Roger Osborne has posted a great article with a Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V best practices checklist.
I especially like the fact that it’s not just a checklist, but it also explains what it does and why it is considered a best practice to do it this way (in specific situations).
Additionally you might also want to take a look at “Top 20 Hyper-V Performance Metrics You Should Care About” and System Center Advisor.
Microsoft has released the Security Compliance Manager 3.0 (SCM). This version includes support for Windows Server 2012, Windows 8, and Internet Explorer 10.
SCM enables you to quickly configure and manage computers and your private cloud using Group Policy and Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager. It provides ready-to-deploy policies and DCM configuration packs based on Microsoft Security Guide recommendations and industry best practices, allowing you to easily manage configuration drift, and address compliance requirements for Windows operating systems and Microsoft applications.
Basically in SCM 3.0 you can use predefined baselines, customize them or create completely new ones. Then you can export it from SCM 3.0 and apply it using an Active Directory GPO. To do this, create a new GPO in Group Policy Management, right click the GPO, import settings and complete the wizard.
You can also export existing GPO and then import it into SCM 3.0 and compare the differences.
Guido van Brakel (@guidovbrakel) has posted the great “Preparation resources for the exam 70-417: Upgrading Your Skills to MCSA Windows Server 2012″ on his blog http://www.enduria.eu some months ago.
Apparently he has now partnered up with the Microsoft Learning / Born To Learn team and is moderating wiki posts containing preparation resources for all kinds of exams including:
70-410: Installing and Configuring Windows Server 2012
70-411: Administering Windows Server 2012
70-412: Configuring Advanced Windows Server 2012 Services
70-413: Designing and Implementing a Server Infrastructure
70-414: Implementing an Advanced Server Infrastructure
From what I can see in the wiki based on the placeholders, a lot of great content is planned for the future as well.
The Born To Learn blog , Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) and Server 2012 Virtual Labs are also great resources you may want to check out.
PS: If you’re Dutch or Belgian, you might also want to take a look at the Tweakers.net forum and especially the “[Microsoft Certified] Ervaringen en discussies – Deel 9″ thread where lots of Microsoft Certification information is shared.
What you have to keep in mind though, is that you’re already running a hypervisor when you have Client Hyper-V installed in Windows 8. Installing and running VMware Workstation might cause problems. So unfortunately you cannot run them at the same time. This is also true for other virtualization products like by example virtualbox.
As a workaround you can either uninstall or (temporarily) disable Hyper-V. When you want to switch between Hyper-V and VMware Workstation it is ofcourse best to just temporarily disable Hyper-V.
In this forum post, a couple of methods are described to (temporarily) disable Hyper-V. It includes creating a seperate boot menu entry to boot with Hyper-V disabled and modifying the setting either through registry or a command. All methods do require a reboot however.
PS:
Last sunday I warned about a major vulnerability in Java.
It wasn’t expected that Java would come have an update available this quickly, but it is good that they did. So be sure to update to Java 7 Update 11 : http://java.com
Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) is hosting 3 virtualization related Jump Starts in January and February:
I’ve attended a couple of Jump Starts including those of Office 365, Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 already and I think it’s a great way to quickly get up-to-date about a subject. Also there’s a great team of people working behind the scenes to answer questions and provide more detailed resources. Other attendees often also share their experiences and provide valuable insights.
The links above provide include a course outline and a link to register for the Jump Start.
I hope to see you there.
[EDIT 14-01-2013]
Oracle release Java 7 Update 11 to fix this security issue. Be sure to update: http://java.com/
[EDIT]
Normally when I read about security vulnerabilities, I don’t really get a sense of urgency.
With the current Java vulnerability however, I do feel like people have to act quick because there are so many respected companies and even countries actively taking action:
Apparently this vulnerability is actively being exploited already and Oracle hasn’t released a Java fix yet. You might want to consider a combination of the options below:
Personally I like the way FireFox is handling the issue because it blocks by default, but allows users to easily override this behavior for specific sites. Also I’m getting quite fed up with all these Java security vulnerabilities lately 
I’d like to know what you’ll be doing. Have you or are you going to disable Java ? Which methods will you use ? Why ?
As a passionate ICT person, I work with multiple virtualization products including Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware vSphere.
At home I’m running Server 2012 with Hyper-V in my home lab and even though it works perfectly, I miss the option to be able to run multiple other hypervisors beneath it like by example multiple Hyper-V, VMware ESXi or Citrix XenServer instances.
With VMware products like VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation you can enable this with only a couple of minor adjustments as described in these great articles:
For me personally, I’ll stay with my Hyper-V based home server and my Windows 8 Client with Client Hyper-V installed. For testing purposes however, I’ll have to use VMware Workstation 9 on my Windows 8 machine. (even though I have Client Hyper-V installed). This way I can still run other hypervisors when needed.
I still hope though that Microsoft will add a similar feature to Hyper-V in the future.
In yesterday’s post I showed some commands to protect all or specific Active Directory objects from accidental deletion.
In some situations (by example preparing for a change) you might want to know which objects are protected from accidental deletion and which are not. Also when multiple people make changes in an Active Directory it might prove difficult to keep track of the changes.
To determine the protection status of AD objects, I use a script that checks the ACL of the AD Object. When Everyone is explicitly Denied access, it is protected from accidental deletion.
