Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Reviewers Guide, Beta Release

Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Reviewers Guide, Beta Release
Published: June 2010
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Summary
The Windows Server® 2008 R2 SP1 Reviewers Guide provides a technical overview of the incremental features and functions found in the Service Pack 1 Beta release for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7. While SP1 includes several new incremental enhancements, it also introduces two important new features for customers using the Windows Server virtualization stack:
Dynamic Memory
Dynamic Memory is a new feature within Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta’s Hyper-V. It allows customers to achieve increased density when they’re consolidating physical servers into a virtual realm, providing them with predictable performance and linear scalability. With Dynamic Memory, IT administrators are able to pool available memory on a physical host and then dynamically dole that memory out to virtual machines running on the host, based on current workload needs
RemoteFX
RemoteFX, a key feature of Remote Desktop Services (RDS) lets IT administrators deliver a rich graphics experience to end-users through virtualized desktops. Using new protocol enhancements between Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7, end users can now access virtual machines on a wide variety of target devices and still get a rich graphics experience with server-side graphics processing.
This Reviewers Guide is aimed at providing an evaluation experience for these two features.
Table of Contents
Improved User Experience with RemoteFX 1
RemoteFX Evaluation System Requirements 1
Evaluate RemoteFX User Experience 2
Step 1: Prepare Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 for Evaluating RemoteFX 3
Step 2: Install and Configure Windows 7 SP1 in a Virtual Machine 5
Step 3: Enable RemoteFX 3D Video Adapter Support on Windows 7 Virtual Machine 6
Step 4: Evaluate RemoteFX User Experience 7
Step 5: Evaluate RemoteFX USB Support 12
Dynamic Allocation of Virtual Machine Memory 17
Dynamic Memory Evaluation System Requirements 18
Evaluate Dynamic Memory User Experience 18
Step 1: Prepare Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 for Evaluating Dynamic Memory 19
Step 2: Install and Configure Windows 7 SP1 in the Virtual Machine 19
Step 3: Enable Dynamic Memory Support on Windows 7 Virtual Machines 19
Step 4: Evaluate Dynamic Memory User Experience 20
Improved User Experience with RemoteFX
RemoteFX allows users to run Windows 7 and applications in a virtualized environment and yet have a similar user experience as installing Windows 7 and the applications on a physical computer with a 3D accelerated graphics display adapter. The Remote Desktop Virtualization Host role service in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 provides support for RemoteFX in Windows 7 SP1 guest operating system in Hyper-V.
RemoteFX Evaluation System Requirements
To evaluate the RemoveFX feature in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, you need to have the system requirements listed in the following table in addition to those in the “System Requirements” section in the “Getting Started” section, earlier in this guide.
Table 1: RemoteFX Evaluation System Requirements
Computer
|
Description and system resources
|
W2K2R2SP1
|
This is a physical computer that can be a standalone server or a member of a domain. This computer runs Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 with the following server roles, role services, and features installed:
Hyper-V server role
Remote Desktop Services server role
Core Services role service
Virtualization host role
RemoteFX role service
The system resources of this computer are as follows:
Video display adapter that supports 3D hardware acceleration.
Two or more processor cores running at 1.6 gigahertz (GHz) or faster
4 gigabytes (GBs) or more of physical memory
One disk partition that has 250 GB or more of available disk space.
|
WIN7-01
|
This is a virtual computer that can be a standalone computer or a member of a domain. This computer runs Windows 7 Enterprise or Ultimate SP1 with the following system resources:
One or more virtual processors running at 1.6 gigahertz (GHz) or faster
1 GB or more of memory
One virtual hard disk that is 120 GB or larger.
.
|
|
WIN7-02 – separate physical machine, running any Windows 7 edition with SP1 installed and requiring only the general Windows 7 hardware installation minimums. This machine will be used to forward local resources to the Windows 7 virtual machine using RemoteFX.
| Evaluate RemoteFX User Experience
Evaluate how RemoteFX enhances Remote Desktop user experience by performing the following steps:
Prepare Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 for evaluating RemoteFX by installing the appropriate server roles and role services, and also verifying the appropriate video display device drivers are being used.
Install Windows 7 Enterprise or Ultimate SP1 in a virtual machine and configure Remote Desktop connections for Windows 7.
Enable RemoteFX 3D Video Adapter Support on the Windows 7 virtual machine.
Verify enhanced user Remote Desktop experience in Windows 7 using RemoteFX.
For the full end-to-end RDS experience please refer to the Deployment Guide for Connection Broker. The scope of this document is to provide only an evaluation experience for a RemoteFX host server and guest VM as well as leveraging the RemoteFX connection between them.
Prepare the physical computer running Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 for evaluating RemoteFX by performing the following steps:
Install Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 on the computer.
Install the Hyper-V server role.
For more information about installing the Hyper-V server role, see “Installing Hyper-V” in the Hyper-V Planning and Deployment Guide available at http://www.microsoft.com/downloadS/details.aspx?FamilyID=5da4058e-72cc-4b8d-bbb1-5e16a136ef42&displaylang=en.
Install the Remote Desktop Services server role with the following role services, as illustrated in the following figure:
Remote Desktop Virtualization Host
Core Services
RemoteFX
Figure 1: Remote Desktop Virtualization Host role services
For more information about installing the Remote Desktop Virtualization Host role service, see “Install the Remote Desktop Virtualization Host Role Service” available at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd759143.aspx.
Verify that the appropriate device drivers have been installed for the 3D accelerated video display adapter.
Unless the appropriate device drivers are installed for the 3D accelerated video display adapter, you cannot start the Windows 7 virtual machine with the RemoteFX 3D Video Adapter Support enabled.
On the Win7-02 machine; enable USB support for Remote FX in the Remote Desktop Client by performing the following steps:
Note: For the purposes of these steps, the Local Group Policy Editor is used. However, the same policy can be set using Group Policy in Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS).
Start Gpedit.exe.
In Local Group Policy Editor, in the navigation page, go to Computer Configuration | Administrative Templates | Windows Components | Remote Desktop Services | Remote Desktop Connection Client | RemoteFX USB Device Redirection.
In the details pane, right-click Allow RDP redirection of other supported RemoteFX USB devices from this computer, and then click Edit.
In the Allow RDP redirection of other supported RemoteFX USB devices from this computer dialog box, click Enabled.
In the Allow RDP redirection of other supported RemoteFX USB devices from this computer dialog box, in RemoteFX USB Redirection Access Rights, select Administrators and Users.
The Allow RDP redirection of other supported RemoteFX USB devices from this computer dialog box should be configured as illustrated in the following figure.
Figure 1: RemoteFX USB device policy settings
In the Allow RDP redirection of other supported RemoteFX USB devices from this computer dialog box, click OK.
From a command prompt, type gpupdate.exe /force.
Restart the computer for the group policy settings to take effect.
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