Virtual Varia : Microsoft Hyper-V

Aero Glass? In my Virtual Machine? Now it’s even more likely than you think…

mikekol — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:44:06 GMT

Starting back in 2006, I wrote a post about how to enable Aero Glass support for Virtual Machines by using Remote Desktop / Terminal Services. Last August, I wrote another post describing how Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7 is able to make Aero Glass happen in a Virtual Machine (hint – also Remote Desktop). So what more could I possibly have to say on the subject?

Well, remember when Microsoft bought Calista Technologies back in 2008? Today, we’ve finally announced the results of that purchase: RemoteFX, an amazing set of technologies for enabling VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) with Hyper-V.

RemoteFX is an enhancement to the Remote Desktop Protocols that enhance the end-user experience in a VM, providing “full-fidelity video with 100% coverage for all media types and highly-synchronized audio, rich media support including Silverlight and 3D graphics, and of course, Windows Aero [support].”

Check out Max’s post for more information, or watch the videos from Microsoft’s Desktop Virtualization Hour.

New Physical to Virtual (P2V) tool from Sysinternals

mikekol — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 02:34:29 GMT

Looks like Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell are up to their old tricks again, with an awesome new tool called Disk2VHD.

From the web site:

Disk2vhd is a utility that creates VHD (Virtual Hard Disk - Microsoft’s Virtual Machine disk format) versions of physical disks for use in Microsoft Virtual PC or Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs). The difference between Disk2vhd and other physical-to-virtual tools is that you can run Disk2vhd on a system that’s online. Disk2vhd uses Windows’ Volume Snapshot capability, introduced in Windows XP, to create consistent point-in-time snapshots of the volumes you want to include in a conversion. You can even have Disk2vhd create the VHDs on local volumes, even ones being converted (though performance is better when the VHD is on a disk different than ones being converted).

Disk2VHD can run on Windows XP SP2 and higher, as well as Windows Server 2003 and higher.

Awesome work, Mark and Bryce!

More PowerShell in R2 tricks

mikekol — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:30:31 GMT

The other day, Ben Armstrong posted the steps for installing Windows PowerShell on Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. How awesome is that? A real, modern, powerful shell on Hyper-V Server!

It should be noted that this also works on Windows Server 2008 R2 Core SKUs, so if you’re running Hyper-V on one of those, you can also use this trick.

So why is this cool?

Well, first of all, if you install PowerShell on a Server Core SKU, you can use a new and more powerful tool for installing and configuring server roles and features.

To do this, you need to load the Server Manager module into your shell with the following command:

Import-Module ServerManager

You can get a list of the new cmdlets that this module provides by running:

Get-Module ServerManager

So, if you’re on a Windows Server SKU, you can install all of your roles or features this way. To install Hyper-V, you would use this command:

Add-WindowsFeature Hyper-V

Ok, that’s cool and all, but it’s not that spectacular. So how about being able to actually interact with Hyper-V from this shell? Even on Server Core or Hyper-V Server 2008 R2?

Check out James O’Neill’s PSHyperV project over on CodePlex. If you download this library, you can interact with Hyper-V directly from your Core console.

The first thing to remember is that you need to dot-source the HyperV.ps1 script so that all of the functions remain in memory, like so:

. .\hyperv.ps1

After you do that, you’ll get a list of all of the new functions and filters that this library provides. Just as an example, you can create and configure a VM with these commands:

$vm = New-VM -name “MyVM”
Set-VMMemory -vm $vm -memory 2GB
Set-VMCPUCount -vm $vm -CPUCount 2
# some other logic to create a hard drive, or attach an existing one.
Start-VM -vm $vm -wait

Announcing the Windows® Image to Virtual Hard Disk Converter (WIM2VHD)

mikekol — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 23:29:00 GMT

It was my New Years Resolution that I’d do an average of 2 blog posts per week this year. So far, I haven’t been doing a very good job of that, but I think I have a good excuse. I’ve been very busy with preparing to release a new tool, and now, I can finally announce it.

Fine citizens of the Virtualization Nation: I present to you the Windows® Image to Virtual Hard Disk Converter, or WIM2VHD as I like to call it.

WIM2VHD is a tool that will create a bootable VHD from a specified Windows 7 or 2008 R2 WIM image (like the INSTALL.WIM file that ships on the installation DVDs) without having to run Windows Setup. That means that you can a Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 virtual machine up and running much, much faster.

