Windows Live Writer and Messenger – Working on Server 2008!

Like many techies I know, I use Windows Server 2008 as my main workstation OS. I find it much more stable than any other MS OS, with none of the consumer gimmicks of Vista. I am very happy with using Server 2008 – I get all the useful features of Vista, plus I get key features like Hyper-V, SMTP Server, and DFS. It rocks! My new laptop (due “soon”) will also be tricked out this way!

Out of the box, of course, it’s a server OS, and not a desktop OS. But Google to the rescue – there are several sites that tell you how to trick out Server 2008 to run as a workstation. The site I’m using at present is http://www.win2008workstation.com/wordpress/. I’m very happy with the end results and would not ever consider moving back to either XP or Vista.

As an aside, I think there’s a market here for a workstation class OS – in effect what I have running now. Tools like DFS, or more importantly Hyper-V are are needed for a small but important set of users. A workstation OS would put (client) Windows on a better footing against Linux/Unix OSs which allow these sorts of tools. Instead of having upteen home versions of Win7, why not have a Windows 7 Professional Workstation edition? Slug it with limited inbound connections (say 25 vs 10 for client), and don’t allow some features like being a DC. You could even call this Windows 7 Ultimate and have the term “ultimate” actually mean something other than just being misleading marketing waffle.

One of the (very few!) problems I’ve had up to now is that Windows Live Writer and Windows Live Messenger did not install since the OS version is not supported. I really like Live Writer, and use it on all three of my blogs (here, here and here) as the main tool for adding blog posts.

On Sunday, on the very long flight from Bangalore back home (an 11 hour flight, with two unscheduled stops was 11 hours late into LHR!), I had a brain spark. I guess 5 hours on the ground in Baku with no drink or food tends to do that! The idea was very simple: just use the compatibility tab on the program installer and tell the OS to lie to the installer as shown here:

After selecting Windows XP SP2, click OK and then run the setup program. On my system, it took another 2-3 minutes and I now have Live Messenger and Live Writer working perfectly.

Thanks to the Application Compatibility team at Microsoft for helping out!

Technorati Tags: Windows Server 2008,Live Writer,Live Messenger

Creating an NLB Cluster using Windows Server 2008

As noted in an earlier blog post, I’m writing an article on Server Clustering for Server Management Magazine. In the article I discuss setting up of an NLB cluster. This blog post shows the steps in more detail, including screen shots of each step.

Creating an NLB Cluster

There are three key steps to creating an NLB cluster in Windows Server 2008:

1. Install the NLB Feature into Server 2008 on each host that you will add to an NLB cluster.
2. Use the New Cluster wizard to create the cluster and add the first host.
3. Use the Add Host wizard to add one ore more nodes to your cluster

You also have to setup the application that you want to cluster. For the article I created a very simple ASP.NET application that I documented in an earlier blog post.

Installing NLB in Server 2008

This is extremely easy. First you run Server Manager, and select Features from the tree and click on Add Features:

From the Add Features wizard just select Network Load Balancing and click Next:

Finally from the Confirm Installation Selections click Install:

After a few seconds, NLB will be installed on the first host. You need to repeat this installation on each host you plan to add to your NLB Cluster. Installing the NLB feature does NOT require a reboot, but removing it does.

Creating your NLB Cluster

Once NLB is installed, you create your cluster by first bringing up the NLB Cluster Manager:

The right click the Network Load Balancing cluster node in the left pane, and select New Cluster:

This brings up the first page of the New Cluster Wizard – here you select the first member of your cluster by adding the IP address or DNS name into the Host box:

This shows you the interfaces on this host that you can use for configuring a new cluster. Chose the interface and click Next:

This brings up the Host Parameters page, where you enter the IP address to be used for the cluster for the cluster, then you click next:

 

This brings up the Cluster IP address page. Here you add the address used by clients to connect to nodes in the cluster:

 

After adding the IP address, and clicking next, the New Cluster wizard displays the Cluster Parameters where you specify the cluster IP configuration and the cluster operation mode (and click  next):

Finally, the wizard displays the port rules. In this case, we specify the cluster shoudl handle TCP Port 80 (and click on Finish):

The Wizard then does the necessary configuration, resulting in a single node NLB cluster, shown in the NLB manager like this:

At this point, you can navigate to the cluster to see the application running:

 

Adding Additional Nodes

A single node cluster is not much value, so you next need to add an additional node (or nodes). To add a node, you right click your newly created cluster and select Add Host to Cluster:

 

This brings up the Add Host to Cluster: Connect page where you specify the host to add, and the interface used in the cluster:

Next you specify the new host’s parameters:

Then you get to update, in needed the cluster’s port rules:

Clicking next completes the wizard, resulting in a 2nd host in the cluster. As seen by NLB Manager:

Re navigating in your browser to the cluster may (or may not) result in a different page. Whilst running the wizard to create the screen shots shown here, this did change:

 

So – it’s simple and easy to create an NLB cluster in Server 2008!

