System Center 2012 SP1 – Virtual Machine Manager Known Issues & Workarounds

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Thomas Maurer

System Center Logo

Microsoft finally released System Center 2012 SP1 for MSDN and TechNet subscribers. Now if you are lucky enough to have such a subscription you can download and evaluate System Center 2012 SP1 and especially Virtual Machine Manager. Microsoft also released a list of know issues on TechNet. So if you run into any troubles make sure you check the Release Notes for Virtual Machine Manager in System Center 2012 SP1 first.

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Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8 RTM Calendar

Posted on August 2, 2012 by Thomas Maurer

Windows Server 2012 RC Logo

Today Microsoft announced the availability of the Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8 RTM (Release to Manufacture). Now when will the RTM be available for customers, developers and IT professionals?

August 15th: Developers will be able to download the final version of Windows 8 via your MSDN subscriptions.
August 15th: IT professionals testing Windows 8 in organizations will be able to access the final version of Windows 8 through your TechNet subscriptions.
August 16th: Customers with existing Microsoft Software Assurance for Windows will be able to download Windows 8 Enterprise edition through the Volume License Service Center (VLSC).
August 16th: Microsoft Partner Network members will have access to Windows 8.
August 20th: Microsoft Action Pack Providers (MAPS) receive access to Windows 8.
September 1st: Volume License customers without Software Assurance will be able to purchase Windows 8 through Microsoft Volume License Resellers.
September 4th: Windows Server 2012 will be GA (generally available)
October 26th: Windows 8 will be GA (generally available)

On the Windows Server Blog Microsoft mentioned that Windows Server 2012 will be available to our volume licensing customers in the next couple of weeks. Maybe this means the same dates as Windows 8.

Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate and Windows 8 Release Preview available

Posted on May 31, 2012 by Thomas Maurer

Windows 8 Logo

Finally Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate,Windows 8 Release Preview and Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 Release Candidate are ready.

Get Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/hh670538.aspx

Get Windows 8 Release Preview:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/release-preview

System Center 2012 RTM downloads available

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Thomas Maurer

Since last weekend System Center 2012 RTM downloads are ready for Volume License Customer and Monday night the SC2012 downloads are also available for MSDN and TechNet subscription owners.

http://msdn.microsoft.com

http://technet.microsoft.com

List of Hyper-V and Cluster Hotfixes for Windows Server 2008 R2

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Thomas Maurer

Recently I posted about a page in the TechNet Wiki which lists a lot of Hyper-V tools. Yesterday on Hyper-V workshop, Michel Lüscher mentioned two lists in the TechNet Wiki where you can find Hyper-V and Cluster Hotfixes for Windows Server 2008 R2.

List of Hyper-V Hotfixes for Windows Server 2008 R2 (TechNet Wiki):

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/1349.hyper-v-update-list-for-windows-server-2008-r2.aspx

List of Cluster Hotfixes for Windows Server 2008 R2 (TechNet Wiki):

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/2008.list-of-cluster-hotfixes-for-windows-server-2008-r2.aspx

TechNet Wiki: Hyper-V Tool Collection

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Thomas Maurer

Hyper-V R2 SP1

Microsoft and the community are really starting to work with the TechNet Wiki platform. Now thanks to James van den Berg I found a great wiki page with a collection of Hyper-V tools.

The collection includes a list of the following content:

Supported Microsoft Tools (Solution Accelerators, Product Downloads, etc.)
Microsoft Products and Solutions that are Built upon Hyper-V Technology
Remote Management from Client Versions of Windows
Unsupported Microsoft Tools (Sysinternals, MSDN/ScriptCenter Code Galleries, TechNet/MSDN Blogs)
Community Tools (CodePlex and blogs)
Third-party Free Tools
Hardware-Specific Tools from OEMs and Vendors
Partner Solutions (Commercially Available)
Application-specific Performance Planning/Testing/Analysis tools

You can find also a lot of other interessting content on the TechNet Wiki. For example for Exchange, PowerShell and SQL.

Windows Intune July 2011 Beta

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Thomas Maurer

Windows Intune Logo

Microsoft released the July 2011 Beta of Windows Intune yesterday. The new beta brings a lot of new cool features which were missing in the first version of Windows Intune.

Software Distribution
License Management for third-party software
Enhanced Reporting
Read-only Access Administrators
Offline Client Installation
Remote Tasks (Malware scan etc)
and more…

If you need more information on the July beta of Windows Intune you can download the Factsheet or get more information on technet.

I think through this update Windows Intune gets the features it needs to be successful. This is a great opportunity for small and mid-sized which not had a Software Distribution in place, to get an easy solution.