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Hi,was wondering if anyone else has seen the issue or solved the issue. We have 90 x L230 boxes connected to 3 windows 2003 servers (30 per server). When logging on a class full of students over half logon no problem, but the between 5 and 10 logon and only get the desktop wall paper no icons or start bar. These students are able to press Ctrl+Alt+Del to log off and try again, very very occasionally this works. we have tried creating local accounts to see if it is a network logon issue but this has the same issue no startbar icons for 5-10 users. The server specs vary 2 are VMware boxes with the following specs Item Value OS Name Microsoft® Windows® Server 2003, Enterprise Edition Version 5.2.3790 Service Pack 2 Build 3790 Other OS Description Not Available OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation System Name VM-ICT2 System Manufacturer VMware, Inc. System Model VMware Virtual Platform System Type X86-based PC Processor x86 Family 6 Model 23 Stepping 6 GenuineIntel ~2833 Mhz Processor x86 Family 6 Model 23 Stepping 6 GenuineIntel ~2834 Mhz Processor x86 Family 6 Model 23 Stepping 6 GenuineIntel ~2834 Mhz Processor x86 Family 6 Model 23 Stepping 6 GenuineIntel ~2834 Mhz BIOS Version/Date Phoenix Technologies LTD 6.00, 26/03/2009 SMBIOS Version 2.4 Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32 Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1 Locale United Kingdom Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.2.3790.3959 (srv03_sp2_rtm.070216-1710)" User Name Not Available Time Zone GMT Daylight Time Total Physical Memory 6,143.21 MB Available Physical Memory 4.88 GB Total Virtual Memory 9.73 GB Available Virtual Memory 8.58 GB Page File Space 3.91 GB Page File C:\pagefile.sys and one is a physical box with the spec below. OS Name Microsoft® Windows® Server 2003, Enterprise Edition Version 5.2.3790 Service Pack 2 Build 3790 Other OS Description R2 OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation System Name ICT-3 System Manufacturer HP System Model ProLiant BL460c G1 System Type X86-based PC Processor x86 Family 6 Model 23 Stepping 10 GenuineIntel ~2833 Mhz Processor x86 Family 6 Model 23 Stepping 10 GenuineIntel ~2833 Mhz Processor x86 Family 6 Model 23 Stepping 10 GenuineIntel ~2833 Mhz Processor x86 Family 6 Model 23 Stepping 10 GenuineIntel ~2833 Mhz BIOS Version/Date HP I15, 02/11/2008 SMBIOS Version 2.4 Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32 Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1 Locale United Kingdom Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.2.3790.3959 (srv03_sp2_rtm.070216-1710)" User Name Not Available Time Zone GMT Daylight Time Total Physical Memory 32,765.66 MB Available Physical Memory 30.70 GB Total Virtual Memory 63.63 GB Available Virtual Memory 62.47 GB Page File Space 31.98 GB Page File C:\pagefile.sys Any suggestions greatly appreciated Thanks Iain

We currently have 20 servers and I've been learning about HYPERV recently. I was wondering what servers would be good candidates for virtualisation. I'm guessing things like Exchange \ MSSQL \ SIMS \ DCs shouldn't be virtualised as they use too many resources. I assume things like DNS \ DHCP \ Print Services \ RO-DCs would be good suggestions (obviously having a non Virtualised server with DNS \ DHCP on as well for redundency). So do these look ok? What else would you virtualise and what servers would you avoid being virtualised? I suppose the best way is to see what other people have done and here from their experiences regarding what works and what doesn't. Thanks guys.

Citrix have just announced a new version of their free Xen Server, version 5.5 The bullet points: * Consolidated Backup allows third-party backup vendors to interface directly with XenServer to provide full and incremental, in-guest, file and image backups of virtual machines. The new consolidated backup capabilities in XenServer also provide customers with the ability to execute full GUI-based snapshots directly from the XenCenter central management console. * Enhanced Conversion Tools make it easy to convert virtual machines created in the VMDK format (commonly used by VMware) into the VHD format (commonly used by Citrix XenServer and Microsoft Hyper-V). The new XenConvert tools also make it easy to seamlessly convert between any of the common open virtualization format packages, including OVF (open virtualization format), OVA (open virtual appliance) and XVA (XenServer virtual appliance). * Enhanced Search enables customers to view and manage XenServer environments by a range of criteria including VM name, resource pool, location, server, storage repository, snapshot time, and network name – all from a single location. It also provides the ability to create custom views or folders. * Active Directory Integration makes it easy for customers to use their AD credentials to mange XenServer hosts as well as log and audit user activity. * Expanded Guest Support adds SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, Debian 5.0 and RedHat/CentOS/Oracle 5.3 to a growing list of supported guests that includes virtually every version of the Windows and Linux operating systems. The beta, as well as a 30-day trial version of Citrix Essentials, is available at Citrix Systems » Citrix XenServer: Efficient Virtual Server Software. The beta version of the new Citrix XenServer 5.5 is also available today and can be downloaded free of charge from Citrix Systems » Products » -- XenServer/Essentials » XenServer. The 5.5 version of both product lines will be generally available June 19. Linky: Citrix Systems » Citrix Upgrades Server Virtualization Product Lines for XenServer and Hyper-V