Technorati Tags: NLB,network load balancing,Windows Server 2008

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Reviewer's Guide

As with a number of earlier OS versions, Microsoft has published an in-depth Reviewer's Guide. This document provides a good technical overview of the new features in Windows Server 2008. If you are evaluating Server 2008, this document is a useful guide. There's also a short version of this document you can download.

Technorati tags: Windows Server 2008, Microsoft

Global DNS Query Block List in Windows Server 2008

Looking over at the TechNet DNS sub-site, I've been reading a neat document: DNS Server Global Query Block List. The document describes a new feature in WS08's DNS Server: the Global Query Block List.

Some network protocols rely on DNS name resolution  to resolve specific well known host names. Two examples are WPAD and ISATAP. Malicious users could register hosts computers using these names and thus pose as a legitimate server.

Windows uses the web proxy auto-discovery protocol to discover a local web proxy. The client queries DNS for wpad.<domain> where <domain> is the computer's domain name (eg wpad.contoso.com for a computer in the contoso.com domain).

Intra-site Automatic Tunnel Addressing Protocol (ISATAP) is part of the set of protocols used to aid in IPv6 migration. ISATAP tunnels IPv6 traffic in IPv4 packets. The IPv6 traffic comes from an IPv6 network to the ISATAP server for for transmission across IPv4 only networks. Essentially, ISATAP servers encapsulate inbound IPv6 traffic into IPV4 traffic and passes it to another ISATAP server for conversion back to IPv6 and transmission to another IPv6 aware host. ISATAP does not provide for automatic ISATAP router discovery. ISATAP hosts use a potential routers list (PRL) to discover available ISATAP routers, typically  by using DNS to locate a host named isatap on the local domain (eg isatap.contoso.com).

In the case of both these protocols, if a malicious user was to rename their system it could then appear to be a genuine server, to the potential detriment of the user. The result may just be a denial of service, but could be worse. And even if your network doesn't use these protocols, your clients my be trying to use them anyway. In that case, they are vulnerable to the hijacking that DNS dynamic update enables.

The Server Block list prevents such hijacking by refusing to reply to a query. This renders the dynamic update useless. If you subsequently implement either protocol, then just remove the relevant name from the block list. Before doing this, you should manually enter the relevant RRs into DNS, and adjust the ACLs to remove the miscreant's ability to hijack the name.

And of course, you can use this same technique in your own environment, perhaps by protecting a computer called accounting, or manufacturing or something similar.

To configure the DNS query block list, you use DNSCMD as shown here:

PS C:\foo> dnscmd /config /globalqueryblocklist wpad isatap gratefuldeadmusiclibrary

Registry property globalqueryblocklist successfully reset.
Command completed successfully.

To view the current block list, use the /info switch with DNSCMD as shown here:

PS C:\foo> dnscmd /info /globalqueryblocklist

Query result:
String:  wpad
String:  isatap
String:  gratefuldeadmusiclibrary

Command completed successfully.

A neat feature!

Technorati Tags: Windows Server 2008,DNS,Global Query Block List,WPAD,ISATAP

Microsoft Releases Windows Server 2008 RC1 Public Beta

In a pre-christmas peice of generousity, Microsoft has released Windows Server 2008 RC1 to the general public. See the Microsoft web site to download the code and to get a license key. The software is a 30-day evaluation version, but you can get a key for a longer evaluation period.

TechEd - More on Windows Virtulisation

I attended a panel session on Virtulisation - a panel discussion with Mike  Neil (MS), Simon Husby (Citrix), Larry LeSueur (MS), BIll Corgan (MS).

Server virtulisation is something that's getting lots of attention - many good reasons for dong it. But Server virtulisation is only in it's infancy, and is only a part of the overall Virtulisation story. This includes presentation virtulisation (e.g. terminal server/citrix), and application virtulisation (eg SoftGrid). MS said that they've sold 3m seats of SoftGrid in past 2 quarters!

Simon made the point is that the virtulisation market is still fairly new. He also noted the importance of supporting Linux in terms of virtulisation - and management is important. He went on to discuss the integration of Xen and Citrix - and re-itereated Citrix's support of the Windows platform ("We have no OS agenda"). Interoperability continues to be a key aspect of their products.

Regarding desktop virtulisation - there are three aspects:

• Terminal Services's Remote App (in WS08) - useful in a variety of scenarios
• Vista centralised desktop - hosted desktop run in the data centre, remoted to a thin client
• Application virtulisation (i.e. SoftGrid).

Mike spoke about desktop (VPC) virtulisation. He said that MS sill value VPC. I raised the issue of missing feature (e.g multiple CPUs, USB support, 64-bit support). These are very important to us. Mike acknowledged the concerns but made no commitment to providing those missing features.

