Installing Hyper-V Manager on Windows 7

Recently one of my clients asked me whether it is possible to install Hyper-V Manager on Windows 7. I was puzzled at the question. Upon further questioning my client, I was informed that due to compliance issue they can only install Windows 7 as most of their applications are not certified for Windows 8 and above yet.

After much consideration, I decided to explore whether we can really install Hyper-V Manager on Windows 7. Thanks to Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 with Service Pack 1. There is indeed a way to install Hyper-V Manager on Windows 7. To install Hyper-V Manager on Windows 7, you can follow the following steps:

1. Download and install Remote Server Administration Tools from:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7D2F6AD7-656B-4313-A005-4E344E43997D&displaylang=en.
2. Install either the 32-bit or 64-bit versions of the Remote Server Administration Tools depending on what version of Windows 7 you are using.
3. Go to Start, point to Control Panel, and then click on Programs.
4. Next, you will see an option to Turn Window features on or off. Click on this option.
5. Expand Remote Server Administration Tools.
6. Expand Role Administration Tools, find the option for Hyper-V Tools, check the checkbox, and then click OK.
7. We are done! You can now type Hyper-V Manager at the Start Menu or go to Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Hyper-V Manager.

Refresh version control cache on client computers

To prevent workspace errors from occurring, the data cache on client computers must be updated after certain maintenance operations. After you move, restore, rename, or fail over a data-tier or application-tier server or after you recover from a failure such as a hardware malfunction, you must refresh the version control cache on client computers.

To refresh the version control cache, each user runs the tf workspaces command on any computer that must be updated. They must update any computer that uses version control and that connects to a team project collection whose databases were relocated.

To refresh the version control cache on client computers, you can perform the following steps on the client computer:

1. Open a Command Prompt window with administrative permissions, and change directories to Drive:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE. I’m assuming that you are using Visual Studio 2013.

2. At the command prompt, enter the following command, including the URL of the collection, which includes the server name and the port number of the new server:

tf workspaces /collection:http://ServerName:Port/CollectionName

In the example deployment, a developer needs to refresh the version control cache for a project that is a member of the DefaultCollection collection, which is hosted in the VSALM deployment of Team Foundation Server. He types the following string:

tf workspaces /collection:http://VSALM:8080/tfs/DefaultCollection

NOTE: To use the tf workspaces command on the client computer, your Read permission must be set to Allow.

Disabling time synchronization in VMware Player

Today I was preparing a hands-on labs for an upcoming training. Somehow I need to disable the time synchronization so that the sprint timeline can be reflected accordingly.

To completely disable time synchronization in the guest, perform the following procedures:

1, Open the virtual machine’s configuration file (the .vmx file) using a text editor. Set these options to “FALSE”. If the entries do not exist, add them.

Note: “FALSE” = disabled, “TRUE” = enabled.

tools.syncTime = “FALSE”
time.synchronize.continue = “FALSE”
time.synchronize.restore = “FALSE”
time.synchronize.resume.disk = “FALSE”
time.synchronize.shrink = “FALSE”
time.synchronize.tools.startup = “FALSE”
time.synchronize.tools.enable = “FALSE”
time.synchronize.resume.host = “FALSE”

Fix for Agent XPs’ component is turned off as part of the security configuration for this server

Today, I was working on preparing a series of demonstration scripts for an upcoming training. One of scripts is to create a maintenance plan, I encountered the following error message:

‘Agent XPs’ component is turned off as part of the security configuration for
this server. A system administrator can enable the use of ‘Agent XPs’ by using   sp_configure. For more information about enabling ‘Agent XPs’, see “Surface Area   Configuration” in SQL Server Books Online. (ObjectExplorer)

To fix the above mentioned error, you need to use the Agent XPs option to enable the SQL Server Agent extended stored procedures on this server. When this option is not enabled, the SQL Server Agent node is not available in SQL Server Management Studio Object Explorer.

You can enable the SQL Server Agent extended stored procedures by running the following scripts:

sp_configure ‘show advanced options’, 1;
GO
RECONFIGURE;
GO
sp_configure ‘Agent XPs’, 1;
GO
RECONFIGURE
GO