Few points to note about installing 2010 SP1 in hosting mode:

• The installation can only be done in command line.
• You need to use /InstallWindowsComponents while running the setup to install all windows components required for Exchange. This will not install the pre-requirements only the windows components! Always install the pre-requirements first.
• You need to use /Hosting switch while running the setup to install Exchange in hosting mode.
• 2010 SP1 is required.
• Exchange Management Console will not be installed.

Exchange 2010 SP1 doesn’t support the following features in Hosting mode (from Technet):

• Exchange Management Console
• Public Folders
• Unified Messaging Server role
• GalSync
• Federation
• Business-to-Business features such as cross-premises message tracking and calendar sharing
• IRM
• Outlook 2003 support (EnableLegacyOutlook)
• Edge Transport Server role
• Same forest upgrade from Exchange 2007
• Resource forest
• Parent-child domains
• Discontiguous namespace
• Disjoint namespace

Here is based on the blogs zerohoursleep and howexchangeworks how its done! This step-by-step tutorial that will guide you to installing your first Exchange 2010 SP1 multi-tenant organization to a fully operational mode.

Lab setup

For this lab I am using 2 servers running Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 one of them acting as a domain controller for the lab domain lab.com and the other will be running all roles of Microsoft Exchange 2010 SP1 CAS,HUB and Mailbox.

Of course in a live environment exchange roles will be most probably split among multiple servers but the concept is pretty much the same.

I will assume that the Domain Controller is already installed and that the exchange server to be has already Windows 2008 R2 installed with all the required patches to deploy Exchange 2010 SP1.

Installing Exchange 2010 SP1 in hosting (or multi-tenant) mode

Installing Exchange prerequisites on Windows 2008R2

I am used to this script to automate installation of the prerequisites since I find it very clean.
We will start by running the powershell administrator “right click -> run as administrator” and allow the script execution using

Set-ExecutionPolicy unrestricted

Running the script will then offer you a menu, in my case I need to select option 6 since all roles will be installed on the same server and restart the machine after.

Installing Exchange

As you may already know Exchange 2010 multi-tenant can only be installed using the command line by adding the /hosting parameter, we will initiate the installation by running

setup.com /m:install /r:m,ca,ht /installwindowscomponents /hosting /on:ExchLab

Let me first explain the above command

• /m stands for /mode and we are running the installation mode
• /r stands for /roles and we want to install the m (mailbox) ca (client access) ht (hub transport) roles. Of course you will need to change this if you don’t want to install all roles
• /hosting is required to tell the setup to run the hosting installation
• /on stands for /OrganizationName and you will define here the name of your Exchange organization. I called mine ExchLab

We will now wait for the installation to finish

A few differences with Exchange not hosted

The first thing I have noticed after the installation is differences in Active Directory Users and Computers like the presence of a brand new Organizational Unit “Microsoft Exchange Hosted Organizations”

And the addition of new Exchange Security groups (plus the absence of the UM one)

Now of course the absence of the Exchange Management Console should have been first however this I was expecting since it is all over the place so I was expecting this.

A look at Service Plans

Before doing a jump start and create an organization we need to take a look at some files located on your CAS server called Service Plans.

Service plans are located by default in “C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\ClientAccess\ServicePlans” of your CAS server and they define the different services your hosted organization provides to its customer.

We have 2 things to notice here

1. Since the files are located on the CAS then editing a file means updating it on all your CAS servers
2. You have 2 kinds of files the .ServicePlan files that actually defines all permissions you give to an organization and the .csv file that maps Hosting Plans with Service Plans

.ServicePlan files

Each .SevicePlan above presents a set of permissions/features/quotas etc.. and their names are self explanatory. However if you need to change or create you own ServicePlan the file itself is an xml file, just start with the HostingAllFeatures_Sample.ServicePlan and remove any entry you don’t want and/or change any value.

N.B.: Make sure NOT to use the sample plans if you edit them since they will replaced by any update done on the server.

.csv file

The other kind of file in this folder is the ServicePlanHostingRemap.csv that is pretty simple as it maps a specific hosting plan name and offerID to a service plan defined above. Nothing really complicated her but definitely worth a look

Creating your first organization

So now that you have grasp the general idea about ServicePlan files let’s create our first organization. We will start by first creating the Serviceplan whitin ServicePlanHostingRemap.csv file we have just discussed. Because i am using the sample i won’t but normaly i would delete the samples and create your own here.  

Then running the command.

$c = get-credential

This will prompt you for a username and password, you can input any fake username you want since only need and use the password from this command. The password specified is going to be used for the administrator of the organization you are about to create.
Then run

New-organization -name TestOrg -DomainName TestOrg.com -ProgramId HostingSample -OfferId 2 -location en-US -AdministratorPassword $c.password

Let’s focus on this command a bit

1. Name parameter defines the Organization name you are about to create
2. DomainName parameter defines the SMTP domain of this organization, so users in the TestOrg organization will have emails @TestOrg.com
3. ProgramID is coming right from the .csv file we have just discussed so this organization will have the HostingSample hosting plan<
4. OfferID is also defined in the .csv file above, so we need to match HostingSample with ProgramID 2 we are giving to this organization the HostingAllFeatures_sample ServicePlan
5. AdministratorPassword: As you can notice the parameter is only concerned with the password of this organization’s administrator, not the username, so we are using on the password provided in the get-credentials command only by using $c.password

That was not that complicated right ! But what happened on the Active Directory side ?

