Creating A Bootable WinPE 2.0 USB Key
Windows Preinstallation Environment (PE) 2.0 is a slimed down version of Windows (hence all the MiniNT references) that used to be the exclusive domain of OEM's providers.
microsoft -
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7.2.2007 The high price of creating free ads
From an advertiser's perspective, it sounds so easy: invite the public to create commercials for your brand, hold a contest to pick the best one and sit back while average Americans do the creative work.
common -
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28.5.2007 Microsoft doesn't recommend creating Vista "Lite" with vLite
Some people have been turning to a utility called vLite, which out components of the operating system deemed unessential.
windows -
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2.2.2008VM enables "write-once, run anywhere" Linux apps
A startup in Alameda,
Calif. plans to release a kind
of holy software grail the
third or fourth week of June.
Lina said its dual-licensed
Lina virtual Linux machine
will run more or less normal
Linux applications under
Windows, Mac, or Linux, with a
look and feel native to
each.
The
concept recalls Java, which
has long promised "write
once, run anywhere"
compatibility. As with Java,
Lina users will first install
a VM specific to their
platform, after which they can
run binaries compiled not for
their particular OS, but for
the VM, which aims to hide
OS-specific characteristics
from the application.
In Lina's case, the VM is
essentially a Linux
environment that supports
standard C/C++ applications,
or even perl and python, if
their respective interpreters
are installed. CTO Nile
Geisinger explained, "You
have to compile binaries
specifically for Lina, but
it's fairly trivial, no
different than compiling
binaries for SuSE or Red
Hat."..
winbeta.org -
27.05.2007Shelf-ware - the SCVMM Library
One of the things we heard fairly early on while planning VMM was that offline storage of VHDs was going to become an increasingly large management
task. Based on this need, we created the "VM Library" feature to allow users to save virtual machines that weren't currently running to a managed
location. As we developed the requirements for this feature, we quickly realized that people wanted to store more than VMs, they wanted to store all
of the stuff that they used to create VMs as well (ISOs, templates, OS profiles, Hardware profiles etc.) so we changed the feature's name to
"library" instead of "VM library". Before defining the feature in detail, we had to make some key design decisions and at the risk of boring you,
I'll walk through some of that decision making process.
winbeta.org -
18.12.2007What you don't virtualize can hurt you
In the frenzy to virtualize servers, companies are forgetting to virtualize an important and yet critical component of their infrastructures: the
network addresses and I/O of the Ethernet and Fibre Channel cards on the physical servers that host VMware virtual machines (VMs).
Virtualized Ethernet and Fibre Channel cards or their I/O is easy to overlook. Administrators may correctly assume that there is ample bandwidth
on the server's Ethernet and Fibre Channel cards to support the normal workload of the multiple VMs it hosts.
The problem is
that VM workloads can become abnormal. Spikes in read or write I/O on one VM may immediately adversely affect the I/O performance of other VMs hosted
by that physical server. Equally problematic are backups, especially full server backups. Backing up a single VM can quickly congest network pipes and
degrade the performance of other VMs on that server.
winbeta.org -
29.11.2007Virgin Media taps Microsoft in lengthy email outage
Virgin Media customers have been suffering email outages for several days, prompting the firm to call in Microsoft engineers to help with an urgent
upgrade. A mysterious configuration problem was identified on one of VM's eight email server clusters last Wednesday. Microsft engineers have
struggled to identify the cause, forcing several reboots. The ongoing failure has affected about 10 per cent of VM's 3.6 million subscribers.
Read
full story.....
neowin.net -
18.02.2008VMware vSphere 4: The once and future virtualization king
VMware vSphere 4, out today, is a big release, with plenty of new features and changes, but it's not your run-of-the-mill major update. The new
features, which range from VM clustering to agentless VM backup, are especially significant in that they may mark the moment when virtualization
shifted from the effort to provide a stable replica of a traditional infrastructure to significantly enhancing the capabilities of a virtual
environment.
winbeta.org -
22.05.2009AMD and Red Hat are chased by Microsoft on VM live migration
It's a feature which could be ubiquitous in more data centers if it could just get out of the labs: the ability to move running virtual machines
between platforms with next-to-zero downtime. Now, it's being done cross-platform...
betanews.com -
20.11.2008ICANN: China Not Forming New
Internet
Initial reports that China may
have been attempting to split
off the Internet by creating
its own Chinese-language top
level domains now appear to be
untrue. A spokeperson for
China Internet Network
Information Center (CNNIC)
said that the country has no
intention of creating its own
root servers...
betanews.com -
03.03.2006VM Security Risks: Phantom or Menace?
