Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Reviewers Guide, Beta Release

Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Reviewers Guide, Beta Release

Published: June 2010

© 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This document is developed prior to the product’s release to manufacturing, and as such, we cannot guarantee that all details included herein will be exactly as what is found in the shipping product. The information contained in this document represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication. The information represents the product at the time this document was printed and should be used for planning purposes only. Information subject to change at any time without prior notice. This whitepaper is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS 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 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, 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

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:

1. 
   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.
   
2. 
   Install Windows 7 Enterprise or Ultimate SP1 in a virtual machine and configure Remote Desktop connections for Windows 7.
   
3. 
   Enable RemoteFX 3D Video Adapter Support on the Windows 7 virtual machine.
   
4. 
   Verify enhanced user Remote Desktop experience in Windows 7 using RemoteFX.
   
5. 
   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.
   

Step 1: Prepare Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 for Evaluating RemoteFX

Prepare the physical computer running Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 for evaluating RemoteFX by performing the following steps:

1. 
   Install Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 on the computer.
   
2. 
   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.

3. 
   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.

4. 
   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.

5. 
   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).

1. 
   Start Gpedit.exe.
   
2. 
   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.
   
3. 
   In the details pane, right-click Allow RDP redirection of other supported RemoteFX USB devices from this computer, and then click Edit.
   
4. 
   In the Allow RDP redirection of other supported RemoteFX USB devices from this computer dialog box, click Enabled.
   
5. 
   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

6. 
   In the Allow RDP redirection of other supported RemoteFX USB devices from this computer dialog box, click OK.
   

6. 
   From a command prompt, type gpupdate.exe /force.
   
7. 
   Restart the computer for the group policy settings to take effect.
   

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