Ben Armstrong’s Virtualization Blog

Hyper-V Program Manager

Checking Virtual Machine Health After a Disaster

Last weekend I suffered a human disaster in my "server room". Which is to say that I knocked down a...

Author: Ben Armstrong [MSFT] Date: 03/30/2015

SMB Bandwidth Limits and Shared Nothing Live Migration

This week I have been discussing the network QoS options available for a Windows Server private...

Author: Ben Armstrong [MSFT] Date: 03/20/2015

Converged Network QoS and Live Migration over SMB

On Monday I gave you a pointer to a great resource on configuring network QoS in converged...

Author: Ben Armstrong [MSFT] Date: 03/18/2015

Getting QoS Right with Hyper-V and Converged Networking

Back in the "olden days" of Windows Server 2008 R2, getting networking right for a Hyper-V private...

Author: Ben Armstrong [MSFT] Date: 03/16/2015

Hyper-V and "Event ID: 58 - The disk signature of disk 2 is equal to the disk signature of disk 0"

On Monday I talked about how we had changed backup in Windows Server 2012 R2 to make it scale...

Author: Ben Armstrong [MSFT] Date: 03/11/2015

How Hyper-V Backup Got Better in 2012 R2 (but now requires a SCSI controller)

Hyper-V has always provided the ability to backup all running virtual machines from the host...

Author: Ben Armstrong [MSFT] Date: 03/09/2015

Checking and Correcting Virtual Hard Disk Fragmentation

With both dynamically expanding and differencing virtual hard disks - the following pattern is used...

Author: Ben Armstrong [MSFT] Date: 03/04/2015

Enabling Secure Boot on Linux with the Windows Technical Preview

When we released Windows Server 2012 R2 / Windows 8.1 and introduced the world to Generation 2...

Author: Ben Armstrong [MSFT] Date: 03/02/2015

Hyper-V Backup doesn’t interrupt running virtual machines (anymore)

Hyper-V has always provided the ability to backup all your virtual machines from the host operating...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 02/16/2015

Finding a Virtual Machine Configuration File

Oh, how I do like a PowerShell challenge. The other day a colleague asked me this – “Ben, do you...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 02/13/2015

Copying the VHD of a Generation 2 Linux VM–and not booting afterwards…

If you have installed Linux in a Generation 2 virtual machine – everything is probably working...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 02/11/2015

Adding a second (and third) management OS adapter to a Virtual Switch

I was working on a Hyper-V server the other day – and decided that I wanted to connect it to a set...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 02/09/2015

Memory Demand in Windows 10

When we introduced Dynamic Memory in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, one of the concepts we also...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 02/06/2015

Hot Memory Resize with Windows 10

One of the features that was introduced in the Technical Preview (and later builds) of Windows 10...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 02/04/2015

Hyper-V and Wireless networking

I have been getting a lot of questions about Hyper-V and wireless networking lately.  Specifically,...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 02/02/2015

Hyper-V Script to move everything off of a physical disk

Hyper-V storage migration makes it very easy to move virtual machines wherever you need them, while...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 01/19/2015

Hyper-V Reporting Script

Serhat AKINCI, a Hyper-V MVP, has just posted this very useful...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 01/06/2015

Veeam Task Manager for Hyper-V

A little while ago Veeam released a nifty little tool called the “Veeam Task Manager for...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 12/01/2014

Using RDCMan v2.7 to Connect to a VM

Yesterday, I posted about a new version of RDCMan – where one of the new features was the ability to...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 11/25/2014

Update for RDCMan

Anyone who is familiar with RDCMan will be thrilled to hear that there is an updated version...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 11/24/2014

Updating Integration Components over Windows Update

Yesterday, we announced that we would be releasing updated integration components over Windows...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 11/12/2014

Windows 10 Technical Preview: Hot Add / Remove of Network Adapter

There are a number of new features and functionality for Hyper-V in the Windows 10 Technical...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 11/03/2014

Getting Ready for TechED Europe 2014

Next week I will be in Barcelona, talking about all the cool stuff we are doing with virtualization...