As you can see a dedicated OU was created for the TestOrg organization with its Administrator user and its own Security groups. Pretty cool hein !
Don’t worry yet about the extra user “Antoine Khater” we will see how to create it in the Part 3 of this tutorial.

Deleting an Organization

To finish today’s article I will go over the process of deleting an organization.

Deleting all mailboxes

You will not be allowed of purging an organization as long as it has mailboxes so we will need to, as a start, delete all the mailboxes of the organization. You will now notice that the “get-mailbox” command has, in hosting mode, an extra parameter -organization. So to delete all mailboxes in the TestOrg organization we will run

get-mailbox -Organization TestOrg | remove-mailbox

Deleting the organization

Now that the organization is empty of all mailboxes it can be deleting using

Remove-Organization TestOrg

And as you can imagine in will do all the cleaning from Active Directory as well.

Managing mailboxes as a hosting company

Creating mailboxes

We need to make the difference here between you, as a hosting company, creating users in a specific organization and the Organization Administrator creating users for its own organization.

To create, as a hosting company, users for a specific organization you will need to use the powershell command new-mailbox that, also, got new attribute -Organization.
Assuming I want to create a new mailbox for myself in the Organization “TestOrg” the command will be

New-Mailbox "Antoine Khater" -UserPrincipalName akhater@testorg.com -Organization TestOrg

As you can see the mailbox was created with the quotas define in the service plan of the TestOrg organization and with an email address of akhater@testorg.com, and you can guess it will be located in the TestOrg organizational unit in Active Directory.

Deleting mailboxes

Well this is a really funny one and I think it is a bug actually. The remove-mailbox cmdlet didn’t get the -organization parameter which make it impossible to delete a mailbox unless you use the combination of get-mailbox and remove-mailbox as follows

get-mailbox akhater@testorg.com -Organization TestOrg | remove-mailbox

Managing Organization as Organization Admin

Well I know that most hosting companies provide their customers with panels to do the management however exchange 2010 provides a decent management interface which is nothing but the Outlook Web App ECP.

Remember that administrator password we have used when we first created our TestOrg in earlierof this tutorial? Well it is now time to use it …

From the web browser reach https://casserver/ecp and logon with the organization username/password.
(one thing I’ve noticed is that now the OWA authentication page asks by default for the email address instead of Domain\Username)

After logging on you have the option to manage your organization

And there you will presented with the options of Creating new mailboxes/managing Mailboxes/reseting password and even creating SMTP rules and tracking emails

A look at address lists

I would like to add that, even if address list segregation is not supported yet on Exchange 2010 SP1, when installed in hosting (or multi-tenancy) mode each user will only see their Global Address Lists accounts that belongs to the same organization. So a user in the TestOrg organization will not see users in any other organization and vice-versa.

Receiving email

It is well known that if your exchange 2007/2010 is internet facing you will need to add “Anonymous” to the permission groups of the “Default Receive Connector” on your Hub transport server. Exchange 2010 running in hosted mode is no exception however there is no Exchange Management Console anymore to do this change so we will need to do it through powershell by running the following command. Of course don’t forget to replace “Exchange” by your Hub server name.

Set-ReceiveConnector -PermissionGroups 'AnonymousUsers, ExchangeUsers, ExchangeServers, ExchangeLegacyServers' -Identity 'Exchange\Default Exchange'

Sending emails

Sending external emails

We also know that Exchange 2007 / 2010 will not send external emails before creating a send connector, so we will create on using powershell also.

To create a Send connector using DNS MX for routing. You will also need to replace “Exchange” by the name of your Hub server

new-SendConnector -Name 'To Internet' -Usage 'Custom' -AddressSpaces 'SMTP:*;1' -IsScopedConnector $false -DNSRoutingEnabled $true -UseExternalDNSServersEnabled $false -SourceTransportServers 'Exchange'

To create a Send connector using smarthost relay for routing. You will also need to replace “Exchange” by the name of your Hub server and 1.1.1.1 by the IP of the smarthost

new-SendConnector -Name 'Using SmartHost' -Usage 'Custom' -AddressSpaces 'SMTP:*;1' -IsScopedConnector $false -DNSRoutingEnabled $false -SmartHosts '[1.1.1.1]' -SmartHostAuthMechanism 'None' -UseExternalDNSServersEnabled $false -SourceTransportServers 'Exchange'

Sending Inter-Organization emails

Well this is where things are new! I started by simply sending an email between 2 users in different organizations and, instead of reaching its destination, it went directly to the unreachable queue !

What does it mean?
Well it means that Users in different organizations are treated as completely independent, the user will not be resolved “locally” in Active Directory and delivered it will use the send connectors just like any other alien domain.

