MEC 2012 Summary

For those of us who couldn't make it to MEC 2012, here are two very nice write ups.

Microsoft Exchange Conference 2012, a Summary

MEC 2012 Wrap-up

Microsoft Message Analyser

Microsoft Message Analyser has been released to the public, available here.  In order to download the program, please join Message Analyser program.

Key capabilities include:

- Integrated "live" event and message capture at various system levels and endpoints
- Parsing and validation of protocol messages and sequences
- Automatic parsing of event messages described by ETW manifests
- Summarized grid display – top level is  “operations”, (requests matched with responses)
- User controlled "on the fly" grouping by message attributes
- Ability to browse for logs of different types (.cap, .etl, .txt) and import them together
- Automatic re-assembly and ability to render payloads
- Ability to import text logs, parsing them into key element/value pairs
- Support for “Trace Scenarios” (one or more message providers, filters, and views)

Announcing Exchange 2010 Service Pack 3

The Exchange Team is pleased to announce that in the first half of calendar year 2013 they will be releasing Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 3 (SP3). With SP3, the following new features and capabilities will be included:

Coexistence with Exchange 2013: Customers that want to introduce Exchange Server 2013 into their existing Exchange 2010 infrastructure will need the coexistence changes shipping in SP3.

Support for Windows Server 2012: With Service Pack 3, you will have the ability to install and deploy Exchange Server 2010 on machines running Windows Server 2012.

Customer Requested Fixes: All fixes contained within update rollups released prior to Service Pack 3 will also be contained within SP3. Details of our regular Exchange 2010 release rhythm can be found in Exchange 2010 Servicing.

More information can be found here;

Exchange 2013 and Lync 2013 videos from TechEd Australia

Lync 2013 TechEd Australia videos can be found here;
Exchange 2013 TechEd Australia videos can be found here;

Microsoft Office 2013 Preview AppV packages

Virtualized Office 2013 Preview packages for AppV 5.0 Beta deployments is now available here;

Windows Server 2012 Architecture - Server Posterpedia

Windows Server 2012 Architecture Posters are now available on the Windows Store;

 

Available here;

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2012 Update 1

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2012 Update 1 is the newest version of MDT, a Solution Accelerator for operating system and application deployment. MDT 2012 Update 1 supports deployment of Windows 8, Windows 7, Office 2010 and 365, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2008 R2 in addition to deployment of Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, and Windows XP.

Deploy Windows and Office 2010 with Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2012 Update 1. MDT is the recommended process and toolset for automating desktop and server deployment. MDT provides you with the following benefits:

• Unified tools and processes, including a set of guidance, for deploying desktops and servers in a common deployment console.
• Reduced deployment time and standardized desktop and server images, along with improved security and ongoing configuration management.

Some of the key changes in MDT 2012 Update 1 are:

• Added support for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012.
• Support for System Center 2012 Configuration Manager SP1 CTP: Added support in MDT for deploying Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 with Configuration Manager 2012 SP1 CTP, while supporting all new Configuration Manager functionality (offline BitLocker, UEFI, and Assessment and Deployment Kit).
• Support for DaRT 8 Beta: Updated MDT to support DaRT 8 for Windows 8 deployments, while continuing to support DaRT 7 for Windows 7 deployments. Added DaRT support for Configuration Manager scenarios.
• New “Build Your Own Pages” User-Driven Installation (UDI) feature: Enhanced the UDI wizard and designer to enable IT pros to design their own wizard pages with little effort.
• New System Center 2012 - Orchestrator support: Provided the ability to add steps into an OS deployment task sequence to execute Orchestrator runbooks as part of the deployment process.
• Other improvements: Added support for Windows PowerShell 3.0, reworked Roles and Features installation logic for Windows 8, improved “boot from VHD” deployment scenarios, and added support for Configuration Manager monitoring.

More information can be found here;

Windows Server 2012 Core and Shell Tools

One of the main reasons for installing Windows Server 2012 Core is to reduce patching and the attack surface; however the downside of this means that you have no GUI so configuring the Server is only possible via PowerShell … well sorta!


Once you have installed Server Core 2012 you are greeted with a dos box.


Microsoft has changed Server Core and now allows you to install a MiniShell or the full Windows Shell.  If you enter a PowerShell session and type:

Get-WindowsFeature *gui*
(You will see that the two shell options are not installed)

To install the GUI tools you need to access the install.wim file; this is required because Server Core needs to access the missing files – Core is 3GB smaller. If you use the following command;
install-windowsfeature server-gui-mgmt-infra
(you may get “The request to add or remove features on the specified server failed”)


What we need to do is locate the index number for your Windows Server Core installation; index 2 is Standard and index 4 is Data Centre (index 1 and 3 refers to the Core installation media and will not have the missing files); in my scenario I had installed Server Core Standard – so index 2.

Install-WindowsFeature server-gui-mgmt-infra -source:wim:d:\sources\install.wim:2
(Where D: is my cd drive)
You can install both features by using;
Install-WindowsFeature server-gui-mgmt-infra,server-gui-shell -source:wim:d:\sources\install.wim:2

You must reboot the Server to complete the installation.

After the reboot Server Manger will start automatically; if you close Server Manager you can use the following commands.

We can use PowerShell to verify that the GUI Tools were installed.

You can also install the Full Shell as the binaries are now available locally by running the following command.

We can use PowerShell to verify that the Full GUI is installed.

The removal of the GUI Tools can be done one by one or remove both the Tools and Full Shell in one command as shown below.

Hyper-V Linux Support

When installed in a supported Linux virtual machine running on Hyper-V, the Linux Integration Components provide:

Driver support: Linux Integration Services supports the network controller and the IDE and SCSI storage controllers that were developed specifically for Hyper-V.

Fastpath Boot Support for Hyper-V: Boot devices now take advantage of the block Virtualization Service Client (VSC) to provide enhanced performance.

Time Keeping: The clock inside the virtual machine will remain accurate by synchronizing to the clock on the virtualization server via Timesync service, and with the help of the pluggable time source device.

Integrated Shutdown: Virtual machines running Linux can be shut down from either Hyper-V Manager or System Center Virtual Machine Manager by using the “Shut down” command.

Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) Support: Supported Linux distributions can use multiple virtual processors per virtual machine. The actual number of virtual processors that can be allocated to a virtual machine is only limited by the underlying hypervisor.

Heartbeat: This feature allows the virtualization server to detect whether the virtual machine is running and responsive.

KVP (Key Value Pair) Exchange: Information about the running Linux virtual machine can be obtained by using the Key Value Pair exchange functionality on the Windows Server 2008 virtualization server.

Integrated Mouse Support: Linux Integration Services provides full mouse support for Linux guest virtual machines.

Live Migration: Linux virtual machines can undergo live migration for load balancing purposes.

Jumbo Frames: Linux virtual machines can be configured to use Ethernet frames with more than 1500 bytes of payload.

VLAN tagging and trunking: Administrators can attach single or multiple VLAN ids to synthetic network adapters.

Support hosts
    Windows
    8 Hyper-V
    Windows
    Server 2012 Hyper-V
    Microsoft
    Hyper-V Server 2012

Supported guest operating systems:

    RHEL
    5.7 (x86 and x64)
    RHEL
    5.8 (x86 and x64)
    RHEL
    6.3 (x86 and x64)
    CentOS
    5.7 (x86 and x64)
    CentOS
    5.8 (x86 and x64)
    CentOS
    6.3 (x86 and x64)

More information can be found here;

Powershell Cheat Sheets

PowerShell Basic Cheat Sheet can be found here;
PowerShell Exchange 2010 Cheat Sheet can be found here;