In the last days I got my new machine for work, a Lenovo ThinkPad X1. As usual I always want to work with the latest and greates technology, that’s why I have chosen to set up the ThinkPad X1 with Windows 8.

Even in Developer Preview state Windows 8 runs very stable and brings a lot of cool new features which I can use for my daily work. I love the new PowerShell versions and Internet Explorer 10. But the best and the biggest feature for me, is the integration of Hyper-V 3 in Windows 8. So I don’t have to use VMware Workstation or VirtualBox to run virtual machines on my notebook for testing or presentations. I also can simply use the VHD (or VHDX) format to play with virtual machines or even boot them via boot from VHD.

The downside of the Windows 8 Developer Preview is missing .NET framework 3.5, but I think the Windows 8 beta, which should be released by the end of February, should fix this.

Maybe some people have realized that I am a big fan of business style notebooks. And what would be better business design than the ThinkPad series. Lenovo tried to combine good old ThinkPad values with new design features, and in my opinion succeeded. I really like the ThinkPad design in this very slim chassis. It looks elegant and business “high-class”.

The build quality of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 is like you would expect it from a ThinkPad. It feels great and very robust. Keith Combs describes it in his review ”The ThinkPad X1 is build like a tank.  It’s probably the most solid notebook I’ve ever had in my hands.” and I have to agree with him.

More information on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 here.

For some courses at KTSI we need a CentOS to test some Linux spesific things like Apache and other stuff. The good thing, Windows 8 got Hyper-V and Hyper-V supports CentOS.

With Version 3.2 oft the Linux Integration Services Microsoft fixed also a bug which occurred in Windows 8.

1. First download CentOS
2. Download the Linux Integration Services Version 3.2 for Hyper-V
3. Start Hyper-V Manager and create a new Virtual Machine
4. Install CentOS 6.x
   
5. Reboot the virtual machine
6. Login as root
   
7. Mount the Linux Integration Services ISO from step 2
8. Now run the following commands in the virtual machine

   sudo mount /dev/cdrom /media
   sudo /media/install.sh
   

   

9. After you the Installation is completed you have to reboot the virtual machine again
   
10. done

In the last days Lenovo showed pictures of the Lenovo ThinkPad T430u for the first time. The ThinkPad T430u is a 14-inch ultrabook which will be release in 2012. There is not a lot of information about the specs of the T430u but it will use one of the new Intel Ive Bridge CPUs and should also be available with Nvidia discrete graphics options.

This could be a very interessting notebook option for business users. My hope for the T430u is that it will bring a great high-resolution display option. But we will see it later this year or maybe at CES 2012.

More Information about the T430u on theverge.com.

Aidan Finn (Virtual Machine MVP) just made a blog post about Hyper-V & PowerShell in Windows Server 8 and how you can enable Hyper-V via PowerShell in Windows Server 8. So this gave me the idea about doing a little more with PowerShell and Hyper-V 3.

I already did a blog post about how you can attach multiple VHDs to a SCSI Controller with PowerShell in Windows Server 8. In this post I will show how easy you can export and import a lot of Virtual Machines.

First you can run a Get-VM Test*, to check which VMs you will export.

Get-VM Test*

Now you can export the Virtual Machines

Get-VM Test* | Export-VM -Path "C:\VMs"

Now I removed the Virtual Machines in Hyper-V with Powershell (You could also add the -confirm parameter so you don’t have to press “y” for each VM.

Get-VM Test* | Remove-VM

And now you can import the Virtual Machines again

Get-Childitem "C:\VMs" -Recurse *.xml | Import-VM

I will post more about PowerShell in Windows 8 and Windows Server 8 (Hyper-V 3) in the next upcommig weeks. If you want know more about what new Hyper-V features and improvments are coming in Windows Server 8, you can read the following blog post: “Hyper-V: Version 3 kills them all”

Just a simple note about a new cmdlet in PowerShell 3.0. Show-Command is something very useful if you try out a new PowerShell Command. It shows all the options and possible parameters you have with the cmdlet.

Show-Command Get-Childitem

Some you need to know which IP in a specific range is already in use. With Windows PowerShell there is a simple way to ping a IP range.

You can use the .Net class System.Net.Networkinformation.Ping to do this.

$ping = New-Object System.Net.Networkinformation.Ping
1..254 | % { $ping.send(“192.168.100.$_”) | select address, status } 

In the next two days the biggest Microsoft event in Switzerland will be held at Bern.

Microsoft will bring the latest news about Windows 8, Windows Server 8 and the System Center 2012 Suite from the BUILD conference to the Swiss IT Pro audience. On the IT Pro track, private cloud will be the key topic.

More About the two days:

IT Professionals: 20. Oktober 2011

In der Keynote stellen Ihnen unsere Technikexperten die wesentlichen Neuerungen unserer anstehenden Servertechnologien Windows Server 8, SQL Server „Denali“ und System Center 2012 vor. Anschliessend werden technische Informationen und Demos für Produkte wie SQL Server „Denali“, System Center 2012, PowerShell, IPv6, Virtualisierung und Private Cloud, Windows und SQL Azure sowie Office 365 und Endpoint-Managementangeboten.

