gerardsweeney Posted May 16, 2011 Posted May 16, 2011 Hello, all.. I'm sorry if this should be in the Virtual Server section, but it seemed more of a "is this possible?!?!" type question Our school is still running AutoCAD R14 (stop sniggering at the back!), and the licence manager only runs on NT server 4. Which presents a problem since our 2 servers are 2008 64 bit. I've tried running the licence manager on one of them, and it essentially told me to naff off even after some fairly judicious tweaking and other pockling. I've got round it so far by having it running on a VERY old bit of kit donated by our network team which I'm pretty certain is going to pop at some stage. So I'm looking at the next option - a virtual server running on one of our 64 bit beasts. I can't use EsXI since the boxes are already up and running with a "normal" Windows setup. MS appear to want money for Virtual server - and in tried and tested Education fashion, the school would ideally not want to pay anything at all So is there a way I can run Virtual PC (or similar?) as a service? The emulated PC doesn't have to do anything remotely clever. Heck, it doesn't even need to join the domain - just have a static IP and a couple of WINS/DNS settings. Any advice gratefully appreciated!! Regards, Gerard
sted Posted May 16, 2011 Posted May 16, 2011 if they are 2008 servers they have hyper v built in just needs turning on and with any luck you could use disk 2 vhd on the old nt4 box to copy it to a vhd file and boot it up in hyperv (havnt tried nt4 as a guest os i think it works but the mouse intergration etc dosent (but once its running just put vnc/rdp on it to manage it))
AngryTechnician Posted May 16, 2011 Posted May 16, 2011 Microsoft Virtual Server, and its successor Hyper-V, are both included with the price of Windows. In 2008, Hyper-V should just be a role you install from the Server Manager. The only cost involved would be the NT4 licence.
cpjitservices Posted May 16, 2011 Posted May 16, 2011 Can NT 4 licenses still be bought ?? that went along timeeeeee ago didnt it ?
FN-GM Posted May 16, 2011 Posted May 16, 2011 Can NT 4 licenses still be bought ?? that went along timeeeeee ago didnt it ? If you have Server 2008 / R2 on standard edition you can have 1 and Enterprise 4 virtual machines free of any Window Server edition.
gerardsweeney Posted May 16, 2011 Author Posted May 16, 2011 Gentlemen (and ladies if applicable) - you are all absolute stars. I've earmarked investigating Hyper-V on my "to-do" list. Let's hope I can find ye olde NT4 server CD, eh? Regards, Gerard
jamesreedersmith Posted May 16, 2011 Posted May 16, 2011 Can NT 4 licenses still be bought ?? that went along timeeeeee ago didnt it ? Surely downgrade rights would still apply!
sted Posted May 16, 2011 Posted May 16, 2011 (edited) Gentlemen (and ladies if applicable) - you are all absolute stars. I've earmarked investigating Hyper-V on my "to-do" list. Let's hope I can find ye olde NT4 server CD, eh? Regards, Gerard just try disk to vhd on the the existing nt4 box and clone it to a virtual pc its at least worth a go saves you having to reinstall stuff if it works http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ee656415 Edited May 16, 2011 by sted
featured_spectre Posted May 16, 2011 Posted May 16, 2011 Downgrading rights apply to this...if you have 2008r2 licensing you can use any of the prior server products
SpuffMonkey Posted May 16, 2011 Posted May 16, 2011 Gentlemen (and ladies if applicable) - you are all absolute stars. I've earmarked investigating Hyper-V on my "to-do" list. Let's hope I can find ye olde NT4 server CD, eh? Regards, Gerard Pretty sure you can still grab the image via TechNet...
featured_spectre Posted May 16, 2011 Posted May 16, 2011 You can grab it by technet or msdnaa, but they can only be used in test environments, not live ones.
Arthur Posted May 16, 2011 Posted May 16, 2011 Downgrade rights for Windows Server 2008 R2 only go back as far as Windows 2000 Server. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/downgrade-rights.aspx
featured_spectre Posted May 16, 2011 Posted May 16, 2011 Odd, MS say otherwise on the phone...however you can pick it up from technet as said above for "testing"
bossman Posted May 16, 2011 Posted May 16, 2011 @gerardsweeney: Do be aware that although it will be an exact clone of your NT server it will not have the same Mac address and you will have to get in contact with your reseller for them to reset the code on your license server. How do I know you ask? Well we have done the same here with our Solidworks (virtualised our License server) and this is the only problem we had to solve.
pantscat Posted May 16, 2011 Posted May 16, 2011 You might be able to spoof the MAC address in the advanced settings of the nic driver!
SYNACK Posted May 16, 2011 Posted May 16, 2011 If using Hyper-V you can just tell it to use the old MAC address on that VM. I really doubt that Microsoft will mind you have downgrade rights and NT is that old that they would be silly too. Try Disk to VHD on it, the one thing to consider though is that you would need to manage the NT server via RDP as the integration toold for hyper-V are really limited for stuff like mouse drivers and will only go back to 2003 SP2 or above.
gerardsweeney Posted August 22, 2011 Author Posted August 22, 2011 I thought I'd give you chaps an update I installed HyperV and used a couple of methods to get my old server onto the HyperV one. And, to be honest, it's a bit clunky.. Yes, even for NT4 The no mouse thing I can live with. My big issue is the NIC. I've followed the various guides online and I can now PING my emulated server by IP address. My issue, however, is WINS. Which is what's needed for our AutoCAD to work since its based on host name. Last week, I had HyperV setup and if I went to a real workstation, I could: PING 10.ip1.ip2.ip3 - reply PING servername - reply However, at the tail end of last week I got a call saying that AutoCAD wasn't working because it couldn't get a licence. On the same real workstation.. PING 10.ip1.ip2.ip3 - reply PING servername - host unknown I remote into the 2008 server running HyperV and I can see the emulated NT server is still running. Reboot the emulated server. Still not able to resolve host name. Shut down the emulated server - I can now resolve the host name. And it happened again today. Which makes it a bit less reliable than I'd like! Does anyone have any suggestions? Regards, Gerard
SYNACK Posted August 22, 2011 Posted August 22, 2011 Static mapping in WINS and DNS maybe: Add a static mapping entry: Windows Internet Name Service (WINS)
strawberry Posted August 22, 2011 Posted August 22, 2011 Is the old server still connected? Two mac's on one network could cause problems
gerardsweeney Posted August 22, 2011 Author Posted August 22, 2011 Is the old server still connected? Two mac's on one network could cause problems No, it's definitely off - good suggestion, though. Synack - thanks for the static suggestion - I was hoping I wouldn't need to go down that road, but I guess it's better to ask my Network chaps than to continue banging my head off the desk
gerardsweeney Posted August 23, 2011 Author Posted August 23, 2011 Use pfdavadmin and change default to none? Umm - not wishing to sound rude/daft, but is this related to WINS? I thought that was an Exchange tool? Anyway, the nice bods in our network team kindly created a static WINS entry so it's all good. Thanks again for the replies, folks.
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