Gongalong

I think I'm seeing this behaviour as well, but a little hard to tell because the CPU load is low. I'm checking with the consultant who built these as to whether we're safe to apply the fix detailed https://kevinholman.com/2019/07/22/windows-server-2019-hyper-v-might-only-use-half-the-available-cpus/

There are a mix of generations. Presumably I could update all the Gen 1s to 2 by just deleting, recreating, and attaching the disk?

Sorry guys, catching up here... I'm guessing that the hosts just look at the logical processors available to them, even if hyperthreading? Not sure if it can be turned off on these servers, or if makes a great deal of difference. Anyway, just a reminder that there are 32 logical processors available on each host. The way the VMs are divided up means that we have 29 VCPUs assigned on one host, and 30 on the other. Should I just bump up some of the VMs so they're at 32? For this, we have 68GB assigned on one host, and 50 on the other. A reminder that the servers have 192GB physical RAM each. Having upped the memory the DC seems to cope. Might make upgrading a little easier, but it wasn't horrendous having just done it.

The servers themselves are 4 years old, it's just that they've been rebuilt over the Summer with Server 2019. RAM was potentially the only issue - it is running SQL Server with NetSupport DNA - so I've upped that to 8GB. Currently it's sat at 40% usage for RAM. We have around 15-20 VMs. Most only have 2 cores assigned, with the exception of the SIMS server that has 8, and our heavy usage file server that has 8 (although sounds like 4 might be better). Total RAM usage is around 200GB across all VMs, but we normally run half the servers on each host (each have 192GB of RAM). Only just done that, but it was bad before 4.75, and bad ever since the 2019 update. It is much better since the RAM increase, and change to 4 cores.

Ah OK, I'm just going by the cores I see in Task Manager.

Not quite sure what you mean. The hosts each have 32 cores. No, it also runs the NetSupport DNA software. CPU load is definitely low, it's just the RAM usage that's in question on a revisit. Mostly specced lower than this. Only our SIMS server has a higher spec, as requested by County.

No SSDs, the cluster uses an MSA 2040 SAN with RAID10 and 17 * 1.2TB 10k SAS drives.

The cluster is two DL380 Gen 9s, each have 2 * Intel Xeon E5-2667 v3 3.2GHz. 192GB RAM. There are around 15 VMs running on the cluster, typically split across both hosts. (This is Hyper-V, just in case that wasn't clear) The DC I use most and that feels slow* has 8 processors and 4GB of RAM. I have just noticed that RAM usage on this as 85%, so I'm going to up it to 8GB and see if it makes any difference. *Having just used it a bit, it's things like the start menu, searching in the start menu, opening up AD.

Not sure what you mean by "sized"? Virtual hardware spec?

@mavhc They've been paid, and I'm flagging it up with them, but I wanted to get some other views as to what might be causing it.

I'll give it a go, although these DCs were built from scratch, not migrated (sorry, might not have been clear about that!). The old 2016 DCs were demoted and removed.

Hi folks, We had our cluster rebuilt with Server 2019 by a 3rd party consultancy (on Proliant DL380 Gen 9 servers). As part of that they rebuilt our VM DCs. Unlike the previous DCs, the rebuilt servers are just slow to use e.g. opening Active Directory is just laggy, along with using it. The VMs have plenty of resources and don't appear to be overloaded i.e. low CPU use, memory not maxing out. We have some legacy VMs that were migrated across e.g. file servers, mostly Server 2016, and they're fine. Any ideas what could be causing the laggy behaviour? Thanks

Thanks! I did wonder if it was a setting somewhere. Enabling/disabling didn't work, even trying after closing SIMS. So I uninstalled SOLUS, killed the install, and reinstalled. It defaulted back to teacher view, but clearing the checkbox worked.

Hi All, I've suddenly started getting the Basic Details record for students, having searched for them, instead of just Student Details. Any ideas why? I haven't changed any roles on my account. It seems that teacher get Basic Details as their default when they search for a student. Thanks

Hi folks, Trying to add a photo to a staff record and it won't save. I spotted I'm getting an error at the bottom of the record saying "registration must be at least 1 character(s) long". But I can't spot any field called "registration". Any ideas what field this is? Thanks

The good news is this morning that it's working again - I seem to be able to PXE boot and also deploy via the Windows CM client. Perhaps there were still things sorting themselves out, although I did a server reboot, and another reboot this morning. Thanks all for the help. I've got a whole mix of desktops and laptops of various vintages that need to be reinstalled in the next 2 and a bit weeks, so any interruption to that is stressful!

Hmm, well I seem to have made things worse. Now when I PXE boot the latest classroom of machines it starts Win PE for a minute or two, then reboots back to the previously installed OS. Googling suggests this is lack of NIC driver, but this particular NIC (Intel 82579) on the machines that imaged successfully yesterday seem to use a 2018 Microsoft driver. Anyway, I've downloaded the ProWin64 drivers from Intel and added the Gigabit section of drivers to the x64 image, and will leave it to try again overnight. Is there a recommended approach to troubleshoot why PE is rebooting? I've seen a suggestion of enabling F8 in the boot image to check if it gets a network driver correctly...

Ah just noticed this guide, which looks to be more comprehensive https://www.prajwaldesai.com/update-windows-adk-sccm-server/

Is the latter bit the "Windows PE add-on"? Just checking I need to download and install both bits https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/get-started/adk-install I'm already on SCCM 1902, so do I need to follow the process here to update the boot images? https://www.systemcenterdudes.com/how-to-update-windows-adk-1809-on-a-sccm-server/

Hi folks, I'm currently on the Summer rebuild and findind that things are a bit more glitchy than last year e.g. some machines failing to PXE boot. I spotted mention that the ADK on the SCCM server should be updated to keep step with the version of Win 10 being deployed https://www.systemcenterdudes.com/how-to-update-windows-adk-on-a-sccm-server/#comments Just double checking that's correct still? I'm using SCCM v1902. This makes me wonder if there are other things that need to be manually updated on the SCCM server? Thanks

They're on a different part of the forest and far less locked down... they're allowed their own start menu and the ability to customise

These are classroom machines, so always on the network.

I think I've sussed it. It's because I disallow access to the C drive. I've just tried using LNK files in a UNC path that are on a network share (we redirect to a fixed start menu) and now they appear. Wahoo!

Ah-ha! Well Chrome shows now on both 1803 and 1903 with the following code, so it does seem to be an issue of defining the right link...

Have tried using AppUserModelID, same problem. No apps appear on taskbar. Also tried with Replace enabled. xmlns:defaultlayout="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/FullDefaultLayout" xmlns:start="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/StartLayout" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/LayoutModification" xmlns:taskbar="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/TaskbarLayout" Version="1">