Microsoft Terminal Services provides an important set of functionality for remote administration and centralized application management. This service allows administrators to log in remotely and with full access to the system. Similarly, users can log in and run specific applications, which are centrally managed by IT personnel. The standard client for Linux systems is rdesktop. Rdesktop is shipped with many Linux distributions and this paper briefly looks at common security considerations around using this client application in Windows environments.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Windows Server 2008 R2 RC Evaluation VHD Images (for Hyper-V)
The Microsoft VHD format is the common virtualization file format for Hyper-V that provides a uniform product support system, and provides more seamless manageability, security, reliability and cost-efficiency for customers.
This VHD release is available in English only and is for evaluation and testing purposes. The VHD images are current set to expire to on March 1st 2010 (at which time the OS will become inoperable.As this installation requires Hyper-V, you will need to have a base install of Windows Server 2008 (64bit edition) or Windows Server 2008 R2 RC, running Hyper-V.
For more information on obtaining and installing the latest version of Hyper-V, please visit the Hyper-V Homepage.Both virtual machines available here are running Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition Evaluation. One is the default full installation, and the other has been configured as a default Core installation. For more information on the difference between full and core installation please see the Windows Server 2008 Editions Overview pages.
For download options please see the IMAGE SELECTION section in the instructions below.As both virtual machines do not have anti-virus installed, they should not be connected to any network until it has anti-virus installed.
This VHD release is available in English only and is for evaluation and testing purposes. The VHD images are current set to expire to on March 1st 2010 (at which time the OS will become inoperable.As this installation requires Hyper-V, you will need to have a base install of Windows Server 2008 (64bit edition) or Windows Server 2008 R2 RC, running Hyper-V.
For more information on obtaining and installing the latest version of Hyper-V, please visit the Hyper-V Homepage.Both virtual machines available here are running Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition Evaluation. One is the default full installation, and the other has been configured as a default Core installation. For more information on the difference between full and core installation please see the Windows Server 2008 Editions Overview pages.
For download options please see the IMAGE SELECTION section in the instructions below.As both virtual machines do not have anti-virus installed, they should not be connected to any network until it has anti-virus installed.
Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V - is it any good?
I was presenting SQL server 2008 at a NextGen community event and there was a Windows Server 2008 given by Alun Rodgers of Risual (a gold partner specialising in server infrastructure and unified comms). His session was so well received I thought it would be good to get him to share his experiences in a series of short blogcasts.
In the first of these Alun talks about what he has been doing with Hyper-V, both internally and for his clients.
Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering Lab
If you haven't already tried out the Failover Clustering, there is now a great hands on lab available via TechNet. Enjoy!
TechNet Virtual Lab: Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Failover Clustering Lab
"For the exercises in this lab, you will be responsible for the configuration of Windows Server 2008 Enterprise failover clustering for your organization."
Overview:
• Create failback policies for the cluster
• Make Windows Internet Naming Service (WINS) highly available on a Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Failover Cluster
• Make a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server highly available with a Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Failover Cluster
• Add nodes to Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Failover Cluster
• Create file share cluster
• Create print share cluster
Windows Server 2008 NPS Technical reference
The Windows Server 2008 Network Policy Server (NPS) Technical Reference provides information describing what NPS is, how NPS works, and NPS tools and settings. NPS is the Microsoft implementation of Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS), which provides authorization and authentication services for remote access clients. This technical reference also contains information about Network Access Protection (NAP) and its relationship to NPS, as well as some planning and deployment information about NPS.
Top Reasons to upgrade to Windows Server 2008
| Reason | Key Feature | |
| 1 | Protecting your network from viruses and enforcing compliance | Network Access Protection - NAP |
| 2 | Providing efficient, low – overhead core services with a reduced attack surface | Server Core |
| 3 | Meeting next generation security threats to your network, data and business | Windows Server 2008 security |
| 4 | Consolidation, compatibility and centralisation | Windows Server Virtualization |
| 5 | Providing flexible centralised application access for remote and mobile users | Terminal Services |
| 6 | Enabling more secure collaboration | Federated Rights and Identity Management |
| 7 | Easing administration, management and automation | Server Manager and PowerShell |
| 8 | Delivering rich web content, applications and streaming media | Internet Information Services 7.0 |
Windows Server 2008 Terminal Server vs Citrix XenApp
On a regular base customers ask me when to choose for Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services instead of adding the additional functionality of Citrix XenApp (aka Presentation Server).
