Re-enabling Hyper-V

I am in love with my Windows 7 installation, but I do have occasional need to go into dark alleys of system administration. With Hyper-V as a bait, it is really hard to resist.

In order to keep everything simple, I don’t have dedicated partition for it. I just create VHD file and install into it. It behaves like normal installation, but without all hassle with disk repartitioning.

I also found that quickest way to do this is filling VHD directly from install CD. After that, I just copy already existing boot loader entry and change it a little.

After installing Windows Server 2008 R2 in this manner and additional installation of Hyper-V role, everything seemed fine. Creating virtual machine went without a hitch. Only when I tried to start it, I got “The application encountered an error while attempting to change the state of ‘Test’”. Third line held a issues “The virtual machine could not be started because hypervisor is not running.”. Looking into details, there was one possible cause that applied here - incorrect boot configuration.

Underlying problem was that I copied Windows 7 boot loader configuration as base for my Windows Server 2008 R2. Configurations are quite similar except for one crucial detail - there is no hypervisorlaunchtype value name in Windows 7. This is not a big problem once and there is simple command to take care of it:

bcdedit /set "{identifier}" hypervisorlaunchtype "auto"
The operation completed successfully.

Identifier is of course guid of Windows Server 2008 R2 boot loader (you can find it out with bcdedit /v). If you want to change currently running instance, you can omit identifier altogether.

After one reboot, virtual machine starts without problems.

Windows 7 Is Available on MSDN

Windows 7 is available for download if you happen to be MSDN or TechNet subscriber. His friends Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 will be also there in few days.

When Release Candidate went out, servers were under such load that even requesting a key was painfully slow. I hope that download servers will hold-on this time.

P.S. I will miss the betta fish.

Windows XP Mode - Release Candidate

Those interested in Windows XP Mode can now play with newest version. It is still not final, but release candidate is a big step. Small outline of what exactly was changed you can see at Windows 7 Team Blog.

I will wait for final Windows 7 RTM before I install it so I can only hope that Virtual PC got back all it’s “mojo” from old days. Try it your self at Virtual PC web pages.

Il Ritrovo-Cucina Casalinga Popolare

Where

Wühlischstraße 29, 10245 Berlin N52.50957 E13.45804

Location is at corner and during summer whole sidewalk is filled with tables. There are some tables inside but it is just too hot to sit if you come during sunny day. Whole place does look a little bit shabby.

What

I had pizza that will remain unnamed and I do hope that my forgiveness wasn’t side effect of eating it. On other hand, it may be worth of this little nuisance since pizza was quite good. I cannot say that it was best in Berlin since I haven’t check all other places, but I must admit that it was best pizza I had lately (in any country).

Cost

Pizza is around 8 € which is not too expensive when you take quality into calculation. Beer at 3 € is quite costly but those German beers (I had Berliner) flow so nicely that is impossible to mind too much.

Verdict

I’ll be back.

MagiWOL 2.10

This one is only small update to MagiWOL. Notable changes include:

• Enhanced compatibility with Mono.
• Fixed menu underlines.
• Extension .magiwol is now associated with program.
• Invalid open and save operations now go without crashing.

You can download it here now. At later time, you will be able to find it also at my home page.

P.S. Although interface looks simple, for those who wish to access full power of program there is menu hidden behind press of Alt key (or configurable to be always visible via Options).