You can use these VHDs in Virtual PC, Virtual Server, Hyper-V, and … some other things, too. We’ll talk more about that later.

You can get WIM2VHD here.
(The release candidate has been released, too...)

I’ve done my best at creating some good documentation for WIM2VHD, which is available from the link above. Please make sure that you read the docs. If you have any questions, feel free to start a discussion thread at the WIM2VHD site.

Here’s a video I made introducing WIM2VHD, and showing it in action. More are one the way.

Please be aware, however, that while the underlying process of creating the VHDs is supported by Microsoft, WIM2VHD is not.

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How to use VMConnect to create an .RDP-like shortcut directly to your VMs

mikekol — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 00:42:50 GMT

The Remote Desktop application in Windows has a nifty little feature where you can save all of your custom settings for a specific remote computer to a single .RDP file, and then just use that .RDP file as a shortcut to connect to that remote computer instantly.

VMConnect, which is the name of the application that you use to connect to the console session of a Hyper-V Virtual Machine, doesn’t have that option.

Curses! What is an administrator to do!?!

Well, if your VM is running Windows, you could always Remote Desktop directly into the guest OS, but that won’t connect you directly to the console (i.e. you won’t be able to watch the VM boot).

But there’s a better way. VMConnect allows you to specify the name of the Hyper-V server and the name of the VM you want to connect to on the command line.

So, let’s say that you have a Hyper-V Server called “MyHost” and a VM called “My Guest” that you want to connect to quickly. All you need to do is create a shortcut that points to VMConnect.exe with the following syntax:

Remember to use quotes around the VM name if it contains spaces! Also, if the VM exists on the same machine as the one you’re creating the shortcut on, you can use the name “localhost” for the server.

Click Next, name the shortcut whatever you want, and you’re good to go.

KB950050 Isn't Installed After I Insert and Install the Integration Services Setup Disk. Here's Why.

mikekol — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:44:00 GMT

In the RC0 release of Hyper-V, you may recall, you had to use the same QFE to Windows Server 2008 host and guest machines to get the Integration Component versions matching.

In RTM, you simply need to choose the Insert Integration Services Setup Disk option from the Action menu in VMConnect, just like you do for Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista.

However, after you get the ICs working and you connect up to Windows Update, the Hyper-V QFE for Windows Server 2008 (KB950050) is still listed. That little logical paradox causes you to check which QFEs are actually installed on your system, and you find that KB950050 isn't in that list.

What sort of crazy voodoo magic is this?

Well, according to Occam's Razor, the simplest answer is typically the correct one.

The simplest answer in this case is that Windows isn't lying - KB950050 isn't installed. For RTM (actually, this happened in RC1), we added another QFE to the mix so that the standard way of installing the ICs (the VMGuest.ISO, which is what gets inserted into the VM's DVD-ROM drive when you click Insert Integration Services Setup Disk) worked for Windows Server 2008.

Since the RTM update actually contains an updated VMGuest.ISO file, it would be impossible for us to put the RTM update in the ISO (it's a classic "chicken-and-egg" problem).

So, we added another QFE that just contains the Integration Components and nothing else to make life easier for all of you. You can still apply KB950050 if you want to. In fact, you can just apply KB950050 if that's your thing. Or, if you want to be totally up to date, you can apply both of them.

Ok, now I'm really going to the ship party. Honest.

Adding the RC1 Integration Components to WinPE 2.0

mikekol — Fri, 30 May 2008 23:17:00 GMT

Mike Sterling just made a triumphant return to blogging by posting an article on how to add the RC1 ICs to WinPE. Check it out here. Keep in mind, though, that this only works for WinPE 2.0, which is the WinPE that is based on Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

As for my triumphant return to blogging, I'll be back next week with some updates to old posts and new posts as well. In the mean time, I'm going to go back to playing GTA4.

I still get an error while installing the Integration Components on Win2k3 after I installed Win2k8 RC1 on the host! HC?

mikekol — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 03:53:09 GMT

In an earlier post, I said that you should install Windows Server 2008 RC1 with Hyper-V Beta if you're getting error 61658 while trying to install the Integration Components in Windows Server 2003.

And you should.

But some people are still seeing it. If you happen to be one of them, here's why:

You probably didn't really install Windows Server 2008 RC1 with Hyper-V Beta; you probably installed Windows Server 2008 RC1, which contained the Hyper-V CTP.