Citrix and Microsoft have collaborated and articulates the value that XenApp provides over and above Terminal Services to help you decide which technology is the most suitable for your project.
Citrix Presentation Server on Windows Terminal Services- A Feature Analysis
Windows 2008 upgrade paths
With the Windows 2008 finally being released to manufacture this past month, we will now be expecting a whole bunch of questions surrounding the Windows 2008 migration process. This part of the newsletter is looking at what you need to know to answer all your questions.
The following table lists upgrade paths that are supported.
| From | To |
| Windows Server 2003 Standard (SP1, SP2, R2) | Windows Server 2008 Standard |
| Windows Server 2003 Standard (SP1, SP2, R2) | Windows Server 2008 Standard without Hyper-V |
| Windows Server 2003 Standard (SP1, SP2, R2) | Windows Server 2008 Enterprise |
| Windows Server 2003 Standard (SP1, SP2, R2) | Windows Server 2008 Enterprise without Hyper-V |
| Windows Server 2003 Enterprise (SP1, SP2, R2) | Windows Server 2008 Enterprise |
| Windows Server 2003 Enterprise (SP1, SP2, R2) | Windows Server 2008 Enterprise without Hyper-V |
| Windows Server 2003 Enterprise (SP1, SP2, R2) | Windows Server 2008 Datacenter |
| Windows Server 2003 Enterprise (SP1, SP2, R2) | Windows Server 2008 Datacenter without Hyper-v |
| Windows Server 2003 Datacenter (SP1, SP2, R2) | Windows Server 2008 Datacenter |
| Windows Server 2003 Datacenter (SP1, SP2, R2) | Windows Server 2008 Datacenter without Hyper-V |
| Windows Server 2008 Standard | Windows Server 2008 Enterprise |
| Windows Server 2008 Enterprise | Windows Server 2008 Datacenter |
Upgrades from Windows 2000 Server to Windows Server 2008 are not supported.
To assist in the planning and currently tested best practices, we have released a tool to take the pain away from our customers, the Microsoft Assessment & planning beta toolkit is available here: http://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=297
Top 10 Overlooked Features of Windows Server 2008
Windows Server 2008 is on its way. With the first release candidate in the pipeline, it shouldn't be long before release to manufacturing and general availability.
With such a long development time (it's the first new Windows Server OS since 2003,) the showstopping new features have been well publicized: Most IT pros are familiar with at least some of the details of Server Core, PowerShell and Windows Server Virtualization (codenamed Viridian). But Windows 2008 includes a lot more than those headliners.
The remaining part is here :
http://redmondmag.com/news/article.asp?editorialsid=9129
10. The Print Management Console (PMC).
9. Auditpol.
8. Windows Remote Shell (WinRS).
7. Event forwarding.
6. Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS).
and here : http://redmondmag.com/news/article.asp?EditorialsID=9130
5. New password policies.
4. Group Policy (GP) improvements.
3. Ability to attach comments to GP settings.
2. "tools to successfully deploy, update and maintain Windows Server 2008."
1. Potentially huge network speed increases.
Windows 2008 Server Admin Tools for Vista
The long-awaited Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) have been released for Windows Vista. These will allow administrators to use their Vista machines to manage their Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008 infrastructure from the comforts of the cubicle. Come and get 'em.
Microsoft Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows Vista for x86-based Systems
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9ff6e897-23ce-4a36-b7fc-d52065de9960&DisplayLang=en
Microsoft Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows Vista for x64-based Systems
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=d647a60b-63fd-4ac5-9243-bd3c497d2bc5&DisplayLang=en
After you install this, open Control Panel and start Programs and Features. Click Turn Windows Features on or off then scroll down to the Remote Server Administration Tools. From there you can turn on everything, certain things, or... nothing. Your call, unlike the old ADMINPAK.MSI...
Windows Server 2008 Power Management White Paper
In Windows Server 2008, Microsoft introduced new features and technologies, some of which were not available in Windows Server 2003, that will help to reduce the power consumption of server and client operating systems, minimise environmental by products, and increase server efficiency.
The WS08 Power Management White Paper describes the benefits of some of these features and technologies, including:
Out-of-the-Box (OOB) Power Savings: Windows Server 2008 OOB achieved power savings of up to 10 percent over Windows Server 2003.