Mike also discussed Hyper-V vs VMware. He talked about the benefits of open APIs, a large partner ecosystem along with the management tools. With VMware, the panel suggested, you are left with VMware and little else - there is not any sort of robust eco-system. MS, on the other hand, has a richer partner model. Simon suggested that the introduction of choice (i.e. Hyper-V) will help the market mature. Larry pointed out the importance of good management tools (i.e. System Center).

Technorati tags: Hyper-V, Windows 2008 Server

TechEd Barcelona - Keynote Announcements

Today is the first day of TechEd-IT Form and as usual,there's a keynote. And as usual, there were loads of demos (most worked). And in a change form last year, the session finished on time!

Microsoft used the keynote to make a number of key product announcements. These include:

Windows Server 2008

• Hypervisor naming. Viridian was the code name - now it's officially named Microsoft  Hyper-V. A stand alone server for virtulisation was also announced as Hyper-V Server.
• Dates for release of WS08 are still "WS08 in Q1 2008 with Hyper-V 180 days later!
• MS is to release 8 Ws08 SKUs. Three of these come with Hyper-v built in, five don't. "This gives users lots of choice" said the MS person! The three SKUs with Hyper-V are : Enterprise, Standard Edition, Data Centre edition. The five that ship without Hyper-V: Standard Edition Without Hyper-V, Enterprise Edition without Hyper-V, DC without Hyper-V, Web, and Itanium Edition.
• Pricing and licensing was also released. Costs are roughly 1 more than for Windows Server 2003! The difference in cost between the Hyper-V and non-Hyper-V systems is US$28!
• At RTM, the Hyper-V beta bits will ship in the box. Hype-V RTM bits then ship 6 months later via Windows Update
• Virtulisation Validation program - helps to ensure virtulisation works

System Center

• General Availability  of 3 products: SC Configuration Manager 2007 (aka SMS), SC Virtual Machine Manager and SC Data Protection Manager 2007 (joined  by SC Operations Manager released earlier this year).
• New System Center Suite licence (licensed per physical server, manage unlimited guests)
• System Center Alliance - a community effort to promote System Center
• VM Manager (a future version) will also support both Hyper-V VMs and VMware VMs! This means you can manage ESX servers from Windows.

SQL

• Release to be in 2nd quarter of 2008.
• New SQL Server CTP - November CTP. This is to be the penultimate CTP prior to release.

Vista

• Formal announcement of the beta of next release of application virtulisation approach (the stuff bought in from Softtricity and available only to volume license customers). Version 4.5 beta should be up on Connect.
• Microsoft Desktop Optimisation Package fastest moving SA product ever - but not available outside SA. MS still bullish on SA and MDOP.

PowerShell

• CTP for Version 2 is now available.

IIS6

• FastCGI extension for IIS 6 - makes PHP run even better.

Centro

• Centro was announced as "Windows Essentials Business Server 2008". Centro won't ship till end of 2008.

Community Efforts

• A set of announcements around MSDN and TechNet - more content, more communities, etc. New site: "TechNet Edge" (http://edge.technet.com).

 

Technorati tags: Microsoft, TechEd, IT Forum, WS08, Virdian

Windows Server 2008 - Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Dropped

Over on the Windows Server Division WebLog, there's an article entitled Windows Server 2008 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Update. Despite the innocuous headline, the contents reveals that Windows SharePoint is being dropped as an 'in the box' component. I find this very disappointing. But to quote Jeffrey Snover, "to ship is to choose" and I guess WSS is not ready for release yet and so has been dropped.

The claim that MS dropped this feature "to allow customers to most conveniently obtain the technology" as suggested on the blog seems somewhat wide of the mark. The most convenient way is to include the technology in the box (ala PowerShell), not make users find some web site somewhere. Presumably WSS 3.0 was just not ready.

Technorati tags: Windows Server 2008, WSS, Windows SharePoint Services, shipping means cutting features

Still More on Longhorn B3 Download

Further to earlier posts, Longhorn B3 does appear to be on MSDN. After a reboot of Vista, I was able to finally get to the MSDN download site, to find Longhorn is available (and can be downloaded using the FTM download manager).

Interestingly - the download speeds from MSDN are around 600KBPS vs just under 200 from the TechNet site. And as mentioned earlier, downloading via Technet is a raw download - and mine aborted half way through!

Lonhorn downloaded in under an hour - now that rocks.

Technorati tags: Longhorn Server, Longhorn Beta 3, Technet, MSDN dowload

TechNet Forums for Office 2007 and Vista/Longhorn Open For Business

Have a question about Office 2007, Vista or Longhorn>? Come on down to the TechNet Forums now featuring Office 2007 and Longhorn Forums. Sadly, for true IT Pros - there is no NNTP access yet. But come on over, set a spell and ask away!