How to solve this?
Well I am sure there are a lot of ways to do this but, since I am in a lab environment with only one server I have created a send connector for all the organizations smtp domains and set it to use the loopback IP address as smart-host connector

new-SendConnector -Name 'TestOrg' -Usage 'Internal' -AddressSpaces 'SMTP:testorg.com;1','SMTP:lab.com;1' -IsScopedConnector $false -DNSRoutingEnabled $false -SmartHosts '[127.0.0.1]' -SmartHostAuthMechanism 'None' -UseExternalDNSServersEnabled $false -SourceTransportServers 'Exchange'

Well congratulations, if you made it that far you should have now a fully functional Exchange 2010 SP1 hosted environment. I hope this was of help.

Citrix continues to innovate in the desktop virtualization space and build on the on the market leading trajectory established with first with XenDesktop 4.0 — the industry’s first VDI offering to provide integrated app and desktop delivery in a single product – and extended with XenDesktop 5.0 —  focused on simplification and scalability for the administrator to deploy and manage virtual desktops.   With the release of XenDesktop 5.5, Citrix  takes it up a notch yet again and sets the new standard for desktop virtualization — including the ability to deliver personal VDI desktops, provide an unparalleled user experience with more than 150 new HDX features and enhancements, deliver “headquarters-like” experience across the  WAN to  remote workers and branch offices and new Citrix Receivers for Windows and MacOS.  Whew!  That was a long sentence

You can read about all of the news here.

Personal VDI desktops and reducing cost

The Citrix focus on end user experience and reducing costs of virtual desktop deployments was the driving force behind the RingCube acquisition and today’s announcement of the availability of the personal vDisk technology as a feature of XenDesktop 5.5.

If you haven’t heard about it, the new personal vDisk technology enables IT to realize the cost saving and management of pooled virtual desktops, while providing  personalization capabilities for profiles, data and applications that is typically found in a dedicated VDI deployment model.   Since we announced the acquisition of RingCube two weeks ago, my inbox has exploded with requests for more information regarding pricing,  packaging and availability.  I am pleased to confirm today that the personal vDisk technology will be included in all editions of XenDesktop at no additional charge.  The personal vDisk technology is available today as an “Early Access” feature for customers with Software Assurance to use in their labs and proof of concepts to get familiar with the technology.  In less then two weeks since the closing of this acquisition, we have delivered on the first release that is integrated with XenDesktop.  Using XenDesktop Studio, administrators can quickly create and deploy virtual desktops that take advantage of the personal vDisk technology.  The combination of the user acceptance of the personal VDI desktop and the IT cost savings allow organizations to deploy virtual desktops to a wider based of end users – truly creating a win-win situation.

You get additional technical information on the personal vDisk here.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 SP1 is a free, partner-extensible solution that allows you to dynamically pool, allocate, and manage datacenter resources. Using the Self-Service Portal, you can reduce IT costs, while increasing agility for your organization. The Self-Service Portal works with products and technologies you know and trust, like Windows Server and the System Center product suite. This solution delivers:

Citrix Integration Pack for Self-Service Portal

The integration pack integrates Essentials for Hyper-V with System Center by automatically provisioning the storage whenever a virtual machine is commissioned though the Self-Service Portal.
Learn more >

Compellent Solution Pack for Self-Service Portal

Utilizing Windows PowerShell® with the Compellent Storage Center SAN, Compellent’s Solution Pack enables the integration and support for self-service provisioning of data storage resources with Virtual Machine Manager and Windows Server Hyper-V™ through the Self-Service Portal.
Learn more >

F5 Solution for Self-Service Portal

The F5 solution for Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal adds the option for traffic management by the BIG-IP application delivery controller (ADC) within the service role section of a user request. Executing this option automatically configures the BIG-IP for the request of VMs as they come online.
Learn more >

HP Services Using the Self-Service Portal

Accelerate your journey to the private cloud with HP’s Converged Infrastructure and HP Technology Consulting services. Begin with a short assessment, then continue to implementation based on HP’s deep experience in the datacenter. HP uses pre-developed scripts, portals, and cmdlets to integrate into your environment and build a self-service infrastructure.
Learn more >

Intel Cloud Builder Guide: Cloud Design and Deployment on Intel Platforms

The Intel reference architecture will assist organizations that require their cloud data and assets to reside on premises and those that need to support a new business domain with a separate IT infrastructure that is scalable and flexible.
Learn more >

NetApp ApplianceWatch PRO 2.1.1

Accelerate virtual machine provisioning, and increase storage efficiencies in private cloud implementations managed by the Self-Service Portal with the integration scripts and PowerShell cmdlets included in ApplianceWatch PRO 2.1.1 that enable rapid provisioning of space-efficient VMs using NetApp FlexClone technology.
Learn more >

VKernel Chargeback with Hyper-V

VKernel Chargeback with Hyper-V enables private clouds to automatically map virtualization costs to applications and customers by reporting on allocated costs and by measuring and expensing the actual consumption of server and storage resources by cloud customers.
Learn more >

Dynamic Management Views for increased supportability:

sys.dm_exec_query_stats DMV is extended with additional columns to improve supportabilities over troubleshooting long-running queries. New DMVs and XEvents on select performance counters are introduced to monitor OS configurations and resource conditions related to the SQL Server instance.

ForceSeek for improved querying performance :

Syntax for FORCESEEK index hint has been modified to take optional parameters allowing it to control the access method on the index even further. Using old style syntax for FORCESEEK remains unmodified and works as before. In addition to that, a new query hint, FORCESCAN has been added. It complements the FORCESEEK hint allowing specifying ‘scan’ as the access method to the index. No changes to applications are necessary if you do not plan to use this new functionality.