Author: Ben Armstrong [MSFT] Date: 10/21/2014

Big News Day for Microsoft Cloud

This morning Satya and Scott presented on Microsoft’s strategy for cloud. If you missed it you...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 10/20/2014

AoE: Castle Siege - Connection Error

[Warning! This blog post is nothing to do with Hyper-V or virtualization.  It is Friday night...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 10/17/2014

Flashback Friday–Play your strongest hand…

Last weekend I was looking for a deck of cards, and I discovered this deck in one of my desk...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 10/17/2014

“The RPC server is unavailable” with Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter

When I first tried to perform a physical to virtual migration with the Microsoft Virtual Machine...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 10/16/2014

Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter 3.0 Now Available

Yesterday we released the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter 3.0. You can download it here:...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 10/14/2014

New Hyper-V Whitepaper: High Performance Storage for Clustering

Our storage performance team has published a fascinating new whitepaper, available here:...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 10/07/2014

Hyper-V and the Windows Server Technical Preview

Today we released the Windows Server Technical Preview. You can read more about this, and how to get...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 10/01/2014

Changing Ubuntu Screen Resolution in a Hyper-V VM

If you install Ubuntu 14.04 inside a Hyper-V virtual machine – you automatically get all the...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 09/19/2014

“Error applying Hard Drive changes” on Generation 2 VMs

A Microsoft employee recently contacted us with this issue: “When I try and attach a virtual hard...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 09/18/2014

Importing a Virtual Machine with an Incompatible Saved State

This afternoon – an email arrived with the following question for me: “I’m working with on a Hyper-V...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 09/17/2014

Posterpedia is now a Universal App!

I have talked about Posterpedia before. It is a very handy application that allows you to access...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 09/15/2014

‘Unnamed VM’ could not initialize… The security ID structure is invalid (0x80070539)

While working on a system recently, I imported an old virtual machine – which then failed to start...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 09/02/2014

Looking at Memory Usage on Hosts when Creating a New VM

In my house I have two Hyper-V servers running multiple virtual machines with dynamic memory...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 08/02/2014

Updated Documentation on Supported Guest Operating Systems

A couple of weeks ago I posted about the fact that Windows Server 2012 R2 is not supported on top of...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 07/21/2014

Virtualization Fabric Design Considerations Guide

The Hyper-V documentation team recently released the Virtualization Fabric Design Considerations...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 07/09/2014

Can you run Windows Server 2012 R2 on Windows Server 2008 R2?

I have been asked this question a couple of times recently. The odd thing, to me anyway, is that...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 06/30/2014

Hyper-V Network Connectivity Issues with Emulex Adapters

I retweeted this late last week, but wanted to mention it here on my blog. Emulex has just published...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 06/24/2014

Hyper-V Replica to Azure

Late last week we announced “Azure Site Recovery”.   This is a new offering that allows...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 06/23/2014

How to get the best disk performance with Linux on Hyper-V

I was recently reading our documented Best Practices for running Linux on Hyper-V and noticed this...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 06/19/2014

What version of Linux Supports what in Hyper-V?

We have been doing a lot of work to increase the functionality of Linux on top of Hyper-V, and we...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 06/16/2014

Programmatically Detecting when a VM Changes State

Every now and then I get asked how to detect whenever a virtual machine changes state. Usually,...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 06/13/2014

Setting up non-administrative control of Hyper-V through PowerShell–Updated

Yesterday, I told you about how it was now easier to allow a non-administrative user to control...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 06/12/2014

Allowing non-Administrators to control Hyper-V–Updated

A long time ago, I did a post about how to allow non-Administrative users to control Hyper-V. ...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 06/11/2014

Looking for Wasted Space inside Virtual Machines

Recently, I tried to update the operating system installed inside of one of my virtual...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 06/10/2014

Ubuntu 14.04 in a Generation 2 VM

Recently, Canonical released Ubuntu 14.04.  This is the first Linux release to support running...

Author: Benjamin Armstrong Date: 06/09/2014

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