Virtual Server 2K5 R2 SP1 - Error: Microsoft Virtual Server Storage Bus - The parameter is incorrect.

In this particular case, we were working with three virtual servers. Two are x86 based Xeon setups and one is x64 Xeon Quad Core based.

The x86 based Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2s took the Service Pack 1 with no issues. Both machines were happy with the update.

The x64 based system with a host OS of Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard x64 SP2, which is also hosts the Admin Site via HTTPS/Host Header, choked:

Security Alert - Driver Installation
The driver software you are installing for:
Microsoft Virtual Server Storage Bus

has not been properly signed with Authenticode(TM) technology.
Therefore, Windows cannot tell if the software has been modified since it was published. The publisher's identity cannot be verified because of a problem:
The parameter is incorrect.
Do you still want to install this software?

This is where it gets really fun.

No matter which option, Yes or No, we choose we get:

Rolling back action

We tried everything we could come up with to get the Service Pack to take. Nothing worked.

Now, since we did the admin system last, we were stuck as none of the production VMs were online as a result of those systems receiving the Virtual Server SP1 too. Not even the Virtual Machine Remote Control Client Plus could connect to any of the virtual servers to get those machines started. We were completely stuck.

Things would not be so bad if we could find anything relevant on the Internet in relation to this error. But, we hit the brick wall ... and hard. There is seemingly nothing out there about this specific problem applying Virtual Server 2005 R2 Service Pack 1 to an x64 Enterprise based Virtual Server install ... nothing!

Since this was a business critical situation, there were production machines down, we needed to call the Partner Support Hotline to take advantage of our Partner Perk of free business critical support.

After obtaining our SRX0711... number, we were put on with Vaseem A. who listened intently to the situation. We had to connect to an MS support site to allow him access to the server desktop. Once connected, and he had control, we got to sit back and watch. ;)

It is not too difficult to get first impressions by the initial steps a remotely connected person goes through. Especially for those of us who have a good chunk of server management under our belts. Vaseem demonstrated an excellent level of knowledge and understanding of the products he was working with: Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard SP2 as the host and Virtual Server 2005 R2 as the virtual server.

Even then, it took some time to figure out what the source of the problem was.

A big clue as to what was causing the problem was found in C:\Windows\SetupAPI.log:

#W366 ... The parameter is incorrect.
...
#W360 ... The certificate is not valid for the requested usage
...
#E122, E157 ... Driver is not intended for this platform

Vaseem ended up uninstalling Virtual Server 2005 R2 Enterprise x64 off of the machine, cleaning out the Program Files directory, he exported the MSVS registry settings then renamed them "settingkeyold". The server was then rebooted. Vaseem then ran the VS 2K5 R2 SP1 install routine again. The error did not return!

When the server was rebooted, the host header and ports for the management site were properly set and the SSL certificate was set to the site, we had the Admin site came up. It took some time to get to this point, so before we allowed Vaseem to continue, we fired up the VMs on the other two servers so at least the critical production systems were back online. Since this is a Constrained Delegation setup, we were able to confirm that the setup was still functional when we were able to connect to the other x86 based Virtual Servers.

After all of this, the Virtual Server service refused to start on the server we were working on! :(

An examination of the directory that Virtual Server installs to showed that the files were all correct, we checked the permissions on the VM folders (in a non-standard location) and they looked correct, and verified the service settings in services.msc. All looked 100%.

What ended up being the cause of the VS service falling flat on its face was the registry settings. The Virtual Serverold key was still there as Vareem had left it ... but the Virtual Server SP1 install routine failed to create a new Virtual Server key.

So, uninstall VS 2K5 R2 SP1, clean out the directories, export the registry keys and this time delete all of them, reboot and reinstall.

After the server had rebooted, we made the necessary site port, SSL, host header, and IP settings changes to the VS site in IIS Admin, and we verified connectivity to the site. It worked, and showed all three servers available!

Wow! What a lot of work to get things up and running.

We fired up the final 4 VMs on the x64 box and said, "Whoo hoo!" :D

There are times where we have heard negative things about the over seas crew that Microsoft utilizes for some of their support duties. To date, we have been very fortunate that every time we have had the need to utilize the business critical support, they have come through in Spades.

Thank you Vaseem for helping us out of a bind! :D

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

System Builder Tip: HW or Virtual Machine Performance Tip - Seperate Swap Partition or VHD

One of the most significant contributors to Virtual Machine (VM) performance degradation and Virtual Hard Drive (VHD) bloat is fragmentation.

To keep performance optimized in the VM, we create a separate VHD just for the swap file for all of our VMs. Running the defragment utility on a regular basis is also important.