Data-tier Application Component Framework (DAC Fx) for improved database upgrades:

The new Data-tier Application (DAC) Framework v1.1 and DAC upgrade wizard enable the new in-place upgrade service for database schema management. The new in-place upgrade service will upgrade the schema for an existing database in SQL Azure and the versions of SQL Server supported by DAC. A DAC is an entity that contains all of the database objects and instance objects used by an application. A DAC provides a single unit for authoring, deploying, and managing the data-tier objects. For more information, see Designing and Implementing Data-tier Applications.

Disk space control for PowerPivot:

This update introduces two new configuration settings that let you determine how long cached data stays in the system. In the new Disk Cache section on the PowerPivot configuration page, you can specify how long an inactive database remains in memory before it is unloaded. You can also limit how long a cached file is kept on disk before it is deleted.

Fixed various issues:

This update fixes many knowledge base issues that are listed in this Master KB article.
Link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2463333

For a detailed list of new features and improvements that are included in SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1, review the What’s New Section in Release Notes.
Link: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9764593

Now Sp1 is officially released, you can download the service pack from the Download Center:
Download: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26727

If you’re looking for SP1 for SQL Server Express:
Download: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26729

And the updated feature packs can be found here:
Download: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26728

The build number is 10.50.2500. SELECT @@VERSION will now yield something like this:

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (SP1) – 10.50.2500.0 (X64)
Jun 17 2011 00:54:03
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation
Developer Edition (64-bit) on Windows NT 6.1 (Build 7601: Service Pack 1)

Tech blog ConceivablyTech spotted the date on Mozilla’s official release schedule yesterday and a message to developers from Mozilla senior engineering director Damon Sicore indicated the first and only Firefox 4 release candidate would likely ship as the final version of the browser. Firefox 4 RC1 was made available on March 9.

”As of now, there are no known issues that would stop us from shipping RC1 as final…March 22nd is the day we would ship.  Both IT and Marketing have indicated that March 22nd is an acceptable final launch date.  If at any time we discover issues that would block final release, we would issue an RC2 as soon as possible, reset the ship date, and communicate to everyone,” he said.

Despite Mr Sicore’s mention of the possibility of a second release candidate, Mozilla planning notes indicate the company would most likely push Firefox 4 out the door on March 22 and follow-up with an incremental update to fix any minor issues.

”Several issues have been identified as potential ridealongs, meaning we might do a 4.0.1 release,” the notes said.

The final version of Firefox 4 was originally scheduled to ship in November 2010, but repeated delays saw the release schedule revised on more than one occasion. Given that rather chequered history, it remains to be seen if Firefox 4 will actually ship on March 22 as planned.

Based on the Gecko 2.0 engine, Firefox 4 will bring an updated user interface, new ways to organize tabs, a revamped add-on manager, support for HTML5 video standards, multitouch support on Windows 7 and a range of performance and security enhancements.

Mozilla has indicated a desire to move to a faster release schedule following Firefox 4, with mozilla.org co-founder and Mozilla CTO Brendan Eich telling developers users could be running the fifth version of Firefox just months after Firefox 4 is released.

To start experiencing a more beautiful web with IE9 and to visit a small set of the top 250 web-sites globally that have created a more beautiful experiences for all of us with IE9, go to http://beautyoftheweb.com/experience.

Internet Explorer 9 has now been downloaded 2.35 million times in the first 24 hours since its Monday night release. That is over 27 downloads every second, or over 240 downloads every 9 seconds. Wow!.

They want to thank everyone around the world for downloading IE9 and the enthusiastic reception. 2.3 million downloads in 24 hours is over double the 1 million downloads we saw of the IE9 Beta and four times that of the IE9 RC over the same time period.

In case you missed it, check out the collection of videos from the SxSW launch event. Ze Frank’s demo of Star.ME is one not to be missed!

You can see all of the demos and the complete launch event by clicking play below. And to download Internet Explorer 9 for yourself, visit http://www.beautyoftheweb.com.

Ze Frank’s demo of Star.ME is one not to be missed!

You can see all of the demos and the complete launch event by clicking play below. And to download Internet Explorer 9 for yourself, visit http://www.beautyoftheweb.com.

Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.6 Service Pack 1 (App-V 4.6 SP1) updates App-V 4.6 with the latest security and stability enhancements to help keep computers running App-V up-to-date, reliable, and more secure. The goal of this service pack is to increase the overall quality of the existing product features while maintaining a high level of compatibility with previous releases. ‘
Feature Summary:

• Streamlined application sequencing – Improvements to the App-V 4.6 SP1 Sequencer make packaging applications for App-V easier and faster.
• Support for using a read-only cache on RDS – App-V 4.6 SP1 now supports using a shared, read-only cache in both VDI and RDS environments.
• Support for sequencing Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 – App-V 4.6 SP1 now supports sequencing the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0.
• Customer Feedback and Hotfix Rollup – App-V 4.6 SP1 also includes a rollup up of fixes to address issues found since the Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.6 release.

