How to install Microsoft App-V 5.0 SP1

I never expected it took me whole afternoon on just installing a App-V, well, I do admit I did went out for other stuff, but it is little ridiculous how complicated and lack of correct information the whole process is.

I write this post to help myself and others for future reference. If you do run into similar issue, hope this post can help.

Test Environment:

Windows 2012 runs HYPER-V on it

SQL 2008 R2 runs on Hyper-V

 

SQL Preparation:

This is the part which kills everyone. If you think you just jump on the SQL and create couple of DB and jump back and run installation wizard, then I can tell you will see following errors.

This warning is telling you that you didn’t prepare DB as what Microsoft wanted and go back now!

Funny thing is it only has one button “OK”, no cancel?

 

If you continue to install, you will run into The error was : Invalid object name ‘dbo.RoleAssignments’ after you finish installation.

The correct installation method is following kirxblog and prepare the DB.

Essentially, there are two methods to prepare DB. You can either bring installation disk on SQL server and run through installation wizard which requires you to install whole bunch of craps or you can manually install it as what this post will tell you.

1. get DB scripts ready

In terms of extract DB script, you need to find installation exe file and run it with /layout as parameter.

Once you have done that, you will following structure

2. Create 3 AD groups

Now, according to installation instruct of script, you need two groups which are read and write. I also create 3rd group called AppVAdmin for managing.

You need to add App-V server computer account into AppvAdmin group. Also domain admins as well.

3. Modify DB scripts with Powershell script

The original DB script which you extracted from installation exe file requires SID of AD groups in terms of making it work! It’s not easy to find those SID and not mention other nasty stuff.

Thank for Kirx beautiful powershell script, we are able to prepare those DB scripts with Powershell script.

Instead of all other nasty information, all what you need to do is to provide name of groups and name of DBs. Powershell script will prepare the DB script and help you to finish the work.

download Kirx script and edit.

Found those lines and replace it

 

If you never run powershell script on this serve, you may want to unlock it.

Make backup for your DB scripts and copy them to c:\temp folder like this.

c:\temp\ManagementDatabase and also report database script.

Copy kirx script to c:\temp

Run it, if it works, it should return with no result.

However, it will change the file name under those DB scripts.

Original folder.

Changed

 

3. run the Scripts on DB

Copy your new script to SQL server and open management studio

Run 1-1 Database script which will create new DB on SQL

Run all other script base on DB you just created

 

4. Add AppvAdmin group to db.Ower on new DB

Your AppvAdmin group should contain App-V server account by now

 

Install Prerequisites for App-V

You need to download Microsoft C++ 2010 x86 version and install on App-V server. Yes, it is x86 not x64 version!

Otherwise, you will get this one.

 

Install App-V

Now, we can start to see those fish eggs , oh, no, orange Apps in the Box

 

Now, Unless you have SQL on your App-V box, otherwise, DO NOT tick those boxes. It will change your wizard steps.

 

 

Once you finish installation, I strongly recommend you to restart your App-V and most likely, you just add computer account into AppvAdmin group and requires restart to take effect.

Otherwise, you may see this.

After restart App-V, you should be able to this no error on console.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reference:

http://kirxblog.wordpress.com/2012/11/01/remote-database-preparation-for-app-v-5/

SCVMM 2012 RC can’t manage Windows 8 Beta Hyper-v 3

I was trying to install SCVMM 2012 to manage Windows 8 beta. But unfortunately, Windows 8 Hyper-v has some major changes in services and you can’t import any Hyper-v 3 beta into SCVMM 2012 RC at this stage.

 

I will confirm with MS and update it later.

 

Windows 8 Hyper-v 3 New Dynamic Memory testing!!

Oh, OMG. The ugly Windows 3.1 style fish. ……

This is first feature I’m testing with Hyper-v 3. I personally is shocking with how good Dynamic Memory is. If I make any wrong comments in this blog due to lack of knowledge of Hyper-v, please leave comment. Thanks

We all know Dynamic Memory feature in Hyper-v R2. This is quite argument point between Vmware and Microsoft. Vmware claims they have Memory over committing, memory sharing(schedule not real time), memory paging and memory balloon technology. Well, Personally, I have to say Vmware has done great job to allow more VMs memory consumption then what a host can hold. It is hard to do it without knowing OS core to reuse the memory.

