run this command on the problematic mailbox:

Set-Mailbox Alias -ApplyMandatoryProperties

Your mailbox’s attributes should have been updated,  and the result will be visible a few seconds later within the EMC.

Further details from Microsoft:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931747

You may have experienced an issue with a Remote Desktop connection to a Server 2008 in which you see black/white grid lines on all or on part of the screen.

This may look something like this:

It appears that this issue is linked to this update : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958470/en-us

Changing the setting of the RD connection (bitrate, colors etc) doesn’t seem to help.

This issue will be resolved when upgrading the client’s RDP version to 6.0 or newer.