thefrozencoder

Programming and Technology blog

Random error messages

"Application popup: Windows - Delayed Write Failed : Windows was unable to save all the data for the file 'xxx'. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere."
I had this error recently during my nightly backups.  I narrowed it down to my server’s 10/100/1000Mbps LAN card.  Since my network is only 10/100Mbps I forced the speed and duplex to 100Mpbs and Full Duplex rather than Auto Negotiate.  After I did this the error went away and my network latency issues got better.

"You must use the Role Management Tool to install or configure Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 x64 (or x86) (Windows 2008)"
Under Windows 2008 .NET is considered a Feature; to install open up the Server Manager and highlight Features -> Add Feature it is at the top of the list.  To install the .NET 3.5 framework use the installer method.

The Hyper-V n00b - Networking Setup - 2 NICs

In my last post The Hyper-V n00b Experience I gave my experiences with setting up a couple of guest OS's in Hyper-V.  This post will be geared towards how I setup my network configuration for Hyper-V or rather how I changed the mess that I made with the first setup so I decided to start from scratch.  By no means is this a definitive guide as to how to setup multiple NICs for for a VM environment, like the title says I am a n00b at this so take it with a grain of salt.

First thing first; networking in Hyper-V is not as black and white as most might think, there are some changes and when configuring your Hyper-V server for networking for the first time will make some changes to your current network configuration that will make you go hmmmmm.....

Before you do configure networking you check out the following blog posts as they all offer a really good insight and explanation of how it all works.

References

Now my setup has two NIC's involved so while it does not make it any more difficult it does add couple of extra configurations steps to make it correct.  The reason I installed two network cards is not for redundancy but to have one NIC dedicated to the OS and one dedicated to the VM's.  This is not a requirement but it makes making networking changes on the VM side of things way easier if you want to go totally hardcore with your VM environment.

 

In the Begining

So this is what my Network Connections list looks like before I do anything

"Local Area Connection" is the onboard NIC and will be used as the dedicated OS connection to my network

"Local Area Connection 2" is the add-on NIC and will be used as the dedicated VM connection

Personally I always change default names to something more meaningful on any server I setup so I change "Local Area Connection" to "OS Network Connection" and I leave the 2nd alone for now because the meaning will change in a couple more steps.

 

Setup Hyper-V to use a NIC

Next change the Hyper-V settings to use the add-on NIC for it's connection.  Open up the Hyper-V Manager and highlight the server on the left then right click -> and select Virtual Network Manager.  The following dialog box with be visible.

Select External Network and hit the Add button; you will get a dialog box similar to this but I have already filled in some of the options for my configuration.

The virtual network name I used is the same name as the physical NIC according to Windows; I added a "Virtual" prefix to it for more of a readability standpoint.  This name actually maps to the Device Name property in the Network Connections list.  Again I like to have meaning to names.

Connection Type: External uses the physical NIC "Local Area Connection 2" (the Intel Desktop Pro NIC).  Hit the Ok button.

 

So what really happed?

Looking at the Network Connections you can see a new network connection "Local Area Connection" and the device is the Virtual Intel(R) PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter, the same one setup in the Virtual Network Manager.  The original "Local Area Connection 2" is now a virtual switch and the "Local Area Connection" is a virtual network adapter that is connected to the virtual switch.  When configuring VM's this will be the virtual network adapter for used to bind to for connectivity.

 

Name change time

 

The new Virtual VM Switch device properties



The Virtual VM Switch (original "Local Area Connection 2") has only the Microsoft Virtual Network Switch Protocol enabled, this is normal.  The physical NIC is now configured as a virtual switch.

 

The new Virtual MV Network Connection Properties



The new network connection or "virtual adapter" for my VM's by default has TCP/IP enabled and obtain IP via DHCP enabled, this is not what you want when running two physical NICs.  What you want to do is disable all of the bindings from the virtual adapter (like in above picture) so that it is basically useless from the host or parent partition standpoint.  Remember the VM's will be linked to the virtual switch which routes through the second physical NIC (Intel desktop).  Removing all of the bindings allows for a straight pass though effect as well not allowing the physical host to use the NIC in any shape or form.  Which is the desirable effect for me since it's not about redundancy.  More about this setup can be read on John Howard's virtualization blog and comments Hyper-V: What are the uses for different types of virtual networks?.

 

Re-Configure existing virtual machines

After this was completed I then had to update my current VM's to use the new network adapter (remember this is a fix for the rushed original setup).  To do this it's as easy as opening up the settings for each VM and change the Network Adapter settings to the new virtual adapter.  When you open up an existing VM you will notice that there is a Connection Error for the adapter, this is normal since I changed the virtual adapter.  This is what my VM settings look like now:

All in all it was a pretty good learning experience and I now have a better understanding of how Hyper-V implements it's networking.  My VM's can now get out on my network and the internet and the separate NIC is dedicated for VM use only.