Microsoft, on the other hand, has Dynamic Memory. It allows you to “Dynamic using memory” by setting up lowest memory and maximized memory for each vm. Well, to be honest, I’m not very interesting about this tech since it’s very similar as what Vmware does.

Now, thing is completely different from Hyper-v 3.

You can increase your vm memory on the fly!

Yes, Vmware can do same thing long time ago. I used to write a post about it. However, it can only happen to Windows Datacenter version. Vmware does that by physically plug in virtual memory DIMMs into OS hardware. However, only Windows Datacenter level has capability to pick them up and add them into OS on the fly.

Hyper-v 3 does that with almost every Microsoft system. Following is the list.

• Guest operating system	Editions	Configuration requirements
  Windows Server 2008 R2	Standard and Web editions	Install Windows Server 2008 R2 SP 1 in the guest operating system.
  Windows Server 2008 R2	Enterprise and Datacenter editions	Do one of the following: Install Windows Server 2008 R2 SP 1 in the guest operating system. Upgrade the integration services in the guest operating system to the SP 1 version. Note Installing Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 is the recommended method because it provides the added benefit of installing all updates included with SP1.
  Windows 7	Ultimate and Enterprise editions (32-bit and 64-bit)	Do one of the following: Install Windows 7 SP1 in the guest operating system. Upgrade the integration services in the guest operating system to the SP1 version. Note Installing SP1 is the recommended method because it provides the added benefit of installing all updates included with SP1.
  Windows Server 2008 with Service Pack 2 (SP2)	Standard and Web editions (32-bit and 64-bit)	Upgrade the integration services in the guest operating system to the SP1 version.Apply a hotfix as described in article 2230887(http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=206472).
  Windows Server 2008 with Service Pack 2 (SP2)	Enterprise and Datacenter editions (32-bit and 64-bit)	Upgrade the integration services in the guest operating system to the SP1 version.
  Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 (SP1)	Ultimate and Enterprise editions (32-bit and 64-bit)	Upgrade the integration services in the guest operating system to the SP1 version.
  Windows Server 2003 R2 with Service Pack 2 (SP2)	Standard, Web, Enterprise, and Datacenter editions (32-bit and 64-bit)	Upgrade the integration services in the guest operating system to the SP1 version.
  Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 2	Standard, Web, Enterprise, and Datacenter editions (32-bit and 64-bit)	Upgrade the integration services in the guest operating system to the SP1 version.

Let’s Testing!!

I tested both on windows 2008 R2 SP1 and Windows 2003 R2. The result is the same. As long as you install “Intergration Services Setup Disk”, you will be able to increase memory on any VMs on the fly!

First, I created a VM and go into settings.

This is the default settings of maximum memory settings. It has nothing to do with  your host memory. It’s just maximum figure of Hyper-v 3 can handle. We don’t want Hyper-v to handle all memory. so I changed this figure to 512MB also changed start memory to 500MB like following picture.

Then, I restarted W2K3 and you can see how much physical memory it has.  Please be aware this physical memory is just figure of minimum memory figure. It will increase with how much memory you consume.

Now, let’s change the maximum memory figure on the fly to 1GB!

Once you increased the memory, you won’t see it reflect to OS immediately. You have to use memory and beyond the current physical memory level. Let’s increase number of IE window from 1 to 102. -_-b

Amazing! isn’t it?

Few other points:

At Hyper-v 3, you can increase maximum memory but you can’t decrease them on the fly! You do can decrease minimum memory memory on the fly although I don’t see much point here.

Hyper-v 3 supports balloon technology as well. The smart-page feature may contribute some scenarios with HA. But I haven’t got time to test it.

More features updates are coming. Please stay in tune.

Reference:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff817651(v=ws.10).aspx

Convert Sharepoint 2010 Demo vhd to Vmware vSphere Environment

 

Here is a details you may find handy in the future. As we all use Microsoft products, MS always release their Demo with vhd format. I always thought it would pretty easy and straight forward to convert vhd to vmdk. But it turns out it’s not exactly smooth like it sounds. so I write this article to help everyone who may have same issue.