This has been a mandatory practice for us on all physical machines for a very long time. In the case of our workstations and servers they get a 5 GB or 10 GB partition at the end of the system drive respectively for this task.

Most nominal use workstations - read Office and e-mail usage - may not see an outright benefit from the separate swap file setup, but in the long run having the swap file on its own keeps things relatively clean on the OS partition. This is especially important for those machines that go out the door and are not heard from for a long time. A little defragmentation training and a simple mention to the client that the S: drive is there for performance and system stability and they tend to take care of it.

In the case of the VMs that we setup, the situation is similar. But, in the case of VMs we make sure to put the swap file, or in the case of SBS Premium the swap file and the ISA URL Cache, on a separate VHD. This helps to reduce fragmentation in the primary OS partition/VHD as well as bloat if both OS and Swap/Cache partitions were contained in the same VHD.

Here is what we think is a good image to use when explaining what happens with a system that has fragmented files:

• You have one really big filing cabinet for all of those files.
• The files have to be put in sequential order from the top down.
• Only 16 pages allowed per folder going into the drawer.
• Files must be put into the drawers or taken out of the cabinet by the folder - no individual page work allowed.
• If a folder is removed from one of the top drawers, the next folder that needs to go in replaces it. No saving places.
• A file of 24 pages will be split up into 2 folders and placed in available drawer spaces.
• And so on.

This image will help people understand what happens when the system has files all over the place and how that will kill performance on the machine.

Just ask them to think about needing to grab a file that is 30 folders in size and they are spread across 4 drawers. They get it pretty quick! ;)

One other method to reduce VHD bloat is to "Compact" the VHD. As I understand it, this removes the zeros from within the VHD and thus reduces the physical size of it as well as improving performance. For high usage VMs, this is a mandatory process that one can script.

Microsoft Virtual Server Links:

• Virtual Server Scripting.
• Script Repository: Virtual Server.
• Virtual Server 2005 Administrator's Guide.

For small shops like us, Virtualization Rocks. It gives us the ability to increment the CPU power, RAM, and storage to accommodate a number of VMs that would otherwise have cost us a lot more in physical machines per OS, power consumption for the systems and the cooling, and actual floor space for storage of the machines.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

Virtual Server - Upgrading to SP1 - Restore Error Fix and some suggestions.

When upgrading to Service Pack 1 on Virtual Server 2005 R2 it is important that any virtual machines running on the server are shut down as opposed to saving their state before applying the Service Pack.

If their state was saved before the update, you will get the following error:

"VirtualMachine" could not be restored because of a host processor type mismatch.

If you see this error, stop the Virtual Server service and rename all of your virtual machine's .vsv files to .vsv.bak or the like.

Do this for all of them, restart the Virtual Server service, and then proceed to start the VMs from the Virtual Server Web Console or via VMRCplus (the Virtual Machine Remote Control Client Plus is a pretty kewl little VM management utility).

The warning given in the VMRCplus console that the Virtual Machine additions (VMA) edition is out of date:


One small caveat just discovered with the VMRCplus utility: When trying to mount an ISO that is on the local Virtual Server x: drive, the VMRCplus utility brings a dialogue box up that is tied to the machine/workstation the utility is being run on. No list of available ISOs for that particular Virtual Server is there like can be seen in the Virtual Server Management Web Console.

When Service Packing the Virtual Server installations, it is also a perfect opportunity to also install any waiting OS updates on the host OS.

Once the upgrade has finished, and all of the VMs are up and running, the next step is to install the updated Virtual Machine additions on all of the VMs.

So far, on our VMs running W2K Server and Server 2K3 the previous VMA versions are seemingly gone so the VMA update is required. Upon logging on to the VM the Virtual Server will only allow the VMA installation. After the install and a reboot the VM will be good to go.

Virtual Server SP1 VMA version: 13.885
Virtual Server Vista VMA inital beta version: 13.709

Answer for the error curtesy of ASPDeveloper.net: Virtual Server 2005.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

Windows Server Virtual Calculator ... VS Licensing - A good deal or not?

I must admit, that licensing Microsoft products for virtualization has been at best a rat's nest.

Following a link from the Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 web site, there is a link to Virtualization.info that links back to Microsoft's site and the new Windows Server Virtualization Calculator.

Also contained within the comments on the Virtualization.info site was a link to a fellow who built an Excel spreadsheet that can do the same thing as the online one. It is the Windows Virtualization Calculator at vi411.org.

Here is a screen shot of the Microsoft online calculator with some numbers arbitrarily punched in by me:


The tool is pretty neat. It does help to clarify some aspects of licensing Microsoft products, at least when it comes to Host/Guest OSs. It primarily deals with OLP style licensing and not OEM.