Virtual machines are threatening to crack the walls of data centers with a host of potential security threatsnothing that's been publicly exploited
yet but a fact that's borne out by a slew of vulnerabilities patched over the past seven months by major virtualization vendors
VMware, Microsoft and
XenSource.
David Lynch, vice president of marketing at
Embotics, a VM life-cycle management vendor, said during a presentation here at Interop Oct. 23 that a fundamental issue with
VMs is that they've come into enterprises via the back door, thereby slipping past standard security hardening. Meanwhile, VM sprawl has
virtualization instances popping up with nobody keeping track of them. Simply stated, organizations won't be able to secure these things, given that
nobody knows how many have been created, Lynch said.
"Even if you just replace
completely,
how do I make sure I replace all instances of virtual appliance?" Lynch told eWEEK following his presentation. "I asked the audience how many
people knew how many virtual machines . Three people put their hands up, out of about 50. That's a fundamental issue. People
don't know how many machines they have out there. How can you manage them? How can you make sure configurations are maintained, that they're where
they're supposed to be?"
winbeta.org - 25.10.2007
Virtual Machine for Exchange Calendar Update Configuration Tool
The Exchange Calendar Update Configuration Tool enables administrators to update, using the Time Zone Data Update Tool for Microsoft Office Outlook,
multiple user mailboxes, thereby avoiding the challenges involved with broadly deploying the Outlook Time Zone Data Update Tool to all end-users.
The VM contains a trial version of Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Outlook 2007, Excel 2007 and Word 2007. The Exchange Calendar
Update Configuration Tool is preinstalled as well. The VM can be used on both Virtual PC or Virtual Server.
winbeta.org - 14.09.2007
Oracle Debuts Its VM Virtualization Software Amid New Competition
You'd think there was a virtualization conference this week. But as it just so happens, three companies are vying for status in this growing market:
market leader VMware, the perennial up-and-comer Microsoft, and a newcomer with a familiar ring to it: Oracle...
betanews.com - 14.11.2007
Massive Bug Found in VMWare ESX 3.5U2
This was first reported yesterday evening on both the VMWare Community forums and on DeployLinux.com. From what anyone can tell, there is a bug in
the VMWare License Management code and it is causing any system that is running ESX 3.5U2 to not be able to boot this morning. VMware is attempting
to figure out what happened and put out a patch, but the more important question is, "Why wasn't this caught before it shipped?" As Matt
Marlowe posted:
OK, while we're all remaining calm....just imagine the implications that bugs like this can occur and get past QA
testing....5 years down the road, nearly all server apps worldwide pretty much running in VM's (pretty easy prediction)......some country decides
to initiate cyberwarfare and manages to get a backdoor into whatever is the prevaling hypervisor of the day.....boom. All your VM's belong to us.
<...>
I'd love to find out what happened here. Don't they do any regression testing on new releases to check for date based bugs? I
thought that would be pretty obvious.
Read full story.....
neowin.net - 12.08.2008
Itanium to gain Red Hat VM support and more
The imminent next version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is to come with Xen virtualisation optimised for Itanium 2, Intel said today as part of a robust
defence of its server chip.
The hypervisor tweak will give Intels top-end part a shot at becoming the host of choice in server
consolidation projects, said Michael Demshki, Intel enterprise marketing manager and part of the Itanium Solutions Alliance, a grouping of supporters
that is just celebrating its second birthday.
Some people might be hesitant to have a web server alongside an ERP or HR system
on a virtualised server because they dont want the corporate crown jewels on the same system in case of a failure or malware traversing from one VM to
another, Demshki said. But with Itaniums RAS capabilities and electronically-isolated partitioning, the Red Hat Xen support is going to be a very
big deal.
winbeta.org - 20.09.2007
Microsoft postpones live VM migration for Hyper-V two more years
At a virtualization product launch today, Microsoft give a long-delayed demo of Hyper-V live migration, but then went on to slate the feature's
eventual release for the next edition of Windows Server -- which isn't due until 2010...
betanews.com - 09.09.2008
Updated: Massive Bug Found in VMWare ESX 3.5U2
Updated with new information regarding a resolution on August 12th, 9:00 PM CST.
This was first reported yesterday evening on both
the VMWare Community forums and on DeployLinux.com. From what anyone can tell, there is a bug in the VMWare License Management code and it is causing
any system that is running ESX 3.5U2 to not be able to boot this morning. VMware is attempting to figure out what happened and put out a patch, but
the more important question is, "Why wasn't this caught before it shipped?" As Matt Marlowe posted:
OK, while we're all
remaining calm....just imagine the implications that bugs like this can occur and get past QA testing....5 years down the road, nearly all server apps
worldwide pretty much running in VM's (pretty easy prediction)......some country decides to initiate cyberwarfare and manages to get a backdoor
into whatever is the prevaling hypervisor of the day.....boom. All your VM's belong to us. <...>
I'd love to find out what
happened here. Don't they do any regression testing on new releases to check for date based bugs? I thought that would be pretty obvious.