Let’s check out the basic requirement.

Sharepoint 2010 Demo.

You need to download 28 winrar compressed files from Microsoft website. It will occupy 17GB space.

Extra those 17GB files, you will get two folders.  2010-7a (44GB,vhd) and 2010-7b (14GB,vhd) file.

These vhd are using thin mode. The full size of vhd is 133GB each.

Goal:

Run Sharepoint Demo in the Test or Dev Environment.

Hyper-V Solution:

You can install Windows 2008 R2 on a real physical server and add on Hyper-v feature.  However, if you don’t have Hyper-V, you may encounter following.

Hyper-V in Vmware Env  issues:

1.MS doesn’t allow you to enable Hyper-v feature on a VM. There is no other way to install Hyper-V on VM.

2. Virtual PC can’t run this Demo either. As matter of fact, MS recommend only use Hyper-V R2 to run it.

 

Vmware Solutions:

If you environment is complete VMWare, we need to figure out a solution to run DEMO in the Vmware vSphere Test or Dev env. But we also don’t want to waste all unnecessary space during the procedure. So for all converting, vhd or vmdk must be stay in thin disk mode.

 

Using Vmware Convert:

Vmware Convert is an excellent tool. However it doesn’t support vhd file directly. It requires thirdparty software to do preparation. Vmware Converter has 5 ways to import other machines into Vmware.

1. Power-On Machine(As long as they are windows server and 2003 up. Physical or VM, using MS VSS.)
2. VMware Infrastructure virtual Machine (convert a vm from Vmware ESX itself)
3. Vmware Workstation or other Vmware virtual machine (must be a vm, not just a single disk. For vm server as well.)
4. Backup image or third-party virtual machine (Support virtual PC, Symantec Recovery Imange, Acronis etc, must be a vm, not a single disk).
5. Hyper-V server (It will deploy convert agent on Hyper-v, doesn’t require reboot).

 

In our case, we need to use method 3,4 or 5 to do the job.

Method 3 requires a Vm workstation or VM server version of VM. We can use Starwind to do this job.

Starwind:

Starwind free tool V2V convert can convert VHD to VMDK and vice verse.

It can has following options. First 3 options are what we concern.

 

Vmware growable image and VMware pre-allocated image are VMware workstation version VMDK. First option is to use thin disk mode.If you choose this one, you have to download a VM workstation or VM Server to create a VM.

Vmware ESX Server image is what we want. But it has biggest issue. There is only thick mode for this option. In our case, you have to convert 43GB VHD(thin mode) to 131GB VMDK (ESX but thick mode). You can upload this big fat file to your storage space but it will cause lots disk consumption and time.

 

Then, you can use VMware converter to import it into ESX.

Method 4 is the one I recommend here.

All what you need to do is to download Virtual PC 2007 SP1 which can be installed on the Windows 2008 R2. You can simply run it easily and ignore the warning it gives you since you don’t need actually to run vm.

You just need to create a Mcirosoft Virtual PC VM. Then, you can use VMware convert to import it into ESX.

 

Method 5 is a little distance to go.

You need to install a Hyper-v on bare physical hardware and create a VM and import the vhd disk. Then, you can use VMware convert to import it into ESX.

 

Conclusion:

Convert VHD to Vmware method.

Install Virtual PC 2007 sp1-> Create a vm->using vhd->save vmc file->load VM Converter->use method 3->import into vSphere

Install Starwind->Convert VHD to ESX Server VM->save full size VMDK file ->Upload full size VMDK file->Create VM in vSphere->using VMDK disk (full size)

Install Starwind->Convert VHD to VM workstation vmdk(thin)->save thin vmdk file->install VM workstation or VM Server->Create vm->load vmdk->create vmx file->load VMConvert->import into vSphere with thin mode

Or you can use Winimage to replace Starwind

Reference:

Download virtual pc 2007 sp1

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyId=28C97D22-6EB8-4A09-A7F7-F6C7A1F000B5&displaylang=en

http://www.sharepointdevwiki.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=23429169