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