Read full story.....
neowin.net - 13.08.2008
TechEd 2007: Keynote Demos of Virtual Machines, New OBAs, Silverlight
In a demonstration of System
Center Virtual Machine
Manager, Microsoft product
manager Jeff Woolsey showed
how in Windows Server 2008, a
VMware virtual machine could
be converted to a
"Viridian" VM using a
single PowerShell
"command-let"
( cmdlet ) that can be
scripted...
betanews.com - 05.06.2007
Installing Windows Server 2003 in a Viridian VM
Mike Kolitz: Earlier this week, I posted instructions on how to install the "Viridian" CTP on Windows Server 2008 RC0. VMs arent very useful unless you can
install an operating system in them, so I thought that todays post should center on doing just that. As you may have guessed from the title, today
were going to talk about installing Windows Server 2003.
Before we begin, you should make sure that youve created an external
virtual network switch. See yesterdays post for details on how to do that. You should also have a Windows Server 2003 CD or CD Image (which Ill refer to as
an ISO from now on) handy. Ideally, youll have SP2 integrated into the installation media, but if you dont, well take a trip to Windows Update later on.
winbeta.org - 27.09.2007
Sun to Create Java VM for iPhone
Sun Microsystems is developing a Java Virtual Machine for Apple's iPhone and plans to release the JVM some time after June, enabling Java
applications to run on the popular mobile device. According to Eric Klein, vice president of Java marketing at Sun, the JVM is to be based on the Java
Micro Edition (ME) version of Java. Although Apple had not shown interest in enabling Java to run on the iPhone, Sun plans to step in and do the job
itself after having pondered Thursday's release of an SDK for the iPhone by Apple.
" Now, the iPhone is open " as a target
platform, Klein said. The free JVM would be made available via Apple's AppStore marketplace for third-party applications. " We're going to
make sure that the JVM offers the Java applications as much access to the native functionality of the iPhone as possible...It's a new platform for
us. We might be able to bring additional technologies onto the iPhone and the iTouch. " Apple could not be reached for comment on Sun's plans
in time for this article.
neowin.net - 10.03.2008
Cross-platform dev tool adds Windows Mobile
Zhmicro announced that its novel technology for creating cross-platform applications is now compatible with Windows CE and Windows Mobile. The "Z47
Virtual Processors" and Z++ Visual IDE (integrated development environment) allow creating apps that run unmodified on Windows desktops, Linux, and
Palm devices, the company says.
winbeta.org - 04.10.2008
Vista Licenses Limit OS Transfers, Ban VM Use
"TechWeb has posted an
article regarding Vista's new
license and how it allows you
to only move it to another
device once. How will this
work for people who build
their PCs? I have no intention
of purchasing a new license
every time I swap out
motherboards. 'The first user
of the software may reassign
the license to another device
one time.
If you
reassign the license, that
other device becomes the
"licensed device," reads the
license for Windows Vista Home
Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate,
and Business. In other words,
once a retail copy of Vista is
installed on a PC, it can be
moved to another system only
once. ...
Elsewhere in the license,
Microsoft forbids users from
installing Vista Home Basic
and Vista Home Premium in a
virtual machine. "You may not
use the software installed on
the licensed device within a
virtual (or otherwise
emulated) hardware system,"
the legal language reads.
Vista Ultimate and Vista
Business, however, can be
installed within a VM.'"
Overly Critical Guy points out
more information about changes
to Vista's EULA and the new
usage restrictions. "For
instance, Home Basic users
can't copy ISOs to their hard
drives, can't run in a
virtualized environment, and
can only share files and
printers to a maximum of 5
network devices."
neowin.net - 13.10.2006
How to: Create custom wallpaper collections in Windows 7
Do you love customizing your Windows desktop? If you do, you'll love this trick! By default, Windows 7 includes several locations to choose
pictures and desktop backgrounds from, such as Windows Desktop Backgrounds, Pictures Library, Top Rated Photos, and Solid Colors. In this article, I
will walk you through the process of creating your own wallpaper collection through the registry, and how to customize it to your liking. This process
will help you categorize and sort your wallpapers efficiently, and allow you to use a mix of categorized wallpapers with Windows 7's new automatic
background shuffle without the need to lump everything together. Disclaimer: The steps in this article involve modifying the Windows registry.
Read full story.....
neowin.net - 28.07.2009