I won't go into the reason behind having two similarly named releases so close together because I wasn't involved in that discussion, so any attempt to explain it would be pure speculation on my part. Needless to say, the situation we find ourselves in is that there is a Windows Server 2008 that has our beta bits in it, and one that has our old CTP bits.

If you've yet to install any build of RC1, you can get a link to download the one that has Hyper-V Beta here.

If you've already installed it and you're curious as to whether or not you've got the CTP or the Beta bits of Hyper-V, you can easily tell. If you had to double-click on any MSU files to get the role to show up in Server Manager, you have the CTP release.

After Blogging Mint:

I don't know if anyone else out there ever saw these videos, but when I was in High School, my physics class had to watch some lectures given by a man named Paul G. Hewitt. While describing miscellaneous laws of physics, he would commonly prove the law via some demonstration, then ask his class "HC?" which stood for "How come?"

My "Here's why" series of posts wasn't exactly inspired by Professor Hewitt, but I've yet to write a post without thinking about those videos in some way, so I consider them to be a sort of tip of the hat.

Does your mouse stop working when you TS into a host machine and try to use a guest OS? Here's why.

mikekol — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 23:17:12 GMT

To continue my "here's why" series of posts, I figured I'd talk about something else that a lot of our users have run into - the infamous disappearing mouse when you try to use a Hyper-V guest while TS'd (that's Terminal Services - or Remote Desktop) into the host machine.

Here's the scenario: You've got a VM that you need to use, so you TS into your host machine, start up the Hyper-V Management Tool, connect to your VM and try to use it. Suddenly, your mouse doesn't work anymore, so you try to release it using the CTRL-ALT-Left Arrow hotkey. That doesn't work. Now you can't even use the mouse on your host operating system.

If you close your TS session and restart it, you get your mouse back, but this happens each time you try to control your guest.

Some of you are probably saying "Yes - that happens to me all the time, and it's annoying!" Others may think I'm making it up, since they've never had this problem.

So, here's what's going on. There are two modes of mouse operation when we're dealing with Virtual Machines: integrated and relative, as discussed by Ben Armstrong here.

When you TS into the host machine, your mouse is running in integrated mode. When you're using a VMConnect window to control a VM, the mouse runs in relative mode (with one important caveat, which I will come to later on). When you mix integrated and relative mode, you get badness.

So what is a humble system administrator or virtualization enthusiast to do?

There are a few work-arounds:

Run Windows Server 2008 as a guest. No, seriously. The Hyper-V Integration Components are built into Windows Server 2008, so it will simply work in this configuration out of the box.
Install the Integration Components for your guest operating system. This is the caveat I was talking about earlier, and is the primary reason why some of you have quite possibly never seen this. If you have the ICs installed and running, the mouse is running in integrated mode, and works flawlessly over TS.
TS directly into the guest operating system. If there are no ICs available for your chosen guest OS, you can use TS (or any other remote control application, really) to control the guest directly. This assumes, of course, that the VM is exposed to the same network as the machine you're controlling it from.
Use the actual, physical console of the host machine. If you take TS out of the picture, you won't have this problem.
Remote Administration tools for Hyper-V. These aren't available yet, but in our final release, we'll provide a way for you to install the Hyper-V Manager tools on Windows Vista, so you won't actually have to run them on a server.

Getting an error while installing the ICs on Server 2003? Here's why.

mikekol — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 03:58:15 GMT

I've seen a lot of users having issues with installing the Hyper-V Integration Components on Windows Server 2003 in the last few days. The error code seems to differ slightly, but it's usually similar to the message below:

If you're seeing this error message, it's because you're still using the Hyper-V CTP release, and the certificate that was used to digitally sign the driver catalogs for the CTP Integration Components expired back in November.

The solution isn't very elegant - you have to install Windows Server 2008 RC1 with Hyper-V Beta.

It's also important to note that it is not supported to move VMs created with the CTP release of Hyper-V to the beta. The VHD file format is the same (in fact, it's the same as it was in Virtual Server and Virtual PC), but the VM configuration and the ICs won't work in an upgrade situation. You can try uninstalling the ICs before moving the VHDs over to Hyper-V beta, but there are no guarantees that it will work.