Download details Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.6 Service Pack 1

Consumer end-users can find general information about Windows 7 SP1 at the following Microsoft website:

http://windows.microsoft.com/windows7sp1

Public downloads will be here

Windows 7 Service Pack 1

To obtain Windows 7 SP1, visit the following Microsoft website:

http://windows.microsoft.com/installwindows7sp1 (http://windows.microsoft.com/installwindows7sp1)

Windows 2008 R2 Service Pack 1

To obtain Windows 2008 R2 SP1, visit the following Microsoft website:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=199583

The following documentation for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 is provided here.

Deployment Guide for Windows Server 2008 R2 with SP1 and Windows 7 with SP1.doc 213KB Download

Hotfixes and Security Updates included in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1.xls 465KB Download

Installing Windows Server 2008 R2 with SP1.doc 94KB Download

Release Notes for Windows 7 with Service Pack 1.doc 87KB Download

Release Notes for Windows Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1.doc 87KB Download

MS KB Information about Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and for Windows Server 2008 R2

The purpose of these settings is to set up a specific NIC for IMA use when You have multi homed XenApp Servers.
Registry Values to Set;

Purpose(s) is specify if the server has several NICs or not;
Registry Hive : HKLM\Software\Citrix\IMA
Value : MultipleNICMySelf
Type : REG_DWORD
Data : 1 (1 = This Server has several NICs)

Purpose(s) is to specify the NIC to dedicate;
Registry Hive : HKLM\Software\Citrix\IMA
Value : NICToUse
Type : REG_SZ
Data : Mac adress of the desired NIC (example : 00-C0-4F-74-68-E5 )

If one of the previously specified reg values is set on any server you’llo have to set the following reg value to ALL SERVERS within the Farm.

Purpose(s) is to specify that IMA will try to communicate with all remote server NICs
Registry Hive : HKLM\Software\Citrix\IMA
Value : MultipleNICOtherServer
Type : REG_DWORD
Data : 1

App-V general information

APP-V Techcenter, your starting point when you need more information about APP-V| Microsoft Technet
APP-V whitepapers, part of APP-V Techcenter | Microsoft Technet
Tech forum with all App-V related information, not only limited to APP-V | Appvirtguru.com
App-V information, clear overview on APP-V components | app-vsupport.com
App-V FAQ overview | http://blog.stealthpuppy.com/appv-faqs

App-V learning resources

Some App-V learning video’s | Blogcastrepository
Application Virtualization (App-V) Video Series | Microsoft Technet
TechNet Virtual Labs: System Center | Microsoft Technet
App-V certification, there’s no “stand alone” APP-V certification. Skills being measured are based on MDOP | Microsoft Learning

App-V sequencing & recipes

Application Virtualization message-board, not only limited to App-V | Appdeploy.com
The Microsoft App-V Sequencing Recipe Forum | Microsoft Technet
Stealthpuppy recipe/sequence resources | App-V recipes
TMUrgent recipe/sequence resources | App-V recipes

App-V related blogs

App-V team blog | Microsoft Technet Blog
The Official Microsoft Virtual World Blog | http://blogs.technet.com/virtualworld/
The Official Microsoft MDOP(where App-V for Desktop is part of) blog | http://blogs.technet.com/mdop/
Kirx.org | http://www.kirx.org/app-v/app-v-en.html
Aaron Parker’s Stealthpuppy on application virtualization and more | http://blog.stealthpuppy.com/
Confessions of a Guru | tmurgent.com
Kevin Kaminski’s blog at MyITforum| myitforum.com
Application Distribution Blog by Nicke Källen, Microsoft MVP on App-V | Viridisit website
German App-V website maintained by Microsoft employee Sebastian Gernert | blogs.msdn.com/sgern
Independent App-V Blog | http://www.softgridblog.com/
DesktopControl Blog |http://www.desktopcontrol.info/

App-V Tools

App-V Best Practice Analyzer | Microsoft Download Center
App-V ADM Templates, also check-out the ADM add-ons from Login Consultants| Microsoft Downloads
App-V Resource Kit tool, you will need this when using Dynamic Suite Composition | Microsoft Technet
Great resource with tools and instant apps for your demo’s | virtualapp.net
The App-V tools from Login Consultants, you need to register before you can download the tools | Login Consultants Tools
Application Virtualization Central, with tools, training videos and much more | tmurgent.com
Download sequenced applications free | http://www.instantapp.net/

App-V troubleshooting

General troubleshooting App-V | Microsoft Technet Blogs
The Microsoft Online Help for Application Virtualization | Microsoft Technet

Like Windows 7 its also possible to use the Aero theme including 3d flip or at least the Windows 7 Basic theme without transparency nor 3d flip on Windows Server 2008 R2. Note that following this tutorial and installing the “Desktop Experience” Feature also installs Windows Mail, Windows Media Player, Video for Windows (AVI support), Windows Photo Gallery, Windows SideShow, Windows Defender, Disk Cleanup, Sync Center, Sound Recorder and Character Map.

1. Start the Server Manager and click below the category Features Summary at Add Features.

2. In the Add Features Wizard window check Desktop Experience and also accept to install the Ink and Handwriting Services when asked. Then click Next.