Developer: 21. Oktober 2011

Der Tag beginnt mit der Keynote des Branchenexperten Neno Loje über das neue Visual Studio 11, das kürzlich auf der BUILD-Konferenz vorgestellt wurde. Softwareentwickler und –architekten erhalten anschliessend die aktuellsten Informationen und Demos über Produkte wie Windows Azure, ASP.NET MVC 4, Windows Phone „Mango“, Silverlight 5, SQL Server 2008 R2 / SQL Azure / SQL Server „Denali“ sowie Visual Studio Lightswitch und HTML5.

More information and the agenda can you find on the techdays homepage.

See you there…

With Windows 8 and Windows Server 8 Microsoft released a new file format for Virtual Hard Disk called VHDX.

The VHD format, which was availible since 2005 (Microsoft Virtual PC) and is now used by Microsoft Hyper-V and other Hypervisor, had some limitations.

The latest version of the VHD format was limited to 2TB of size and a block file size of 512bytes.

Now with VHDX Microsoft kills this limitations and brings some other improvements:

• Supports up to 16TB size
• Supports larger block file size
• improved performance
• improved corruption resistance

At this time you can use the VHDX format only with Windows 8 and Windows Server 8. But you can convert VHDs the VHDX format and VHDX disks back to VHDs.

Today I had some time to test some of the new Windows PowerShell 3.0 feature and changes. And after playing a while with the Windows PowerShell 3.0 CTP I have to say Microsoft did besides the big new features, like workflows, a lot of small but really important improvements.

First I will show you two very small but very cool things which make working with PowerShell a lot easier.

New help view, which I really like. Here quick PowerShell 2.0 versus PowerShell 3.0:

Second I would like you to show how they simplified PowerShell for daily use. Here Get-Childitem for an example:

In PowerShell 2.0:

Get-Childitem | Where {$_.name -eq "Desktop"}

In PowerShell 3.0 you can do this now much friendlier:

Get-Childitem | where name -eq Desktop

Some days ago the Microsoft Powershell Team released the Community Technology Preview of the Windows Management Framework 3.0 which includes Windows PowerShell v3. You can download the the CTP1 here and it requires Windows 7 SP1 or Windows Server 2008 R2 with SP1.

You can use very easy both PowerShell versions sie by site.

powershell.exe -Version 3.0

powershell.exe -Version 2.0

But the Windows Management Framework 3.0 CTP1 does not only includes PowerShell 3, it also contains new versions of WMI, WinRM and the new Windows PowerShell Webservice.

Windows PowerShell 3.0

• Workflows
  Workflows that run long-running activities (in sequence or in parallel) to perform complex, larger management tasks, such as multi-machine application provisioning. Using the Windows Workflow Foundation at the command line, Windows PowerShell workflows are repeatable, parallelizable, interruptible, and recoverable.
• Robust Sessions
  Robust sessions that automatically recover from network failures and interruptions and allow you to disconnect from the session, shut down the computer, and reconnect from a different computer without interrupting the task.
• Scheduled Jobs
  Scheduled jobs that run regularly or in response to an event.
• Delegated Administration
  Commands that can be executed with a delegated set of credentials so users with limited permissions can run critical jobs
• Simplified Language Syntax
  Simplified language syntax that make commands and scripts look a lot less like code and a lot more like natural language.
• Cmdlet Discovery
  Improved cmdlet discovery and automatic module loading that make it easier to find and run any of the cmdlets installed on your computer.
• Show-Command
  Show-Command, a cmdlet and ISE Add-On that helps users find the right cmdlet, view its parameters in a dialog box, and run it.

WMI

• A new provider development model
  This new model brings down the cost of provider development and removes the dependency on COM.
• A new MI Client API to perform standard CIM operations.
  The API can be used to interact with any standard WsMan + CIMOM implementation, allowing management applications on Windows to manage non-Windows computers.
• The ability to write Windows PowerShell cmdlets in native code
  The new WMI Provider APIs supports an extended Windows PowerShell semantics API allowing you to provide rich Windows PowerShell semantics. e.g., Verbose, Error, Warning, WhatIf, Confirm, Progress

WinRM

• Connections are more robust
  Session disconnect and reconnect, with or without client session reconstruction, allows long-running tasks to continue even when the session in which they were started is closed and the client computer is shut down. This feature also allows administrators to reconnect from different computers to check the status of remote running tasks and get results.
• Connections are more resilient
  In Windows PowerShell 3.0 CTP1, connections can survive short-term network failures; the client-server connection is not severed at the first sign of trouble. If network problems persist, the client is safely disconnected and can reconnect by using the Connect-PSSession or Receive-PSSession cmdlets.

Windows PowerShell Web Service

Windows PowerShell Web Service enables an administrator to expose a set of PowerShell cmdlets as a RESTful web endpoint accessible via the Open Data Protocol (OData). This provides remote access to invoke cmdlets from both Windows and non-Windows clients.

You can get more Information about the Windows Management Framework 3.0 Community Technology Preview on the Windows PowerShell Team Blog.