How to extend the Windows Server 2008 evaluation period

Useful if your running the Virtual PC image of VS 2010 etc

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948472

Using .img or .iso files

Some downloads come in the for of a single .iso or .img file.

Common utilities for writing ISO file to recordable media such as DVD-R include Nero, and Roxio. The contents of image files can be used as virtual discs using utilities such as ISObuster, Daemon Tools or Virtual CloneDrive for Windows Vista

IIS URL Rewrite Module – Go Live Release

From: http://blogs.iis.net/ruslany/archive/2008/09/11/url-rewrite-module-go-live-release.aspx

“The IIS team has made the Go Live release of URL Rewrite Module for IIS 7.0 available for download. This release contains significant functionality and performance improvements and it is believed to have a quality level suitable for production deployments.

Here are the features that are new since CTP release (for a complete list of features and changes since CTP release, refer to this article):

• Support for IIS kernel mode and user mode output caching. IIS 7.0 output caching provides significant performance improvements for web applications. URL rewrite module is fully compatible with both types of output caching. This means that now it is possible to safely cache responses for rewritten URL’s and thus boost the performance of web applications that rely on URL rewriting.
• Lower case conversion. A lower case conversion function called “ToLower” can be used within rewrite rule to convert any rule input string or substitution URL to lower case.
• Rule templates. Rule template is an extension for URL rewrite module user interface, that simplifies creation of rewrite rules for a particular task. The Go Live release of the module includes 3 built-in rule templates, plus it allows plugging in any number of custom templates.”

Moving to Hyper V

Hyper V with Windows 2008 seems to be great. Recently I helped move some of our old MS Virtual Machines from Virtual Server 2005 to Hyper V, and so far I am very happy with Hyper V.

To migrate a Windows 2003 Server there seemed to be several basic steps:

1) Remove the existing Virtual Machine Integration Services (i.e. the ones for Virtual Server 2005 or VPC 2007). you must do this BEFORE moving the VM across.

2) Make sure that the VM has Windows 2003 SP2 installed before moving across. Note just having 2003 R2 is not enough, you need SP2 as well.

3) Copy the virtual hard drive (VHD) to the new Hyper V server, and create a new virtual machine that uses that VHD.

4) Load the VM and install the Hyper V Integration Services (from the Hyper V VM manager you can do this from the menu). Note that your mouse will probably not work until you have done this, so you may have to brush up on your windows shortcut key skills 😉

5) That should be it. Try to avoid using the legacy network drivers etc; use the native Hyper V ones as the performance is much better.

You can read more about Hyper V at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper-V

Resize Microsoft Virtual Hard Disks (VHD’s)

This could come in handy as many of our legacy virtual machines have small C drives, which over time can become an issue due to the size of modern software. Of course, take care and backup fully, as such a change may have issues. Done in two parts first use Gparted from http://gparted-livecd.tuxfamily.org/ to resize the VHD then use Gparted from http://gparted-livecd.tuxfamily.org/ to merge the old and new partions.

Check out the following link for details:

http://martyg.com.au/2008/01/05/resize-microsoft-virtual-hard-disks/