3. Review the Installation Selections and click Install to start the installation of the selected Features.

4. After the installation has finished, click the Close button and click Yes when asked if you want to restart your computer

5. After the computer has restarted, review and close the Installation Results window and go to Administrative Tools in the Start menu and click Services.

6. Double click on the service named Themes, set Startup type to Automatic and click Apply. After the Startup type is set to Automatic click Start to start the Themes service whereafter you can close the Services Manager.

7. Download themes.zip (38,5MB) from Rapidshare, Megaupload or 4Shared, extract it and run install(.cmd) to install the Windows 7 Default Themes. This step is optional as you can also download the themes you want from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=109286

8. Right click at an empty spot of your desktop and choose Personalize. In the Personalization window click a theme or get a nice theme via the Get more themes online link. If you have installed drivers for your videocard you will now have transparent windows and you are able to use 3D Flip (Windowskey + Tab)!

Use Windows 7 Bootscreen on Windows Server 2008 R2;

In stead of the default Windows Server 2008 R2 boot screen you can also use the one of Windows 7. This is done by just extracting the bootres.dll and bootres.dll.mui from the Windows 7 x64 Retail MSDN dvd and placing them in respectively the System32 and System32\en-US folder.

1. Download bootres.zip (2.10MB) from Rapidshare, Megaupload or 4Shared.

2. Extract the .zip to a folder and run install(.cmd)

3. Enjoy your Windows 7 boot screen!

And use the Windows 7 Bootscreen on Windows Server 2008 R2;

If you don’t like the default gray Windows Server 2008 R2 logon screen, it is also possible to use the colorful Windows 7 one.

1. Download logonscreen.7z (11,7MB) from Rapidshare, Megaupload or 4Shared or logonscreen.zip (29,9MB) from Rapidshare, Megaupload or 4Shared.

2. Extract the .zip or the .7z using 7-Zip to a folder and run install(.cmd).

3. Enjoy your new logon screen!

Manually you do it like this;

The files in this patch are the original ones from Windows Server 2008 R2 which are edited. You can edit them by opening the imageres.dll file with a Resource Editor like Restorator 2007, expanding the IMAGE resource and replacing all gray logon screens with the Windows 7 equivalent. Do this as follows (read as: copy … to …): 5031 -> 5044, 5032 -> 5045, 5033 -> 5046, 5034 -> 5047, 5035 -> 5048, 5036 -> 5049, 5037 -> 5050, 5038 -> 5051, 5039 -> 5052, 5040 -> 5053, 5041 -> 5054, 5042 -> 5055, 5043 -> 5056.

What’s changed in Windows in the last 25 years? Plenty. In this image gallery, we take a look at the various faces of Windows over the past couple of decades and clue you in to what happened at every stage of the operating system’s development.

1985: Windows 1.0

Windows started in 1981 as a project called Interface Manager and experienced a series of delays getting out of the gate. When it was finally released in late 1985 as Windows 1.0, it made a ripple, not a splash. It had to be run on top of DOS, few applications were written for it, and application windows couldn’t be overlapped (they had to be tiled).

Still, the OS allowed for multitasking of Windows apps (not DOS ones) and, even though few knew it at the time, it would eventually become the foundation for the Microsoft empire.

Windows 1.0 shipped with a handful of apps, including the Notepad text editor, a rudimentary calendar and the long-lived graphics painting program Paint. The operating system required MS-DOS Version 2.0, 256KB of memory and a graphics adapter. It could be run either from a hard disk or on two floppy disks running simultaneously — in other words, you couldn’t swap the disks in and out of a single drive.

from: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9196998/Visual_tour_25_years_of_Windows?taxonomyId=125&pageNumber=1

some Screenshots courtesy of Microsoft or  GUIdebook!.

1987: Windows 2.0

Screenshot courtesy of Microsoft.

Windows 2.0 was released in the late fall of 1987, two years after the debut of Windows 1.0. New features in Version 2.0 included the ability to overlap application windows and improved memory use. Also new: Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE), which allowed Windows applications to automatically share and update data. For example, DDE allowed information in an Excel spreadsheet to be automatically updated when data in another Excel spreadsheet was changed.

Windows 2.0 also included expanded system requirements: It needed 512KB or more of memory and required DOS 3.0. A later version, Windows 2.11, would require the use of a hard disk for Windows for the first time.

With Version 2.0, more applications written for Windows began to appear, including Microsoft Excel and Word. Aldus’ PageMaker, originally written for the Mac, was also ported to Windows.

Windows 2.0 was notable for another reason as well — on March 17, 1988, Apple Computer sued Microsoft, claiming that the look and feel of the Macintosh operating system was covered by copyright, and that Windows 2.0 violated that copyright. (Several years later, the case was resolved in Microsoft’s favor.)

1990: Windows 3.0

Windows 3.0, released in 1990 — and its successor, Windows 3.1, released in 1992 — offered the first evidence that Windows might become the world’s dominant desktop operating system. The interface was revamped, and although it looks awkward and kludgy today, at the time it was widely considered clean and sleek.

Icons were redesigned to use the VGA graphics standard with 16 colors. Memory handling was improved, and enhanced mode was added, which sped up memory access and allowed DOS programs to run in individual virtual machines. Windows 3.0 also allowed Windows applications to use more memory than was available in RAM by swapping RAM temporarily to the hard disk.

