December 5, 2012 - 13:41, by Steven Van de Craen
Categories: Windows 8, General, Troubleshooting
There is a lot of ink already on the subject of converting Microsoft Virtual Machines to VMWare Virtual Machines, but I’m writing down what worked for me to get it up and running.
VMWare vCenter Converter
Download it and install it. If you’re not carrying multiple machines then install it on your Windows 8 (that’s running your Hyper-V machines). I’m doing that, because a different machine adds quite some hassle when trying to connect.
Run as Administrator
Configure the Converter client to Run As Administrator.
Connect to IP address
When connecting to the Hyper-V server, you might want to use the IP address of the machine (eg. 127.0.0.1) to avoid some hassle with SMB restrictions. I’m sure you could as well solve those, but IP works fine as well.
Unable to obtain hardware information for the selected machine
If you get this, and believe me you will, first make sure the selected machine is powered off. But even then you’ll likely run into this. The fix is pretty nasty:
Grant “Everyone” Modify permissions on the folder containing the VM disks (.vhd).
Another thing to verify is that your Virtual Machine hard disk is not using the newer VHDX format introduced in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012. This will also result in the above error.
You'll need to edit and convert your disk to the VHD format. If you have snapshots and want to keep them, you can export the snapshot and import it again as single VHDX file, which can then be converted...
UNC path
When you get to this screen, make sure the path to store the converted machine on is a UNC path.
Easiest here is to create a temporary folder and grant the specified account Write permissions.
Finally
When you pass all these hurdles you’ll get to a few more configuration screens like the one below, but really nothing will stop you now from converting that machine, let alone insufficient disk space ;)
So why am I converting you ask ? No, I’ve not yet given up on Hyper-V. Sure it has less features but so far I haven’t really missed any of them. I can get around using Remote Desktop and Internet Connection Sharing just fine. I’m only creating these VMWare images for some of my colleagues that run VMWare (either they can’t be convinced or don’t have the right CPU to run Hyper-V 3.0 on Windows 8).
Reference
Another really useful guide on this is the following blog post: Converting Hyper-V to VMWare
November 14, 2012 - 22:17, by Steven Van de Craen
Categories: General, SPC12
SharePoint Conference 2012 really is a mental overload. Just the scale of the Conference itself is enormous (me being a first time SPC attendee), let alone the impressions that Las Vegas adds to that.
The keynote was the marketing machine at its best. I don’t mean that as a bad thing. It was really well-prepared and got everyone excited about the product and conference.
Then there are all those sessions for developers, IT professionals and business. There are so many sessions that overlap that you have to make some hard choices. Luckily most of the sessions are recorded and made available afterwards.
Yesterday was the big outdoor event on Mandalay Beach with Jon Bon Jovi and the Suburban Kings performing. Being not much of a fan I didn’t get excited about it, but I went anyway and enjoyed the vibe, catering and conversations with other attendees.
The ending fireworks were a real blast 
The meetup with fellow Belgian attendees was real fun. Got to meet new and familiar faces.
Finally, I took both SharePoint 2013 beta exams. They put a real focus on Office 365 which is not my real area of expertise. But I’ll have to wait for a few more weeks to know the result. We’ll see
Cheers!
November 12, 2012 - 15:47, by Steven Van de Craen
Categories: General, SPC12
My colleague Dimitri and I got the opportunity to go to this year’s SharePoint Conference (#SPC12) in Las Vegas. I have to admit that I had mixed feelings at the beginning; I’m not much of a traveler to begin with and also leaving my wife and kids didn’t sound too appealing. But of course we’re taking Vegas here, pretty much a once in a lifetime opportunity! So along with the thousands of other attendees, excitement began to grow when the conference got closer and closer.
Brussels – London – Las Vegas
We departed from Brussels Airport yesterday in an Airbus A321 from British Airways, destination London Heathrow. I have taken this trip before on preious occasions, so no suprises there. The trip took about 40 minutes if I recall correctly.
At Heathrow we got our connection to Las Vegas with minimal waiting time. At least it didn’t seem a very long wait to me. Probably the excitement.
We flew in a Boeing 747 in economy class. I’m a pretty tall guy and have to admit that I did expect more leg room in a transatlantic flight, but I managed. The entertainment system was a cool bonus for me. I got to see a lot of pretty new movie releases during flight.