Along those same lines, it's not supported to upgrade to Windows Server 2008 RC1 if you have the Hyper-V CTP installed - setup will actually block the upgrade, so you'll need to clean install.

And seriously, the Hyper-V beta is amazing. If you liked the CTP, you'll really like what we've done in the beta.

Frequently Asked Questions about the Hyper-V Beta

mikekol — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 21:46:00 GMT

I've been watching the comments - both internally and externally - about yesterday's launch of the Hyper-V Beta (yes, I know I'm on vacation, but this is exciting to watch), and I thought I'd list the answers to a few commonly asked questions.

Q: How do I install Hyper-V on my 32-bit server?
A: You don't. Hyper-V is 64-bit only, and requires that you have an Intel or AMD processor with Virtualization extensions (Intel calls their's VT, AMD calls their's AMD-V).
Q: How do I manage Hyper-V remotely?
A: It's not terribly easy to do with the beta. If you're running Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V Beta on another machine besides your Hyper-V server, you can use the MMC Management Console to connect to your Hyper-V server remotely (which, in fact, you *must* do if your server is running Server Core).

If you've only got one server, you can use Terminal Services to connect to your Hyper-V server and run the MMC Management Console - though, you'll run into issues controlling the Virtual Machines with VMConnect if you don't have the Integration Components installed.

You can also use WMI calls to manage a Hyper-V server remotely. The documentation for that should be online shortly, if it isn't already.

We're going to make remote management easier to do in subsequent releases, so please stay tuned.
Q: I've been using Hyper-V Beta for quite some time, and...
A: No, you probably haven't, unless you're a TAP customer. You may very well have used the Hyper-V CTP that was released along with Windows Server 2008 RC0 and RC1, but the beta has quite a few improvements over the CTP. If you've only looked at the CTP, you really should take another look.
Q: How do I install the Integration Components on Windows Server 2008?
A: You don't need to. The Integration Components are now *part* of Windows Server 2008. Each IC should be available to you the first time the OS boots to the desktop.
Q: I don't have mouse integration or the Synthetic NIC in Server 2008 Setup / WinPE. What gives?
Q: I can't PXE boot my VM. What gives?
Q: I don't have a network card in my Windows XP VM. What gives?
Q: etc...
A: PXE booting requires the Legacy Network Adapter. It will not work with the Synthetic Network Adapter. Similarly, since there are no Integration Components for Windows XP with this beta, the Synthetic Network Adapter won't work. You'll need to use the Legacy adapter.

Also, the Integration Components, including the VMBus which makes all of our synthetic devices work, are not available at install-time on Windows Server 2008, or Server 2008 WinPE. You won't have mouse integration, synthetic storage, or the synthetic network adapter until setup is complete and Windows has booted for the first time.
Q: How do I install Hyper-V on Server Core?
A: Execute these two commands:

BCDEdit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto
start /w OCSetup Microsoft-Hyper-V
Q: The installation documentation doesn't say anything about that BCDEdit command - which one is right?
A: We both are. Running the OCSetup command will make the same change to the BCD store that the BCDEdit command does, but it will only do it after the required reboot, which means that even after the first reboot, the Hypervisor will still not be running and you'll have to reboot a second time. Running the BCDEdit command first will make sure that the Hypervisor will be running after the first reboot.
Q: How do I upgrade from the CTP release?
A: You don't. There have been a lot of changes, and upgrading isn't supported. Back up all of your VHD files, and record all of the settings for your VMs, then clean install Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V and set up your VMs again.
Q: VMMS fails to start with error code 87 - what's up with that?
A: This beta release works on en-US builds of Windows Server 2008 *only*. If it's not en-US, you'll likely run into the error code 87 issue.

Hope that helps! If you have any other questions, please leave them in the comments, and I'll get to them as soon as I can.

Microsoft Hyper-V Beta is now available for download!

mikekol — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 20:40:00 GMT

The bits are available here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=8F22F69E-D1AF-49F0-8236-2B742B354919&displaylang=en

There has been a lot of progress made on Hyper-V since the Tech Preview that shipped with Server RC0 and RC1. The entire system is much more stable and performant. Even better, installing Hyper-V is now a great deal easier. You no longer need to apply any hotfixes (those pesky .MSU files from RC0 and RC1) before you install Hyper-V - it's now fully integrated into the Role Management tool from the start.

