Browsing to find out what differences Windows 8 Consumer Preview has, i noticed a cool new Task Manager:
Nice pictorial view of machine resources and also some network stats.
The processes tab has also been beefed up with a more detailed breakdown:
sweet!
Following the post earlier of me configuring a VHD Boot of Windows 8 CP, I had gone in and created some screenshots. Because Windows 7 was still my primary work OS, I had rebooted my machine and went back into my Windows 7. I started to want to post a blogpost then realized the screenshots were in my Windows 8 VHD. How do i get them out?
Step 1: Launch Computer Management
Step 2: Navigate to Disk Management, Right-Click Disk Management, then select Attach VHD
Step 4: Browse to the VHD of choice, in my case was the Win8Beta VHD
Step 5: You should now see it as a listed disk. If you had not already done so, now assign a drive letter to it.
Step 6: You can now browse the files inside it through the drive letter.
Step 7: Go look for the files that you need, in my case, it was in the My Pictures folder in my user profile.
Being in a careful situation, not wanting to mess my Windows 7 and configurations I have done seeing as I would probably need to work.. 
I had referred to a couple of blogs for guidance, and one in particular gave me a good reference point on Hyper-V.nu
Here is how i did mine:
Step 1: Download the Windows 8 Consumer Preview ISO
Step 2: Have installed UltraISO or PowerISO. We need this to mount the ISO to copy out the install.wim image
Step 3: Create a directory where you would like to place the VHD file. In my case, I created Z:\VHD\Win8Beta
Step 4: Mount the Windows 8 ISO
Step 5: from the mounted drive, copy the \sources\install.wim to the created directory [e.g. Z:\VHD\Win8Beta]
Step 6: Download the Install-WindowsImage PowerShell script and copy it into the same directory as above
Step 7: Create the VHD using the following steps in Windows 7
Step 7a: Launch the Computer Management app
Step 7b: Right-click Disk Management and select Create VHD
Step 7c: Create the VHD in the directory created earlier with the size of your choice. I wanted to do some performance testing, so I selected Dynamically Expanding for my disk type
Step 7d: Once done, from the Disk Management control panel, you should see the created and attached VHD. Proceed to initialize the Disk
Step 7e: Next create a Primary partition
Step 7f: Assign a drive letter so that we can perform the WIM install later. In my case i assigned [M:\]
Step 7g: Perform a Quick Format of the drive
Step 7h: You should have an end result of a formatted VHD attached to the drive letter. Once again ensure you have the install.wim, the powershell script, and the created VHD in the directory you created
Step 8: Apply the WIM Image to the VHD using the PowerShell script
Step 8a: Launch a CommandPrompt run as Administrator
Step 8b: Change to the directory containing the VHD, WIM image and PowerShell script {cd z:\VHD\Win8Beta}
Step 8c: launch powershell {> Powershell}
Step 8d: Run the following powershell commands one by one (replace the drive in the command below with the one you created):
PS> set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted
PS> .\Install-WindowsImage.ps1 –WIM Z:\VHD\Win8Beta\install.wim
PS> [R]un once
PS> .\Install-WindowsImage.ps1 –WIM [drive]:\vhd\install.wim –Apply –Index 1 –Destination W:
PS> [R}un once
The steps above are shown in this screenshot below:
Once done, you should see the Windows 8 system populated in the mounted drive
Step 9: Configure the Boot Menu for the VHD to Native Boot
Step 9a: In the Command Prompt window, execute:
> bcdboot m:\windows
*in my case, m: was the drive that i used to assign the VHD to.
Step 9b: check your boot entries:
> bcdedit /v
Below shows a screen shot of Step 9:
Step 10: Reboot and configure your sysprepped Windows 8!
You will see the new Boot Menu
Hope these steps are clear enough for you to try it out. And do post comments if you have noticed any errors or it went successfully for you.
Tech Insights 2011 was awesome... as always. The session that I delivered this year was on sharing Useful Tools to Assist in Assessment, Deployment and Managing a Windows 7 Infrastructure.
Here is the slide deck from my session:
Looking at SQL Server licensing today, we could actually save some money based on how it is licensed under a Virtualization scenario. An example is as follows:
SCENARIO: You have a 2 X Quad Core Processor in the Host Server, and had SQL Server installed in a virtual machine. In the Virtual Machine, you assigned 4 Virtual CPUs.
LICENSING CALC: To license the SQL Server on Processor licensing, we would calculate as follows:
[no. of Virtual CPUs] / [no. of total physical cores] = 4 / 8 = 0.5
Round up the result to the nearest whole number = 1
This means that you would need to license it with 1 Processor License
This is huge savings as you would only need to purchase 1 Proc license even though the Host Server had 2 Processors.
This will change in the upcoming launch of SQL Server 2012.
SQL Server 2012 will have 2 licensing models.
Windows Intune v2 released today with some long needed additions for decent pc management.
Standard features such as inventory, forefront protection, monitoring and alerting were present and added the following:
1. Software Deployment
Intune now has the ability to deploy software from the cloud to any managed PC. You will first have to upload the neccessary software to the cloud service and the space provided is 2GB
THe second topic that we presented at Tech Ed New Zealand.
Covered how to use solutions such as Operations Manager, Service Manager, Orchestrator and the upcoming VMM2012 to assist in Private Cloud deployments and managing infrastructures that will be providing IT services
Check it out: http://www.ms4u.info/2011/08/microsoft-tech-ed-new-zealand-2011_4418.html
Presented the upcoming features of VMM 2012 at Tech Ed New Zealand 2011 with my colleague Lai Yoong Seng.
Covered Deployment and Infrastructure changes, Fabric Management, Cloud Management and Services Management.
Check it out: http://www.ms4u.info/2011/08/microsoft-tech-ed-new-zealand-2011_26.html