I managed to do a few naps along the way. Of course there’s the jet lag that one needs to take into account. My biological clock refuses to let me sleep here in Vegas during night time, this first night. So I’ve been awake since 11PM (local time) and finally decided to get up to write this little report.
By the way: I don’t look my best in this particular picture 
Luxor
We’re staying in the Luxor. Didn’t have time to take a lot of pictures because I wanted to settle in first, but the Luxor hotel -and all others- are really amazing. Huge, spectacular and packed with a certain energy and atmosphere that makes up Vegas (I guess).
I did a bit of late night gambling yesterday, before turning to bed, but had no luck on the slots. They’re not my type of gambling anyway but I was too tired to join in a poker game. Might do that tonight or else another day.
Conference
There are still a few hours to go until the Conference kicks off, and I’ve run out of battery on my laptop, so I’ll leave it to this for now and am going downstairs to see if anything’s happening for the moment.
If you bump into Dimi or me, say hi 
Until later!
Steven
March 17, 2012 - 10:16, by Steven Van de Craen
Categories: General, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2A few days ago I tweeted about having moved to Windows 8 Consumer Preview as main Operating System. So far still really happy with it.
My previous OS was Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V for virtualizing my SharePoint development environments. I had tweaked Windows Server as much as possible to be more of a desktop OS than server OS, but the fact remained that it just hadn’t optimized audio and video drivers. Surely they’re adequate to perform basic tasks, but there still was a little bit mouse and audio stuttering when a YouTube started playing, let alone playing a recent game such as Modern Warfare 3 or Skyrim. For those I kept a Windows 7 dual boot environment around.
Hyper-V 3.0
The main driver to move to Windows 8 for me was to have Hyper-V. Mind you that it’s not a straightforward path to migrate your Windows Server 2008 R2 images. I tried the export and import feature; it complained about not being able to use Saved State but it kindly asked me if it could delete that, I said yes. The import went fine but still I could start up a snapshot due to some obscure error. Perhaps this is a beta issue and will be fixed in RTM.
I decided to make a copy of the entire VMDISK folder and then just create new Virtual Machines in Windows 8, linking to existing disks (.vhd and .avhd). Nothing new here but note that you can use the “Edit Disk” functionality to merge a snapshot disk with its parent disk.
So I now had “base” images of all my machines in Windows 8 and booted them up. The next thing you’ll probably do is install the new Hyper-V Integration Tools in each virtual machine. This will upgrade the HAL in the VM.
Hyper-V networking has changed in 3.0 as well, using network bridging to overcome some issues from the past. This new Network Adapter will be seen as a new NIC in the VM as well, so you’ll have to reconfigure any static IP’s you had before.
A final thing is Windows Activation. Since you’re using a new HAL in the virtual machines, Windows will need to reactivate.
After that you can shut down the machines and make a base snapshot to start each new project on.
Note: the general experience might improve in the RTM version, but if you’re using Hyper-V then you’re probably tech savvy enough to migrate the more difficult way 
Metro
A lot has been said about the Metro UI already. In Windows 8 there are two UI modes: Metro and Desktop (as I call them). Metro is the thing for mobile devices, slates and is very slick and touch driven (even if you can still operate it with a mouse and keyboard). Desktop mode is what we all know from Windows 7 and before.
Applications come in two forms; either it’s a Metro app (downloaded through the App Store), or a Desktop app (every piece of Windows software that is known to man). You can have a split screen of two apps.
The Start menu has been removed in favor of the Metro Start Page.
A lot of the navigation now happens by moving the mouse to a screen corner
- Top Left will show the Metro Task Manager for app switching or dragging split screen
- Bottom Left (where the Start Menu used to be) jumps to the Start Page
- Top Right or Bottom Right will bring up the Settings Menu
Start Menu
I had the Windows 8 Developer Preview and there were some tools that allowed you to disable some Metro features so that you basically only had Desktop Mode (with Start Menu). It seems Microsoft is really pushing Metro and none of the tools to date allow this on the Consumer Preview.
I’m fine with using Metro since it’s a lot like my Windows Phone. I can get used to the Start Page by rearranging tiles, but in Desktop mode I do want my Start Menu back !!
