James Finnigan : virtualization

Hyper-V review

jamesfinnigan — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:22:26 GMT

The hypervisor support in Server 2008 is now out in beta and it's great to see the product hitting the street. Virtualization is a huge change for the industry that can do a lot for everyone from data-centers to software houses, to people who just want to be able to run programs without worrying as much (yes, yes, escape exploits would remain a concern).

Here's a review from Windows IT Pro. Of course, this isn't what I actually work on - I work on the Virtual Machine Manager. Sadly, our product is still behind closed doors - I can't wait to get it out to customers.

To follow along until then, enjoy Rakesh's blog, which explains such decisions as Why we decided to manage VMWare.

Cheers,

James

The best way to make UAC shut up for a while

jamesfinnigan — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 06:25:00 GMT

Let's say you want to install a few things and want UAC to stop bugging you while you install them. Should you turn off UAC and install the apps? Since that disables UAC's virtualization, it can destabilize things that depend on data written to those virtual locations. Here's an alternative that keeps all the virtualization intact while getting UAC to lay off for a while.

Fire up gpedit.msc and adjust this policy (pictured below):

Change it to be Elevate without prompting:

Of course, remember to turn it back when you're done! :)

Cheers,

James

[Update: how to do this without using gpedit.msc]

Run this command (from an elevated command prompt) to make UAC elevate without prompting:

reg ADD HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v ConsentPromptBehaviorAdmin /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

When you're done, run this command (from an elevated command prompt) to set it back to the default:

reg ADD HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v ConsentPromptBehaviorAdmin /t REG_DWORD /d 2 /f

Virtual PC 2007: Released, as free download

jamesfinnigan — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 13:39:10 GMT

How cool is that - we're releasing Virtual PC 2007 as a free download. Why should you care? Here's the things I've found Virtual PC to be useful for:

Putting a working server/client/multitier configuration on a laptop for demoing
Testing/debugging setup for RegNamespace (the undo disks are a godsend here).
Doing something sketchy (e.g.. looking at dancingpigs.exe that your friend emailed you)
Running lots of different versions of an OS, or multiple different OSes at once

That's what I've found it useful for - it's used for tons of other stuff. Read more on the Virtual PC site.

[via Robert Burke's blog]