Updated my Home Lab to Server 2012 R2 Preview!
Category: Microsoft
Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2013 Preview
The Client Management team is happy to announce the availability of the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2013 Preview. Download the installer file and release notes from the Client Management program on Connect in the MDT group.
New members must first join the MDT group of the Client Management program on Connect.
MDT 2013 Preview includes:
- Support for the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) for Windows 8.1 Preview. (The Windows ADK for Windows 8.1 Preview is available on the Microsoft Download Center.)
- Support for deployment of Windows 8.1 Preview and Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview, as well as Windows 7 and Windows 8 families of operating systems.
- Support for zero-touch integration (ZTI) with System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager Preview.
We encourage you to download and use MDT 2013 Preview, and then submit suggestions, bugs and feedback via the Connect site
Free eBook Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Step By Step for Anyone
Free eBook (pdf) Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Step By Step for Anyone eBook (pdf) by Microsoft Lync MVP Matt Landis. This book gives step by step instructions on how to install Lync Server 2013.
Windows 8.1 & Server 2012 R2 Preview Availably
If you have a Technet or a MSDN account you can download Windows 8.1 & Server 2012 R2 Preview
Windows 8.1 Preview
Server 2012 R2 Preview
System Center 2012 R2 Preview Availably
If you have a Technet or MSDN account you can download System Center 2012 R2 Preview 
ou
ADK for Windows 8.1 Preview Available
Here is a quick summary of the changes in ADK for Windows 8.1. MDT 2013 and ConfigMgr 2012 R2 requires ADK for Windows 8.1.
Windows 8.1 Image Size (Preview)
- Windows 8.1 Preview Code Image (x86), 2.13 GB (WIM), 7.65 GB expanded on disk.
WinPE 5.0
- Profiling in WinPE 5.0 is removed
- WinPE 5.0 x64 supports 4 TB of RAM (still 64 GB for x86)
- Scratchspace set automatically to 512 MB when having more than 1 GB of RAM, otherwise 32 MB
USMT 6.3
- Support for Windows 8.1
- You cannot use USMT 6.3 to migrate settings from Windows XP to Windows 8.1
- Supports Office 2013 (hotfix available for USMT 5.0).
Windows 8.1 Upgrade / Update
- You are likely to have more free space available on the disk after upgrading Windows 8 to Windows 8.1
- Windows 8.1 upgrade time, less than 20 minutes
Misc. Updates
- Export compressed recovery image (/Export-Image)
- Cleanup base components when superseded. (/StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase)
Office Web Apps 2013 KB2592525 not installing
I’ve recently installed Office Web Apps 2013. The installation is straight forward and documented on Technet . However, there was on tricky issue. KB2592525 is a prerequisite and the PS New-OfficeWebAppsFarm cmdlet checks if the KB2592525 is installed. I was installing on a Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 with all the actual patches. But KB2592525 was not installed and the KB2592525 installer refused to install on this machine. One way to get around this issue is to force the update using pkgmgr.
- Download KB2592525 to folder on your system
- Create a new folder called “files”
- Extract the MSU: expand Windows6.1-KB2592525-x64.msu –F:* .\install
- go to files
- Install using Pkgmgr: pkgmgr.exe /n:c:\install\Windows6.1-KB2592525-x64.xml
That’s it, and the New-OfficeWebAppsFarm cmdlet will accept this workaround.
How to Improve Move Request Performance in Exchange 2010
This article provides step-by-step procedure about How to Improve Move Request Performance in Exchange 2010.
The Microsoft Exchange Mailbox Replication Service is responsible for Mailbox Move requests.
MSExchangeMailboxReplication.exe.config is Mailbox move request configuration file located in the following location: <Exchange Installation Path>\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\Bin
How to Improve Move Request Performance in Exchange 2010:
1. Go to Exchange Mailbox Server
2. Navigate to the <Exchange Installation Path>\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\Bin folder
3. Make a backup copy of MSExchangeMailboxReplication.exe.config before making any changes in it.
4. Open the Original MSExchangeMailboxReplication.exe.config file in notepad.
5.Modify the following values to increase the performance
MaxActiveMovesPerSourceMDB = “50″
MaxActiveMovesPerTargetMDB = “50″
MaxActiveMovesPerSourceServer = “200″
MaxActiveMovesPerTargetServer = “200″
MaxTotalMovesPerMRS = “300″
6. Save the file and Close it
7. Go to Services console
8. Restart the Microsoft Mailbox Replication Service
Windows 2008 (R2) Network tuning to Increase Move mailbox Speed:
1. Go to Start –> Command prompt –> Right Click –> Click Run as administrator
2. Execute the following command: netsh int tcp show global
3. Disable TCP Chimney Offload and Receive Side Scaling on the network adapters
netsh int tcp set global chimney=disabled
netsh int tcp set global rss=disabled
4. Run the following command and make sure Chimney Offload State & Receive-Side Scaling State is disabled.
5. Restart the Server.
Configuring disks to use VMware Paravirtual SCSI (PVSCSI) adapters
PVSCSI adapters are high-performance storage adapters that can result in greater throughput and lower CPU utilization. PVSCSI adapters are best suited for environments, especially SAN environments, where hardware or applications drive a very high amount of I/O throughput. PVSCSI adapters are not suited for DAS environments.
This table shows the support matrix for use of Paravirtual SCSI adapters for data disks and boot disks for the various guest operating systems and ESX versions. Support shown in the table is from the listed ESX/ESXi version and later versions.
|
Guest operating system |
Data Disk |
Boot Disk |
|
Windows Server 2012 (64 bit only) |
ESXi 5.0 Update 1, ESXi 5.1 |
ESXi 5.0 Update 1, ESXi 5.1 |
|
Windows Server 2008 R2 (64 bit only) |
ESX/ESXi 4.0 Update 1, ESX/ESXi 4.1, ESXi 5.x |
ESX/ESXi 4.0 Update 1, ESX/ESXi 4.1, ESXi 5.x |
|
Windows Server 2008 (32 and 64 bit) |
ESX/ESXi 4.x, ESXi 5.x |
ESX/ESXi 4.0 Update 1, ESX/ESXi 4.1, ESXi 5.x |
|
Windows Server 2003 (32 and 64 bit) |
ESX/ESXi 4.x, ESXi 5.x |
ESX/ESXi 4.x, ESXi 5.x |
|
Windows 7 (32 and 64 bit) |
ESX/ESXi 4.1, ESXi 5.x |
ESX/ESXi 4.1, ESXi 5.x |
|
Windows Vista (32 and 64 bit) |
ESX/ESXi 4.1, ESXi 5.x |
ESX/ESXi 4.1, ESXi 5.x |
|
Windows XP (32 and 64 bit) |
ESX/ESXi 4.1, ESXi 5.x |
ESX/ESXi 4.1, ESXi 5.x |
Because the default type of newly hot-added SCSI adapter depends on the type of primary (boot) SCSI controller, hot-adding a PVSCSI adapter is only supported for those versions that support booting from a PVSCSI adapter.
Paravirtual SCSI adapters also have these limitations:
- Hot add or hot remove requires a bus rescan from within the guest.
- Disks with snapshots might not experience performance gains when used on Paravirtual SCSI adapters if memory on the ESX host is overcommitted.
Exchange Server 2013 Architecture Poster
Microsoft released the Exchange Server 2013 Architecture Poster.
To download just click on the picture