ViStart to the rescue. Designed for Windows XP it renders the Vista or Win7 Start Menu with most functionalities you’d use it for. During some shutdowns it throws a buffer overrun or other error, but in general it works really great on Windows 8 and should Microsoft decide to permanently drop the Start Menu then this is your friend!
The road goes on
It’s been only a few days since I installed it. I’m very pleased with overall performing and hope it will remain stable. Should things go wrong then I have an image of my previous OS at hand.
March 1, 2012 - 16:31, by Steven Van de Craen
Categories: BIWUG, General, SharePoint 2010Join SharePoint architects, developers, and other professionals on 28th April for the second Belgian ‘SharePoint Saturday’ event. SharePoint Saturday is an educational, informative & lively day filled with sessions from respected SharePoint professionals & MVPs, covering a wide variety of SharePoint-orientated topics. SharePoint Saturday is FREE, open to the public and is your local chance to immerse yourself in SharePoint!
SharePoint Saturday (#SPSBE) is organised by BIWUG (@biwug), the Belux Information Worker User Group.
Extra details and registration information can be found here: http://bit.ly/spsbe2012.
See you there,
@vandest1
October 13, 2011 - 12:04, by Steven Van de Craen
Categories: General, SharePoint 2007, SharePoint 2010If you happen to change the Windows Time Zone settings AFTER Central Administration has been provisioned, you will see that the time zone/date format is not updated in the administration pages:
Luckily, the fix is quite easy. You can just update the Regional Settings of the Central Administration site. Since this option is hidden from the Site Settings, you’ll have to navigate to it manually:
http://[centraladministration/_layouts/regionalsetng.aspx
Here’s a sample of setting it to Brussels time zone and Dutch Locale:
As you can see only the Time Zone is taken into account while format is still using US Locale. This only applies for certain Administration Pages such as Search Administration. The “Timer Job Status” page for example shows the specified (Dutch) format:
October 2, 2011 - 12:42, by Steven Van de Craen
Categories: BIWUG, GeneralBIWUG is announcing another session about SharePoint on Thursday October 27th 2011 in the Microsoft Belgium offices.
Agenda
18:00-19:00 Welcome with snacks
19:00-19:15 Introduction
19:15-20:15 SharePoint Governance (Speaker Patrick Sledz): Stop thinking about features features features when talking about governance.
When designing governance for a SharePoint implementation, a lot (not to say all) energy and words go out to technical stuff, SLA's and not to the things that define the business value. And the business value is not only a perfect technically tuned and performant SharePoint farm (if that even exists).
20:15-20:30 Break
20:30-21:00 The past, present and the future of BIWUG
During a seemingly quiet period, a lot has been going on behind the scenes. The result of all this secrecy will be revealed in the second part of the evening.
21:00-21:30 SharePint!
Of course there is also an opportunity to network, socialize and discuss the matter explained the previous hours... therefore SharePint!
Location: Microsoft Belgium Corporate Village - Bayreuth Building, Leonardo Da Vincilaan 3, 1935 Zaventem
Registration is now opened on the BIWUG site www.biwug.be
See you there !
September 27, 2010 - 22:00, by Steven Van de Craen
Categories: GeneralAnother colleague of mine has started his blog on http://www.moss2007.be. And don’t be fooled by the host name, it’s for posts on SharePoint 2010 as well !!
Find them here and add them to your feed readers :)
Tom Van Rousselt: http://www.moss2007.be/blogs/tomvr
Sebastian Bouckaert: http://www.moss2007.be/blogs/sebastian
…And for me ? Well I’m still enjoying my new born and some paternity leave :) Will be blogging in the near future again, once my life settles a bit.
September 1, 2010 - 19:50, by Steven Van de Craen
Categories: General, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Foundation 2010, SharePoint Server 2010I decided to have a go on the SharePoint 2010 exams with little or no preparation and see how it’d go. The first three went smoothly. I have to admin I struggled somewhat with the PRO Administrator exam today, but cleared it nevertheless.
I’m a Certified SharePoint 2010 Developer and Administrator ! :D
July 24, 2010 - 12:40, by Steven Van de Craen
Categories: CKS, General
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