Thanks to enhanced mode, DOS programs could be multitasked and run in their own resizable windows for the first time (previously, they had to run full-screen). Windows 3.0 required 640KB of what was called conventional memory and 256KB of extended memory. Version 3.00a of Windows was built to support multimedia, and it supported CD-ROMs for the first time.

Windows 3.0 also included what may be one of the greatest productivity-sappers in the history of computers — the game of Solitaire.

Windows 3.1 introduced TrueType fonts, for better on-screen reading and higher-quality print output, as well as Object Linking and Embedding, which improved upon DDE for exchanging data between applications. Version 3.11 added support for networking using the dominant networking standard of the time, NetWare.

1993: Windows NT 3.1

Windows NT 3.1, released in July 1993, was built for businesses rather than consumers and was designed to be more secure and stable. It used a 32-bit rather than a 16-bit architecture. Version 3.1 was the first release of the NT operating system; earlier version numbers were skipped so that the numbering for this business OS would match that of the consumer OS, Windows 3.1. NT required an 80386 CPU, 12MB of RAM (16MB was recommended) and 90MB of free hard disk space.

The enterprise-oriented operating system went through three more releases — Windows NT 3.5 in 1994, Windows NT 3.51 in 1995 and Windows NT 4.0 in 1996 — before moving to Microsoft’s year-based version numbering convention with Windows 2000.

1995: Windows 95

Windows 95, released in August 1995, combined DOS with Windows for the first time: Rather than installing Windows on top of DOS, you installed only Windows 95, which included both DOS and Windows. It was also the first consumer version of Windows that began moving away from a 16-bit architecture and toward a 32-bit one; in other words, it was a mix of 32-bit code and 16-bit code.

The operating system introduced many interface improvements, including several that live to this day, such as the taskbar and the Start menu. Support for file names longer than eight characters was added as well. It was far more stable than previous versions of Windows and was the first to support Intel’s Plug and Play standard, which was designed to make it easier to add hardware and peripherals to your PC; the idea was that Windows would automatically recognize and configure attached hardware. It was a step forward, but it didn’t always work — some people referred to it as “plug and pray.”

At a minimum, Windows 95 required an 80386 DX CPU, 4MB of system RAM and 120MB of hard drive space — although it was sluggish on a computer that just met those requirements. An 80486-based PC and 8MB of RAM made for a much better experience.

Windows 95 was notable for another reason as well — the massive marketing campaign that accompanied its launch was said to have cost $300 million and included purchasing the rights to the Rolling Stones song “Start Me Up” as the Windows 95 theme song; draping a 300-foot Windows 95 banner over Toronto’s CN Tower; lighting the Empire State Building with Microsoft’s corporate colors of yellow, red and green; and creating a promotional instructional video that featured Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry from the hit TV show Friends.

1998: Windows 98

Windows 98, released in June 1998, was as not as big a step forward over Windows 95 as Windows 95 had been over Windows 3.1. Rather, it made incremental changes to Windows, although there were a few significant additions.

The most notable had to do with Internet support. For the first time, the Winsock specification — which provides TCP/IP support for Windows — was built directly into the operating system, rather than having to be installed as an add-on. Also for the first time, Internet Explorer was included as part of the operating system, which eventually led to the U.S. Justice Department’s prosecution of Microsoft for antitrust violations.

Windows 98 offered considerably better USB support than Windows 95 did. A feature called Active Desktop was supposed to deliver live Internet content to the desktop, but it proved to be buggy and was dropped from subsequent versions of Windows.

Windows 98 required at least a 66-MHz 486DX2 processor, 16MB of RAM (24MB was recommended) and 500MB of hard disk space.

2000: Windows 2000

Windows 2000, the successor to Windows NT 4.0, released in February 2000, was intended for business rather than home use, and it was available in several editions, including multiple server versions. It brought many features of Windows 98 into the NT line, including Internet Explorer and Plug and Play. Windows File Protection, which protected important system files, was introduced along with the Encrypting File System, which improved security by encrypting files automatically, and Active Directory, the enterprise technology used to provide network and domain services.

System requirements for Windows 2000 varied depending on whether the server or desktop version, called Windows 2000 Professional, was being installed. Windows 2000 Professional required at least a 133-MHz Pentium microprocessor (or the equivalent), 32MB of RAM (64MB was recommended) and a 2GB hard disk with 650MB of free space.

2000: Windows Me

Windows Me (also called Windows Millennium Edition) was released in September 2000 and quickly became one of Microsoft’s most criticized operating systems because of installation problems, bugs and hardware and software incompatibilities. It introduced Windows Movie Maker. Critics maintain that it was introduced only for marketing purposes, to give Microsoft something to sell for the 2000 holiday season.

Windows Me was the last version of Windows that included the DOS architecture. It lasted little more than a year, until Windows XP was introduced. Windows Me required a 150-MHz Pentium processor or the equivalent (a 300-MHz model was recommended), 32MB of RAM (64MB was recommended) and 320MB of free hard drive space (2GB was recommended).