Picking up on 'Green IT', our group manager has started a second blog focusing on 'Dynamic Work' which has a green theme. It looks at how IT can make a company greener rather than how a company can make IT greener: http://blogs.technet.com/brucelynn/default.aspx.
::Download:: Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2008
This guide describes important tuning parameters and settings that can result in improved performance for the Windows Server 2008 operating system. Each setting and its potential effect are described to help you make an informed judgment about its relevance to your system, workload, and performance goals.
This information applies for the Windows Server 2008 operating system.
What's New:
| • | Added "Power Guidelines" under Server Hardware section and added "Performance Tuning for Virtualization Servers" section. |
Included in this paper:
| • | Performance Tuning for Server Hardware |
| • | Performance Tuning for Networking Subsystem |
| • | Performance Tuning for Storage Subsystem |
| • | Performance Tuning for Web Servers |
| • | Performance Tuning for File Servers |
| • | Performance Tuning for Active Directory Servers |
| • | Performance Tuning for Terminal Server |
| • | Performance Tuning for Terminal Server Gateway |
| • | Performance Tuning for Virtualization Servers |
| • | Performance Tuning for File Server Workload (NetBench) |
| • | Performance Tuning for Network Workload (NTttcp) |
| • | Performance Tuning for Terminal Server Knowledge Worker Workload |
| • | Performance Tuning for SAP Sales and Distribution Two-Tier Workload |
Windows Server 2008 Technical Overviews
These technical overviews provide IT Professionals with information about how a Windows Server 2008 technology works. They may also cover design and planning considerations and basic setup and operating instructions.
The download contains the following documents:
- DNS Server Global Query Block List
- Installing and Configuring and Troubleshooting the Microsoft Online Responder
- What's New in Failover Clusters
- What's New in Terminal Services for Windows Server 2008
Download: WS2008 Technical Overviews
Shrinking a volume in Windows Server 2008
I'm getting ready to work at the Microsoft booth at the Storage Network World next week in Dallas, TX and I learned about this great little feature in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 (currently in Release Candidate 0 state): you can now shrink a volume.
The scenario for this is quite common: you created a few volumes and you tried to estimate what the ideal size of the volume would be. And you guessed it wrong :-(. Windows Server 2003 already allows you to increase the size of a volume to use the entire partition, which covers the scenario where you underestimated your storage needs. Now you can also shrink a volume to free up partition space for other uses, in case you initially allocated too much space to a volume.
The main tool here is the DISKPART command line utility. Below is an example of how you would do this, starting with a 50MB simple volume on a 100MB partition that get extended and then shrunk by 25MB.
Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6001] Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. C:\Users\Administrator>diskpart Microsoft DiskPart version 6.0.6001 Copyright (C) 1999-2007 Microsoft Corporation. On computer: WS2008RC0N1 DISKPART> list volume Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info ---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- -------- Volume 0 C NTFS Partition 64 GB Healthy System Volume 1 G Extra NTFS Partition 50 MB Healthy Volume 2 F FS1 NTFS Partition 48 MB Healthy Volume 3 H FS2 NTFS Partition 48 MB Healthy Volume 4 E Witness NTFS Partition 8 MB Healthy Volume 5 D DVD-ROM 0 B No Media DISKPART> select volume 1 Volume 1 is the selected volume. DISKPART> extend DiskPart successfully extended the volume. DISKPART> list volume Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info ---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- -------- Volume 0 C NTFS Partition 64 GB Healthy System * Volume 1 G Extra NTFS Partition 100 MB Healthy Volume 2 F FS1 NTFS Partition 48 MB Healthy Volume 3 H FS2 NTFS Partition 48 MB Healthy Volume 4 E Witness NTFS Partition 8 MB Healthy Volume 5 D DVD-ROM 0 B No Media DISKPART> shrink desired=25 minimum=10 DiskPart successfully shrunk the volume by: 25 MB DISKPART> list volume Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info ---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- -------- Volume 0 C NTFS Partition 64 GB Healthy System * Volume 1 G Extra NTFS Partition 75 MB Healthy Volume 2 F FS1 NTFS Partition 48 MB Healthy Volume 3 H FS2 NTFS Partition 48 MB Healthy Volume 4 E Witness NTFS Partition 8 MB Healthy Volume 5 D DVD-ROM 0 B No Media DISKPART> exit Leaving DiskPart... C:\Users\Administrator>
You can also use the command "SHRINK QUERYMAX" to figure out how much you can shrink on a specific volume.