Hey all, I'm looking for advice on the best way to set up a new pair of servers our school just purchased, but first, here's what I plan to run on them: - postfix / amavis / clamav / (spam assassin or dspam) for mail relays to our Exchange box - Moodle 2.0 - Cando (CanDo: Virginia's Online Competency-Tracking System) - Apache and other basic apps - Nagios Limitations: Once I get the mail relays and Moodle up and into production, these two services can never be down. (mail relay - obvious, Moodle - used for online courses) My thought was to run these two servers in a cluster-type setup, so that I can restart them independently and still have services up. Does anyone have any suggestions on the best way to do this with a minimal amount of management? DRDB comes to mind. I'm currently running two separate physical boxes for mail relays and am pretty comfortable with it - for instance, I know if an apt-get upgrade breaks one, I have the other to fall back onto. I'm a bit leery about (basically) mirroring these two new boxes. Another possibility is to run each of these services in a VM on these servers. Thoughts? Feasible? Beneficial? Off hand it seems that it would keep my workload the same as it is now, as I'm running a physical box for all these services now, instead of consolidating them to one. Thanks for any suggestions. Damian

Hi there, I've got two servers to replace (both DC's) and increase storage space over the summer and I'm currently looking into virtualisation, rather than like for like. Mainly for the improved disaster recovery and other advantages. A few possibilities have cropped up that I would appreciate some advice on. Most quotes suggest using VMware Essentials Plus as the best hypervisor for my scenario. I'm also tempted by hyper-v r2 and doing most of the setup myself because of the cost saving and advanced features. Is anyone using VMWare essentials? is it a easy system to manage? I'm aware of the upgrade and server limit. I like the look of Microsoft DPM 2010 (rather than backup exec upgrade) and system manager essentials 2010 for a hyper-v environment. Quotes I have mention veeam and vranger for backup - any view on which is best? SAN - I like the idea of a VSA using datacore, lefthand with local replicated server storage etc over a single SAN box - does anyone use this or recommend a good SAN system? I have a budget of approx £15,000 to replace the server hardware, get a SAN, increase the storage capacity to >5Tb, and get a backup system. Is this do-able, assuming I do most of the work? Thanks,

Hi guys, im looking into possibly virtualizing our DPM server. We currently have a physical 2016 server hosting DPM 2016 with SQL 2012r2. (we upgraded from DPM 2012r2 to 2016) We have 2 Powervault MD1200s attached for the storage and a Powervault 124T for the tapes. Has anyone got their DPM setup virtualized and if so, could let me know how they did it or point me in the direction of any guides. What are the advantages/disadvantages of having DPM as a virtual machine Thank you! -Vicky Tofield IT service desk supervisor Hatton Academies Trust

Hi All, Suppose i got the Windows Server serial numbers with both type of serial (Physical and virtual) and the server is using VMware ESXi, can i deploy a VM using the physical serial number as well ? the number of running Windows instance is still the same as the serial number though. can anyone confirms this if possible ? Thanks.

I would be interested to know if anyone has been successful in virtualising their RM CC4 DC's. We are considering virtualising our servers on our own VMWare infrastructure (not installed by RM). Has anyone been through this process? Does it work? Are there any pitfalls? Do RM need to be involved or can we manage this in-house? Many thanks, Daniel

After installing Windows Live Essentials 2011 may find the APP-V client starts asking for credentials before some packages will run. Here's how to fix it : App-V and Windows Live Mesh are not compatible | Microsoft Connect

I need to install some kind of Virtualization software on my home computer (Windows 7 Pro 64-bit) primarily for testing Server 2008, Linux ISO's, etc. VMWare Player and Virtualbox seem to be the names that keep on cropping up as recommendations. Any others (or thoughts on which of the 2 above would be more suitable)? TIA

We already have SWV (Symantec Workspace Virtualization)*, but so far haven't used it much and it's coming up for renewal. App-V we can get if we buy MDOP (which is cheaper than the SWV renewal). We are about to go mixed WXP and W7 clients (not sure if this matters or not). What are your thoughts? I'm personally thinking App-V (with the MDOP bonuses) but there aren't any good arguements to back that up. * Sorry about the z, but most people search for it with a z.

Have recently had a new server commissioned, which consists of a bunch of virtual servers running various functions. Would like to set up WDS and WSUS and can do this on the DC, but was wondering whether it would be better to create a separate virtual server for these. Bearing in mind that I'd have to do a LOT of reading up to be able to set up a new virtual server, would it be worth it? Or better to stick with what I know (very limited time)? If "new VM" is the answer, are there licensing ramifications? My sensible side says "you haven't got much time, go with the tried and tested (and you won't break anything)" but my more adventurous side would like to experiment.

Hi We have a 2008 failover cluster with several high availiblty images running on it. I want to remove one of the images from HA and make it just run on one server rather then the cluster (the server is part of the cluster but will host both cluster images and the standalone) Has anyone done this? I assume I just delete the node in failover manager but I dont want to click the button until I know its not going to wipe the image. Cheers