Secondly, installing Windows Server 2008 in a Hyper-V VM is now a much better experience. The Integration Components are now part of Windows Server 2008 and are installed automatically in a Hyper-V VM.

Last, but certainly not least, installation of the Hyper-V role is now available on Server Core.

I'll post more information about the new Beta release later on, so stay tuned!

[Mike is on vacation, so posts and responses will likely be delayed.]

"Viridian" no more - Say 'Hi' to Microsoft Hyper-V

mikekol — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Those of you who have followed my blog for a while know that I've - for one reason or another - been referring to Windows Server virtualization by its codename, which caused some initial confusion. There's a reason that I did this - I knew that the name was changing, and I didn't want to send a whole lot of information out into the web with a name that wasn't going to stick. I'm sure there were times when I actually said "Windows Server virtualization", but I tried to keep it to a minimum.

At any rate, the product name has now been officially announced: Microsoft Hyper-V.

The press release has some very good information as well, including the suggested price for Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V: $28USD more than Windows Server 2008 without Hyper-V.

Update: I've clarified the statement about pricing.

How do I automate "Viridian" installation on Win2k8 RC0?

mikekol — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 22:44:00 GMT

Sorry for the abrupt end to the posts last week, everyone. I was out sick. But fear not, for I am once again a healthy and strapping young man. And as such, I hereby return to blogging Virtual Goodness!

So - automating "Viridian" installation. I'm happy to provide some information on how to do this, with the caveat that you should not be rolling out this build of "Viridian" anywhere near your data center. If you're doing a massive, wide-scale deployment of "Viridian" at this stage in the development process, and you're not a member of the TAP program, you should call a therapist immediately. If, however, you're just curious about an alternate installation method, read on.

I'm assuming by automate, we're talking about doing something simple like creating a batch file specifically to run a series of tasks that will install "Viridian", so that's the level of information I'm going to provide. Feel free to adapt this however you'd like - I promise not to copyright this.

I also won't get into how to install Windows in unattended mode - there's plenty of information on how to do that online, so I won't add yet another resource.

The first step to installing "Viridian", obviously, is to get the software onto the system. To do this, we need to stage and install¹ the two MSU packages that contain the "Viridian" server and management components.

To install the management tools from the command line, run:

start /w wusa %SystemRoot%\WSV\Windows6.0-kb939854-x64.msu /quiet

To stage the "Viridian" server components from the command line, run:

start /w wusa %SystemRoot%\WSV\Windows6.0-kb939853-x64.msu /quiet

Reboot your server before moving on to the next step using your favorite reboot technique.

To install the "Viridian" server components from the command line, run:

ServerManagerCMD.exe -install WSV

This is the command line version of the Role Management Tool that I mentioned in my original post, and will perform the installation for you.

Reboot your server again.

As for configuring the network switches or creating VMs programmatically, I'm going to simply stop here and say that yes, it will be possible in future builds. We do not have scripts available publicly that do this now, and we are not publishing any documentation on our WMI interfaces until our Beta release.

Hope this helps!

¹"What's up with this crazy lingo you're throwing around here, Mike? What's the difference between staged and installed?"
I'm glad you asked, Billy. Think of the last time that you needed to install an optional component on Windows XP or Windows Server 2003. Unless you had the whole installation CD copied to a network share or the local drive (which a lot of OEMs do), you probably needed to insert your installation CD during the process so Windows could get all the files it needed.

In Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, we changed how that works. There's a "package store" on every installation that contains the binaries for all of the optional components and features so that you don't need to provide the installation DVD at every install/uninstall of an optional component. These binaries aren't loaded into memory, and aren't even in the same location they would be if the component was installed. They're just present on the system so that optional components and feature installation is a little bit easier.

When a component is only available in the package store, and is not installed on the system, it's staged. When a component is installed on the system, it's - you guessed it - installed.

Installing Windows Server 2003 in a “Viridian” VM

mikekol — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 02:05:00 GMT

Earlier this week, I posted instructions on how to install the "Viridian" CTP on Windows Server 2008 RC0. VMs aren’t very useful unless you can install an operating system in them, so I thought that today’s post should center on doing just that. As you may have guessed from the title, today we’re going to talk about installing Windows Server 2003.