The Hyper-V n00b Experience

So decided to take my new server for a spin and try out the Hyper-V role.  I have a couple of vhd files (Virtual Hard Drives) kicking around circa Virtual PC days and I figured that I would try and “convert” them to Hyper-V.  I ended up finding several articles that say “you can do this” but you need to do xxx steps to do it.  All I have to say is don’t bother, I found that I spent as much time trying to get a copy of the XP SP3 IE7 testing VM to work as it would doing a fresh install of XP w/SP3 slip-streamed which is what I ended up doing in the end.  There are countless articles on how to setup a Hyper-V VM out there so I will only give you my observations/tips on how I ended up installing some guest OS’s.

In General

  • Mount an ISO rather than use a CD/DVD as your install media, it seems to go faster
  • XP needs SP3 or the Integration Services will not install
  • Vista needs SP1 or the Integration Services will not install (you will get an error "you need a newer verison to continue")
  • Brush up on your Windows keyboard shortcuts
  • If you are RDPing into your server to create VM’s and you connect to the VM using the VM Connection app don’t be surprised if your response time for the guest OS UI is brutal (especially Vista).  Turning off the visuals does help but not as much as you would think
  • Somtimes it seems that you have lost control of the keyboard during an install (or even in the OS), you actually have not the carat | is just not visible, try typing anyway.  This may happen untill you install the Integration Services.

Installing XP w/SP3

  • During the install you will get to the “Windows will now automatically setup your screen resolution” dialog box.  What may happen here is the dialog box goes out of focus leaving you without anyway possible to click on the Ok button.  Why?  Well because you have not installed the Integration Services yet and that means no mouse support and limited keyboard access.  ALT-CTR-TAB does not work (flipping between open windows in the VM) so what do you do?  Well the easies thing to do is just turn off the VM and restart it again.  You will get the “Windows did not shut down properly” prompt but no big deal, just start in Normal Mode.

Installing Vista w/SP1

  • Add the legacy network adapter for the Vista install just in case your network adapter does not work (like mine, an Intel no less) if you are going to access the network when installing
  • Make sure you have a copy of Vista with SP1, trying to update your VM with this will take a long time, especially using windows update and the legacy network adapter.
  • When RDP into host server and using the VM Connection app the response times for the guest OS UI would take at least 10 seconds (or more) for anything to happen from the time you hit the keyboard till the OS responded.  I am not sure what to make of this as my configured VM had 2GB of memory and 2 virtual processors (see my hardware specs).

The weirdness I had with the slow response times in the guest OS using the VM Connection app still baffle me since I cannot figure out why it was like that.  I have run VMs in Virtual PC under a RDP connection in the same manner and the response times (while not stellar) were way better than this.  RDPing into each guest OS it worked like it was installed on an actual physical box, which is probably the whole point of virtualizing in the first place.

All in all both VM’s did get installed and I had a chance to fool around with Hyper-V some.  While I have used Virtual PC and Virtual Server quite a bit in the past, the Hyper-V management console and creating VM’s using it was a vast improvement over the clunky Virtual Server UI.  I can see MS creating trial versions of their products on pre installed vhd’s to be run under Hyper-V in the not to distant future.  It would be a pretty slick way to try out the product without having to waste time installing it if you just want to give it a spin and not worry about configuration.

 

Windows 2008 Install Tip for HP Laptops

If you are going to do a manual install of Windows 2008 and or Vista on any HP laptop you probably want to burn the c:SwSetup folder to a DVD/USB Key before you begin. This folder contains all of the original software installed as well as all of the drivers. Once you have installed the OS you can copy the folder back to your C: drive.

Here is a little trick to make the install process easer, create a text file in the c:SwSetup folder and rename it to install.inf. If you are missing drivers for some of your hardware (audio, network lan and wireless) are the usual MIA drivers. Just use the Update Driver feature and make sure you browse for a location and select the c:SwSetup folder, because the *.inf file is present you can do this. The update driver feature will search all subfolders for *.inf files to find a matching hardware device id and install the drivers for it. I do this so that I don’t have to pick each folder separately.

Windows 2008 and Me

So I decided to install Windows 2008 on my HP dv9000 series laptop and use this guide to create a better than Vista experience using a more solid OS than the POS that is Vista. The install went as expected and I was able to update the missing drivers using the Vista ones that came with my laptop (yeah I know Vista drivers on Win2k8 so sue me)

So far so good, oops I spoke to soon…

Seems that I have inherited the disappearing mouse pointer syndrome. First I don’t have the computer set up to hibernate, second I don’t have the computer setup to go into screen saver first then turn off the monitor and third this behavior tends to happen every time the monitor either comes out of screensaver or from turned off. Searching Google has made me believe that this is a HP/Nvidia/Vista/Dual Monitor issue as there are a lot of HP/Nvidia/Vista/ Dual Monitor owners suffering from this behavior. The lame solution is to enable pointer trails and set the visibility to short when this happens. Of course this causes a performance drop with the speed of the mouse.

I am going to try and install Vista this weekend and see if I have the same problems with that OS and driver combination. If so it’s back to XP Pro for me.