2001: Windows XP

Windows XP, released in August 2001, was a breakthrough in several respects. It was the first version of Windows that did not use DOS as part of its underlying architecture, and the first to be offered in both 64-bit and 32-bit editions. XP combined the desktop version of the secure and stable enterprise-oriented Windows NT/2000 line with the consumer-focused Windows line. (The Windows Server OS line has continued separately from the desktop line.)

It was far more stable than previous versions of Windows and featured a significantly revamped interface that was brighter, more colorful and more contemporary-looking. Drop shadows were added to icon labels, windows were given a more rounded look and visual effects such as fading and sliding menus were added. Windows XP introduced a slew of new features, including background themes and remote desktop, which allows a PC to be controlled remotely via the Internet or a network.

Windows XP shipped in multiple versions, most notably Windows XP Home Edition and Windows XP Professional. Even though it was introduced nine years ago, XP remains the most-used version of Windows, and it’s still available as a downgrade option on new PCs that run the Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate editions. Windows XP requires a Pentium 233-MHz processor or the equivalent (a 300-MHz model is recommended), at least 64MB of RAM (128MB is recommended) and at least 1.5GB of available space on the hard disk.

2006: Windows Vista

Windows Vista, released at end of 2006, may well be the most criticized and disliked version of Windows of all time. Released more than five years after Windows XP, Vista faced widespread hardware incompatibilities upon launch and wouldn’t run on older hardware.

Vista’s interface was significantly different from XP’s interface. Most notably, it had a new feature called Windows Aero, a set of visual enhancements that included transparent windows and animations. There were also a variety of other new features, including the Windows Sidebar, Desktop Gadgets, the Windows Photo Gallery and improved search. Some people disliked Vista’s resource-hungry user interface, and those who did like it couldn’t always get it: Many PCs that were sold as “Vista-capable” couldn’t run the full version of Vista, leading to a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft.

Windows Vista was available in six different versions. Most PCs were sold with Windows Vista Home Premium. It required a 1-GHz processor (either 32- or 64-bit), 1GB of system memory, 15GB of free hard disk space and a graphics card that was able to support Windows Aero.

2009: Windows 7

Windows 7, released in October 2009, is Microsoft’s current desktop operating system. Many people feel it’s the OS that Windows Vista should have been. It retains the Aero interface and other enhancements from Vista, but rather than adding a slew of new features in Windows 7, Microsoft focused more on fixing the shortcomings of Vista. Windows 7 is generally considered more stable than Vista, and most users upgrading from Vista to Windows 7 did not experience the kinds of hardware problems that they encountered when they upgraded from XP to Vista.

Windows 7 did introduce a few new features — notably an enhanced taskbar, a slightly redesigned Start menu and a trio of nifty navigation shortcuts known as Aero Peek, Aero Snap and Aero Shake. Some features of Windows Vista were taken away, including the Windows Photo Gallery and Windows Mail.

Windows 7 comes in multiple versions, including Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate. It requires a 1-GHz processor (either 32- or 64-bit), 1GB of system memory, 16GB of free hard disk space (20GB for the 64-bit version) and a graphics card that’s able to support Windows Aero.

What’s next?

No one, including Microsoft, knows the shape that Windows will take in the next 25 years, because there’s simply no way to peer that deeply into the technology future. It’s a good bet, though, that the Windows of 25 years from now will be radically different from today’s version.

In fact, it’s reasonable to expect that there will be greater changes to Windows in the next 25 years than in its first 25 years. That’s the case because, despite all the changes in technology, for the past several decades the personal computer, whether desktop or laptop, has been people’s main computing device. It’s not clear that that will be true in the next 25 years, given the prevalence of smartphones and the increasing popularity of tablets.

Several questions spring to mind: How will Windows accommodate the increasing role of cloud-based software and services in computing? Will operating systems even matter in the future? Will Windows move to a modular model, with pick-and-choose components?

For now, Microsoft isn’t saying. In the meantime, we’ll have our first peek at the future of Windows when the first Windows 8 beta is released sometime next year.

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Leaked information about Windows 8 has been fairly sparse over the last few months, but some interesting PowerPoint slides reveal plans for the successor to Windows 7, codenamed Windows 8. It appears that Microsoft is looking to take Windows from a desktop application and expand it to “Desktop as a service” (DaaS). The slides reveal “Windows Next”, an internal saying for Microsoft employees who are referring to the next major operating system, and turning it into virtual / cloud based desktop.

It only makes sense that Microsoft includes Windows with other virtualization technologies like Virtual desktop (VDI), application virtualization (App-V, MED-V, remote apps and more), Remote desktop, data virtualization, hardware virtualization (Hyper-V), plus a number of other available virtual services.

Desktop as a Service isn’t an entirely new thing, but focusing an entire operating system on it is. With DaaS, Windows 8 could be easily deployed throughout an entire company with total hardware and application compatibility. This also opens the possibility of opening a Windows App Store in the next major version, where companies would host and run applications on ‘the cloud’, allowing for quicker security patch updates, greater compatibility and faster deployment through an entire infrastructure.

It will be interesting to see what “Windows Next” brings to both businesses and consumers with OS virtualization. Deploying and maintaining a single service would be cost effective for larger businesses, just the push Microsoft might be looking for to help companies finally make the switch from Windows XP and Vista.

Source; http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-8-slides-hint-of-desktop-as-a-service