Before we begin, you should make sure that you’ve created an external virtual network switch. See yesterday’s post for details on how to do that. You should also have a Windows Server 2003 CD or CD Image (which I’ll refer to as an ISO from now on) handy. Ideally, you’ll have SP2 integrated into the installation media, but if you don’t, we’ll take a trip to Windows Update later on.

A Brief Introduction to the New VM Wizard

Ben Armstrong is going to go over this in more detail in a future post, so I’m just going to run through this at a pretty quick pace, and not go into detail about all of the available options.

To create a new VM:

1. Click Start / Administrative Tools / Windows Virtualization Management .

2. In the left-hand pane, make sure that your "Viridian" server is selected. If it’s not in the list, right-click on "Virtualization Services" and add it.

3. In the right-hand pane, click New / Virtual Machine.

4. The first page is just informational. Feel free to instruct the system not to show this to you again. Click next.

5. Name your VM something that works for you – I typically name it after the operating system I have installed. For the purposes of today’s post, let’s name it Windows Server 2003 SP2. Click next.

6. Set the amount of memory that you want to allocate to the VM. 512 MB will be fine, but the more memory you throw at a VM, the better it performs. If you can spare 1024 MB or more, do it. Click next.

7. Choose the name of the Virtual Switch you created that connects you to the external network. Click next.

8. Choose a name for your new Virtual Hard Disk. By default, it will be the same as the VM name. Click next.

9. Choose Install an operating system from a bootable CD/DVD-ROM.
If you have a physical Windows Server 2003 CD, put it in your physical CD-ROM drive on the host, and choose Physical CD/DVD drive:, and select the corresponding host drive.
If you have an ISO image of your CD, choose Image file, and enter the path to the ISO file, or browse to it using the Browse button. Click next.

10. Do *not* put a checkmark in the box to start the VM once we’re finished – we have some other configuration to do. Click Finish.

11. Select the guest we’ve just created from the list of available guests. From the right-hand pane, choose Settings.

12. Make sure that Add Hardware is selected in the left-hand pane, and choose Legacy Network Adapter from the list on the right. Click Add.

13. From the list of possible Networks to connect to, choose the name of the Virtual Switch that connects you to the external network. Click Apply / OK to close the settings dialog.

"Now, hold on a second, Mike. I already added a network adapter that’s connected to that switch. Why am I doing this twice?" you might ask. That’s an excellent question. The first network adapter that we added during the New Virtual Machine Wizard is called a synthetic NIC. The Legacy Network Adapter that we just added now is called an emulated NIC.

I’ll go into the details of what the differences between emulated and synthetic devices are in a future post, but we’re doing this because Windows Server 2003 doesn’t have a driver for the synthetic NIC until we install the Integration Components, or ICs. And to install the ICs, you need to have SP2 applied to your Windows Server 2003 installation.

After we install SP2, we’ll remove the emulated NIC. Or, if you’ve got SP2 integrated into your installation media, feel free to skip this entire step.

14. Click Connect to connect to the guest, and click Start to start it (it’s the second button from the left in the Virtual Machine Connection window). Windows Server 2003 installation will launch just like it would on a physical machine. I’m going to make the assumption that everyone knows how to install Windows, so I’ll skip describing that. Once you’ve installed Windows, move on to step 15.

15. Ok, you’re now running Windows Server 2003 in your VM – well done! Before we install the ICs, we’ll need to install SP2. Please take a trip (or rather… take several trips) to Windows Update to make sure that you have all the patches and service packs applied.

16. And now we come to the installation of the ICs. To install these drivers, press the CTRL-ALT-Left Arrow key combination to un-capture your mouse from the guest OS.

17. Click Action / Insert Integration Services Setup Disk. This will automatically insert the "CD" containing the setup files for the ICs into your guest’s virtual CD-ROM drive. The setup program will autorun. Reboot the VM when asked.

18. After a reboot or two, the ICs will be installed and you’ll have handy features like Mouse Integration, which will allow you to move your mouse between the guest and host without having to hit the CTRL-ALT-Left arrow key combination. (I’ll highlight some of the other features that the ICs give you in a future post.)

19. If you installed the emulated NIC, you can safely remove it now. To do that, shut down your guest OS, and go back into the settings dialog where we originally added it. Select it from the list of virtual hardware on the left, and click the Remove button. Click Apply/OK to remove the emulated NIC and close the settings dialog.

There are you have it – you’ve got Windows Server 2003 SP2 installed in a "Viridian" Virtual Machine.