The "Disk Management" tool under "Storage" in Windows Server 2008's "Server Manager" also allows you do this using a GUI.
If you SAN storage vendor supports it, you might also be also to shrink an actual LUN after freeing up space using this Windows Server 2008 new feature.
More information about the SHRINK command in DISKPART at:
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/library/ec87cc7c-9846-465e-a10d-4ee10db4f4e61033.mspx
Download a copy of Windows Server 2008 RC0 yourself and start playing with this new feature. The download is available (since September 25th) from:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=0818D425-CD47-4279-BE8D-24ABA14530A3
Remote Apps in Windows Server 2008
Happy New Year! After a few days break to celebrate the New Year I'm now back in the office with new energy! I'm right now trying to go through emails and catch up on things and one thing I want to tell you about is a new Windows Server 2008 project that has been going on in Singapore.
As you might know, we are running something called the "Windows Server 2008 Insiders" group in some Southeast Asia countries where the members learn about Windows Server 2008 every month and get the chance to try it out within the IT Pro Momentum Program. In Singapore, Dennis recently came blogged about one of the members, Bernard, that has piloted RemoteApps in Windows Server 2008.
Read more about the project and his findings here
Read more about Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008 here
Survival Guide of Windows Server 2008 Documentation
If you're in the process of evaluating the upcoming Windows Server 2008 and looking for a one-stop location for information on planning, deploying, maintaining, or supporting the new environment, bookmarking the Documentation Survival Guide is a great place to start. And here's some of that great new content I'm referring to:
The latest Windows Server 2008 Webcasts and Virtual Labs
It's simple: no complex setup or installation is required to try out Windows Server 2008 running in the full-featured TechNet Virtual Lab. You get a downloadable manual and a 90-minute block of time for each module. You can sign up for additional 90-minute blocks any time.
Virtual Labs
On-Demand Webcasts
Prepare yourself for the next release of Microsoft's server operating system—Windows Server 2008. Tune in and learn how you can leverage the new features to improve your organization's networking infrastructure and security, server performance and reliability, remote resource access, and client deployment. Subject matter experts break down what these upgrades mean for your environment and how to take advantage of them.
How Microsoft Does IT - Deploying Virtual Machines using Hyper-V
Again another great set of materials showing how we do Virtualisation and the potential value of this technology.
Microsoft IT virtually deploys more than 80% of new servers using Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. To ensure optimal performance, Microsoft IT has developed configuration best practices, based on the application workloads or services being provided by the virtual machines.
IPD Guide Release Announcement: Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization
This guide outlines the critical infrastructure design elements that are crucial to a successful implementation of Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V). The reader is guided through the four-step process of designing components, layout, and connectivity in a logical, sequential order. Identification of the MED-V server instances required is presented in simple, easy-to-follow steps, helping the reader to deliver managed virtual machines to end users. Following the steps in this guide will result in a design that is sized, configured, and appropriately placed to deliver the stated business benefits, while also considering the performance, capacity, and fault tolerance of the system.
Download the guide by visiting http://www.microsoft.com/ipd and selecting "Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization" under the IPD One-click Downloads, listed on the bottom right of the page.
Infrastructure Planning and Design streamlines the planning process by:
- Defining the technical decision flow through the planning process.
- Listing the decisions to be made and the commonly available options and considerations.
- Relating the decisions and options to the business in terms of cost, complexity, and other characteristics.
- Framing decisions in terms of additional questions to the business to ensure a comprehensive alignment with the appropriate business landscape.
Join the Beta
Additional Infrastructure Planning and Design guides are available as beta releases on the Connect Web site. They are open beta downloads. See below for instructions on how to access the beta guides.
To join the Infrastructure Planning and Design Beta, follow these steps:
- Visit the Infrastructure Planning and Design Beta at http://connect.microsoft.com.
- Sign in using a valid Windows Live ID to continue to the Invitations page.
- Scroll down to Infrastructure Planning and Design.
If you have not previously registered with Microsoft Connect, you might be required to register before continuing with the invitation process. If the link in step 1 does not work for you, copy the link and paste it into the Web browser address bar.
Related Resources
Check out all the Infrastructure Planning and Design team has to offer! Visit the IPD page on TechNet, http://www.Microsoft.com/ipd, for additional information, including our most recent guides.
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