The following paragraph can be found, at least as of today April 18, 2007, below the above calculator:


The second line in the paragraph really caught my attention: "Standard Edition grants the use rights to run a single virtualized instance of Windows Server Standard Edition."

Um, Microsoft, what exactly are we doing here?!? I mean, "What the chicken!?!?"

The only remotely possible and viable solution that I can see that would work on a Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition Host OS on an established SBS network based on the above restriction is as follows:

1. Two (2) Dual Core 51xx Intel based Server (or comparable)
2. Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard x64 (for additional memory access) OEM or OLP - HOST OS
3. Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard OEM or OLP - Guest OS
4. Windows XP Pro SP2 or Vista Business OEM or OLP - Guest OSs

There are other solutions I am sure, but the above is the first one that comes to mind based on our experience implementing virtual environments for our clients and our own company.

The SBS RWW is the perfect stepping place for virtualized desktops.

I have spoken with Microsoft licensing on a number of occasions about licensing on Virtual Server. If we build a box, and sell it, we can install any number of Microsoft OEM licensed OS and Application products. OEM, of course, limits the OEM based virtual machine to run on that box only. An OLP licensed virtual machine is an option for companies that want to move those licenses (virtual machines) from box to box freely without any constraints.

In my mind, OEM licensing for virtualization may save $$$ in the short run, but, given the need to move virtual machines around, or the need to add virtual machines and thus replace an existing box, leaves an OEM licensing scheme costing more in the long run.

Okay, back to the subject at hand: Microsoft, we need some clarification here.

The above paragraph limiting the VMs on a Server 2003 Standard Host OS to ONE (1) Server 2003 Standard edition server guest OS DOES NOT WORK, in my opinion, in the SMB world.

Think about this for a minute: We can build a dual processor, four (4) core, based system with up to 32 GB of RAM, any number of drives up to 10 on the SC5400 based Intel chassis for a very reasonable price for the SMB market. The market I am thinking of is the 35 to 70 seat range which is the middle to upper end most Small Business Specialists would be dealing with.

The above system running the 64 bit Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition could handle a number of Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition guest OS VMs along with a number of desktop OSs and do it at a very reasonable price point.

The above solution provides a very attractive solution for an existing SBS environment and doesn't conflict with current SBS CAL licensing schemes for additional servers on the SBS network.

Why would they need to spend the extra $2K+ for Server 2003 R2 Enterprise edition?

We get to address over 4 GB of RAM on x64 Standard Edition as all of our hardware is EMT 64 capable (64 bit), thus that negates the need for Enterprise Edition's extra memory abilities on the old 32 bit platforms.

We get to work with up to 4 physical processors on the x64 Standard Edition. Keep in mind there is an exponential jump in price when going from a server with two (2) physical processors to four (4) physical processors. The price is also affected significantly by the number of cores the physical processor has.

Rarely would we go beyond two (2) physical processors, especially with the availability of the 4 Core 53xx series Intel processors. Going beyond the two physical processors puts us closer to the Small to Medium Enterprise levels especially in pricing.

Thus, there is no need to run the Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition for additional processor support.

So, Microsoft, prove me wrong.

Justify to me, and my SMB clients, why I need to tell my clients they need to spend an extra $2K+ for a solution that can be built quite comfortably on Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

Virtual Server - VSS Service and Virtual Machine Memory Usage

We utilize Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 on a number of different hardware platforms running a number of different operating systems.

One of the curious things that I have noticed is with regards to memory management by the VSS service.

The following is a screen shot of the server's Task Manager Process Tab:


The VSS service is using about 12 MB of physical memory.

The configuration of this particular machine is as follows:

• Intel SR2300 2U
• Two Intel Xeon 2.8 GHz CPUs
• 6 GB ECC PC2700 RAM
• Dual Seagate 76 GB SCA2 SCSI SW RAID 1
• Windows Server 2003 Enterprise with PAE switch

We have loaded up two XP Pro SP2 and two Vista Business virtual machines with both having an allotted 1 GB of system memory.

The above Task Manager shot was taken while all four virtual machines were running. There is no evidence from the service memory usage that they are running.

However, on the Performance Tab, we see the following:


The server has a total of 4.21 GB of RAM allotted to running processes.

So, somewhere in there, the VSS has grabbed the necessary physical RAM and made sure that the respective machines are getting what they need.

To date, other than one glitch with one of the Virtual Vista machines blue screening on a boot up, we have had trouble free performance.

The primary purpose for this platform is to test virtualizing the desktop OS environment to provide our clients with a solid alternative to Terminal Services.

The Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 site.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists