Understanding where your virtual machine files are [Hyper-V]

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2010/03/10/understanding-where-your-virtual-machine-files-are-hyper-v.aspx

To be honest, I am surprised that I have not blogged about this before, but today I would like to talk about how virtual machine files are placed on the hard disk. 
Virtual Machine files
The first thing to know is what files are used to create a virtual machine:

• .XML files
• These files contain the virtual machine configuration details.  There is one of these for each virtual machine and each snapshot of a virtual machine.  They are always named with the GUID used to internally identify the virtual machine or snapshot in question.
• .BIN files
• This file contains the memory of a virtual machine or snapshot that is in a saved state.
• .VSV files
• This file contains the saved state from the devices associated with the virtual machine.
• .VHD files
• These are the virtual hard disk files for the virtual machine
• .AVHD files
• These are the differencing disk files used for virtual machine snapshots

Understanding data roots
Hyper-V has a concept of the “virtual machine data root” and the “virtual machine snapshot root”.  These are the locations where the virtual machine configuration (.XML) and saved state (.BIN & .VSV) files are stored.  For example – a virtual machine which had a virtual machine data root of “D:\Foo” and a snapshot data root of “D:\Foo” and had two snapshots would have a file structure like this:
D:\Foo
D:\Foo\Snapshots
D:\Foo\Snapshots\[Snapshot #1 GUID directory]
D:\Foo\Snapshots\[Snapshot #1 GUID].XML
D:\Foo\Snapshots\[Snapshot #2 GUID directory]
D:\Foo\Snapshots\[Snapshot #2 GUID].XML
D:\Foo\Virtual Machines
D:\Foo\Virtual Machines\[Virtual Machine GUID directory]
D:\Foo\Virtual Machines\[Virtual Machine GUID].XML
If the snapshots and the virtual machine had saved states associated with them – then the file structure would look like this:
D:\Foo
D:\Foo\Snapshots
D:\Foo\Snapshots\[Snapshot #1 GUID directory]
D:\Foo\Snapshots\[Snapshot #1 GUID directory]\[Snapshot #1 GUID].BIN
D:\Foo\Snapshots\[Snapshot #1 GUID directory]\[Snapshot #1 GUID].VSV
D:\Foo\Snapshots\[Snapshot #1 GUID].XML
D:\Foo\Snapshots\[Snapshot #2 GUID directory]
D:\Foo\Snapshots\[Snapshot #2 GUID directory]\[Snapshot #1 GUID].BIN
D:\Foo\Snapshots\[Snapshot #2 GUID directory]\[Snapshot #1 GUID].VSV
D:\Foo\Snapshots\[Snapshot #2 GUID].XML
D:\Foo\Virtual Machines
D:\Foo\Virtual Machines\[Virtual Machine GUID directory]
D:\Foo\Virtual Machines\[Virtual Machine GUID directory]\[Virtual Machine GUID].BIN
D:\Foo\Virtual Machines\[Virtual Machine GUID directory]\[Virtual Machine GUID].VSV
D:\Foo\Virtual Machines\[Virtual Machine GUID].XML
Some key things to highlight about data roots:

• We always create a “Virtual Machines” folder under the virtual machine data root and store the virtual machine configuration files there.
• We always create a “Snapshots” folder under the snapshot data rot and store the snapshot configuration files there.
• We fully support multiple virtual machines having the same virtual machine and snapshot data root

Understanding VHD and AVHD locations
.VHD files can be created pretty much anywhere you want.  In Windows Server 2008 R2, .AVHD files are always created in the same location as their parent .VHD files.
Common Virtual Machine File Configuration #1 – Default Virtual Machine Data Root
A virtual machine with a default virtual machine data root is one where you created the virtual machine and accepted the default options in the new virtual machine wizard, specifically where you did not check to “Store the virtual machine in a different location” on the first page of the new virtual machine wizard:

In this configuration option the virtual machine data root and snapshot data root will be set to the path specified under the Hyper-V Settings in the “Virtual Machines” setting, and the virtual hard disk will be created under the path specified under the Hyper-V Settings in the “Virtual Hard Disks” setting:

These paths are normally set to “C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V” for the “Virtual Machines” setting and “C:\Users\Public\Documents\Hyper-V\Virtual Hard Disks” for the “Virtual Hard Disks” setting.  That said – I usually change these settings to “D:\Hyper-V\Configuration Files” and “D:\Hyper-V\Virtual Hard Disks” on my systems as I find this easier to work with.
Common Virtual Machine File Configuration #2 – External Virtual Machine Data Root
If you do select to “Store the virtual machine in a different location” you will get what we call a virtual machine with an external virtual machine data root.

With this option we create a new folder named after the virtual machine, and set the virtual machine data root and snapshot data root to this folder.  We also default to creating the virtual hard disk in this new folder.

Common Virtual Machine File Configuration #3 – Exported / Imported virtual machine
If you export a virtual machine a virtual machine and then import it without checking the option to “Duplicate all files so the same virtual machine can be imported again”, you will end up with a virtual machine that looks like a virtual machine with an external data root – but there will be one difference.

Instead of having the virtual hard disks stored in the same location as the virtual machine data root – they will be stored in a “Virtual Hard Disks” folder under the virtual machine data root folder instead.
Changing a virtual machine to a default data root virtual machine
If you have an existing virtual machine that you want to change to a “default data root” configuration – the easiest way to do this is to export the virtual machine and then import it and check the option to “Duplicate all files so the same virtual machine can be imported again”.  The resulting virtual machine will be a default data root virtual machine.
Changing a virtual machine to an external data root virtual machine
If you have an existing virtual machine that you want to change to an “external data root” configuration, you have two options:

• Spend some time scripting the import / export APIs in Hyper-V.  It is possible to do it this way – but it is not easy.
• Move the virtual machine using System Center Virtual Machine Manager.  SCVMM will always transform a virtual machine into an external data root virtual machine in the process of moving it.

Changing the snapshot data root for a virtual machine
The only way to change the virtual machine data root for a virtual machine is by using import / export.  But the snapshot data root for a virtual machine can be changed at any time – as long as all snapshots are deleted first.  If you have deleted all existing snapshots you can change the snapshot data root by changing the “Snapshot File Location” setting for the virtual machine under the virtual machine settings user interface.

Hyper-V CPU limitation

By default Hyper-V only allows max 4 CPU core to be displayed on VM. To get the highest core available in your Hyper V host displayed on VM you simply edit count type value in VM config xml file and ...enjoy your work.

Resume Content DB upgrade

I’m going to start this post with a couple of little issues when upgrading your SharePoint environment, but there are several great references for you


If your SharePoint 2010 upgrade is stuck and you get the following in Central Administration “database is up to date, but some sites are not completely upgraded”. Note, there is a whole lot of misinformation out there about performing/reinitializing an upgrade by using the psconfig -cmd upgrade -inplace v2v (or b2b) commands. However, this is for upgrading your Farm and if it is failing on the content databases, it will continue to fail. The below is all about resuming the content database upgrade.
 The first thing you will need to do is get the Site ID for the Database that is problematic

Get-SPContentDatabase -Identity Name_of_Database

 That should return something that looks like this…



Once you have the ID, you’ll want to execute the Update-SPContentDatabase command

upgrade-spcontentdatabase -id f7f9907c-71e8-494d-8f2b-4ce6a5b934ea

References:

• Resuming a SharePoint Database Upgrade: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff382638.aspx
• All about SharePoint 2010 Upgrades: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc303420.aspx

 http://www.shareesblog.com/?p=560

Diagnose MissingWebPart and MissingAssembly issues from the SharePoint Health Analyzer using PowerShell

In this article I am going to focus on MissingWebPart and MissingAssembly errors. As stated in previous articles, there is no silver bullet to solving these errors in all cases, but the scripts offered here will allow you troubleshoot the errors further to find exactly where they are happening in the content database. Once you know this, you have a fighting chance of being able to solve the problem.
MissingWebPart Error
In this example, I have received the following error whilst running a Test-SPContentDatabase operation after a content database migration from SharePoint 2007 to 2010. It also appears in the SharePoint Health Analyzer under the “Configuration” category with the title “Missing server side dependencies”:
Category        : MissingWebPart
Error           : True
UpgradeBlocking : False
Message         : WebPart class [4575ceaf-0d5e-4174-a3a1-1a623faa919a] is referenced [2] times in the database [SP2010_Content], but is not installed on the current farm. Please install any feature/solution which contains this web part.
Remedy          : One or more web parts are referenced in the database [SP2010_Content], but are not installed on the current farm. Please install any feature or solution which contains these web  parts.
As you can see, the error gives you a “WebPart class” GUID, the name of the content database, and how many times it is referenced in the database, but little else. What we need to find out here is either the name of the web part or on which pages it is referenced in the database.
For this I am going to reuse the Run-SQLQuery PowerShell script that I introduced in my article on MissingSetupFile errors:

function Run-SQLQuery ($SqlServer, $SqlDatabase, $SqlQuery)
{
$SqlConnection = New-Object System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection
$SqlConnection.ConnectionString = "Server =" + $SqlServer + "; Database =" + $SqlDatabase + "; Integrated Security = True"
$SqlCmd = New-Object System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand
$SqlCmd.CommandText = $SqlQuery
$SqlCmd.Connection = $SqlConnection
$SqlAdapter = New-Object System.Data.SqlClient.SqlDataAdapter
$SqlAdapter.SelectCommand = $SqlCmd
$DataSet = New-Object System.Data.DataSet
$SqlAdapter.Fill($DataSet)
$SqlConnection.Close()
$DataSet.Tables[0]
}

Once you have loaded the function in a PowerShell console, you can run it by using the Run-SQLQuery command with the options relevant to your deployment. For [MissingWebPart] errors, you need to run a SQL SELECT query on the “AllDocs” table in the content database exhibiting the problem, joining to the “AllWebParts” table in order to find details about the missing web part. For example, you would type the following command to find details of the web part with the class ID “4575ceaf-0d5e-4174-a3a1-1a623faa919a”, as reported in the error above:

Run-SQLQuery -SqlServer "SQLSERVER" -SqlDatabase "SP2010_Content" -SqlQuery "SELECT * from AllDocs inner join AllWebParts on AllDocs.Id = AllWebParts.tp_PageUrlID where AllWebParts.tp_WebPartTypeID = '4575ceaf-0d5e-4174-a3a1-1a623faa919a'" | select Id, SiteId, DirName, LeafName, WebId, ListId, tp_ZoneID, tp_DisplayName | Format-List

Yes, it is a pretty long command, but it will produce a very useful output, as shown in this example:
Id             : 6ab5e70b-60d8-4ddf-93cb-6a93fbc410be
SiteId         : 337c5721-5050-46ce-b112-083ac52f7f26
DirName        : News/Pages
LeafName       : ArticleList.aspx
WebId          : dcc93f3e-437a-4fae-acea-bb15d5c4ea7d
ListId         : 7e13fe6c-3670-4d46-9601-832e3eb6a1e4
tp_ZoneID      : Body
tp_DisplayName :
Id             : b3fcfcd2-2f02-4fe9-93e4-9c9b5ecddf5b
SiteId         : 337c5721-5050-46ce-b112-083ac52f7f26
DirName        : Pages
LeafName       : Welcome.aspx
WebId          : 2ae0de59-a008-4244-aa66-d8f76c79f1ad
ListId         : d8f083f0-16b9-43d0-9aaf-4e9fffecd6cc
tp_ZoneID      : RightColumnZone
tp_DisplayName :
This tells us that the web part has been found on two pages (the references mentioned in the MissingWebPart error). SiteId tells us the site collection and WebId the site where the pages are located. We also have a DirName showing the relative path and the page name itself against the LeafName property. If you’re lucky, you might get the display name of the web part against the tp_DisplayName property, but if not, you should at least be able to tell which zone the web part has been added to by looking at the tp_ZoneID property.
Easily the best way of resolving these issues is to do as the error suggests and install the missing feature or solution containing the web part, but if this is not possible or feasible to do in your scenario, we can discover the site collection URL from the GUIDs using PowerShell and then remove the offending web parts from the pages specified.
To find the site collection URL using the information output from the query, type the following command:

$site = Get-SPSite -Limit all | where {$_.Id -eq "337c5721-5050-46ce-b112-083ac52f7f26"}
$site.Url

One you have the site collection URL, you can use the relative path specified by the DirName property to find the location of the file. To remove the web part from the page, type the page URL in the browser and add ?contents=1 to the end of it. For example, to open the web part maintenance page for the ArticleList.aspx page specified in the output, type the following URL in the browser:

http://portal/news/pages/articlelist.aspx?contents=1

You can then highlight the offending web part (normally called ErrorWebPart for MissingWebPart errors) by ticking the box and clicking Delete. The screenshot below shows a web part maintenance page to give you an idea of the UI, but not an example of an ErrorWebPart as I had already removed them!

Note: If you remove an ErrorWebPart from a publishing page with versioning switched on, you may have to delete all earlier versions of the page before the error disappears from the SharePoint Health Analyzer or Test-SPContentDatabase report. This is because the web part will still be referenced from these versions, even though you removed it from the currently published page.
MissingAssembly Error
MissingAssembly errors look similar to this one:
Category        : MissingAssembly
Error           : True
UpgradeBlocking : False
Message         : Assembly [PAC.SharePoint.Tagging, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b504d4b6c1e1a6e5] is referenced in the database [SP2010_Content], but is not installed on the current farm. Please install any feature/solution which contains this assembly.
Remedy          : One or more assemblies are referenced in the database [SP2010_Content], but are not installed on the current farm. Please install any feature or solution which contains these assemblies.
I normally find MissingAssembly errors appear as the result of an event receiver, which is still registered on a list or library but part of a feature/solution no longer present on the farm.
In most cases, you may be able to look at the assembly name reported in this error and know what the problem is straight away. As before, the best way of resolving this is to reinstall the missing solution file. However, if you are not able to install the solution (e.g., maybe it only works in SharePoint 2007 and not 2010), then you may want to find the lists where the event receiver is installed and either remove the event receiver from the lists or delete the lists themselves.
To troubleshoot this issue we can re-use the Run-SQLQuery function used to help find missing web parts above. The table we need to look at this time though is called “EventReceivers”. For example, you would type the following command to find details of the assembly called “PAC.SharePoint.Tagging, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b504d4b6c1e1a6e5”, as reported in the error above:

Run-SQLQuery -SqlServer "SQLSERVER" -SqlDatabase "SP2010_Content" -SqlQuery "SELECT * from EventReceivers where Assembly = ‘PAC.SharePoint.Tagging, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b504d4b6c1e1a6e5'" | select Id, Name, SiteId, WebId, HostId, HostType | Format-List

This will produce an output similar to the following:
Id       : 657a472f-e51d-428c-ab98-502358d87612
Name     :
SiteId   : 337c5721-5050-46ce-b112-083ac52f7f26
WebId    : 2ae0de59-a008-4244-aa66-d8f76c79f1ad
HostId   : 09308020-45a8-41e4-bbc0-7c8d8cd54132
HostType : 2
Id       : 0f660612-6be0-401e-aa1d-0ede7a9af8da
Name     :
SiteId   : 337c5721-5050-46ce-b112-083ac52f7f26
WebId    : 2ae0de59-a008-4244-aa66-d8f76c79f1ad
HostId   : 09308020-45a8-41e4-bbc0-7c8d8cd54132
HostType : 2
As with the MissingWebPart error before, we can use these GUIDs to get the site collection and site hosting the list with the missing event receiver, as follows:

$site = Get-SPSite -Limit all | where {$_.Id -eq "337c5721-5050-46ce-b112-083ac52f7f26"}
$web = $site | Get-SPWeb -Limit all | where {$_.Id -eq "2ae0de59-a008-4244-aa66-d8f76c79f1ad"}
$web.Url

The HostId property is the GUID of the object containing the event receiver. The HostType is the object type – in this case, HostType “2” means the event receiver host is a list. You can look at the other host types by checking this article on MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee394866(v=prot.13).aspx.
Now we know the GUID refers to a list, we can get it using PowerShell with this command:

$list = $web.Lists | where {$_.Id -eq "09308020-45a8-41e4-bbc0-7c8d8cd54132"}

To remove the list completely, type the following command:

$list.Delete()

To keep the list intact and just remove the offending event receiver, copy the Id property from the Run-SQLQuery output into this command:

$er = $list.EventReceivers | where {$_.Id -eq "657a472f-e51d-428c-ab98-502358d87612"}
$er.Delete()

If you do decide to delete the list completely, ensure you also remove it from the site Recycle Bin and Site Collection Recycle Bin to ensure the file is removed from the content database. If not, the error may not disappear from the Health Analyzer or Test-SPContentDatabase operation.

http://get-spscripts.com/2011/08/diagnose-missingwebpart-and.html

Removing features from a content database in SharePoint 2010 using PowerShell

The great thing about the Health Analyzer in SharePoint 2010 is that it will report on a number of potential issues with the server farm, which may cause a problem later whilst applying a cumulative update or service pack. Resolving these issues in advance will help to prevent an update failing when you run the SharePoint Configuration Wizard.
One of these problems may occur when a solution is removed from the farm before the corresponding features were deactivated from site collections and sites. The Health Analyzer will place this issue in the “Configuration” category with the title “Missing server side dependencies”.

The error message reported will look similar to this one:
[MissingFeature] Database [SharePoint_Content_Portal] has reference(s) to a missing feature: Id = [8096285f-1463-42c7-82b7-f745e5bacf29], Name = [My Feature], Description = [], Install Location = [Test-MyFeature]. The feature with Id 8096285f-1463-42c7-82b7-f745e5bacf29 is referenced in the database [SharePoint_Content_Portal], but is not installed on the current farm. The missing feature may cause upgrade to fail. Please install any solution which contains the feature and restart upgrade if necessary.
As shown above, this message reports a content database name (SharePoint_Content_Portal) and feature ID (8096285f-1463-42c7-82b7-f745e5bacf29), but not the sites or site collections where the feature exists. In addition to this, even if you did know where the feature was activated, it will not appear anywhere in the UI for you to deactivate because the solution has been removed from the farm.
The following PowerShell script will interrogate a specified content database and feature ID and do two things:

1. Produce a report in the PowerShell console showing which sites or site collections contain the offending feature.
2. Forcibly deactivate the feature from the applicable sites or site collections.

Note: Whilst this article applies specifically to the scenario of deactivating features from removed solutions reported by the Health Analyzer, I have decided to write the script so that it deactivates any specified feature from sites and site collections – not just those missing from the farm. This allows the script to be used in other scenarios, too.
To use the script, run these functions in a PowerShell console with the SharePoint 2010 add-ons loaded:

function Remove-SPFeatureFromContentDB($ContentDb, $FeatureId, [switch]$ReportOnly)
{
    $db = Get-SPDatabase | where { $_.Name -eq $ContentDb }
    [bool]$report = $false
    if ($ReportOnly) { $report = $true }
   
    $db.Sites | ForEach-Object {
       
        Remove-SPFeature -obj $_ -objName "site collection" -featId $FeatureId -report $report
               
        $_ | Get-SPWeb -Limit all | ForEach-Object {
           
            Remove-SPFeature -obj $_ -objName "site" -featId $FeatureId -report $report
        }
    }
}
function Remove-SPFeature($obj, $objName, $featId, [bool]$report)
{
    $feature = $obj.Features[$featId]
   
    if ($feature -ne $null) {
        if ($report) {
            write-host "Feature found in" $objName ":" $obj.Url -foregroundcolor Red
        }
        else
        {
            try {
                $obj.Features.Remove($feature.DefinitionId, $true)
                write-host "Feature successfully removed from" $objName ":" $obj.Url -foregroundcolor Red
            }
            catch {
                write-host "There has been an error trying to remove the feature:" $_
            }
        }
    }
    else {
        #write-host "Feature ID specified does not exist in" $objName ":" $obj.Url
    }
}

You now have two options for using these functions. If you just want to produce a report in the console showing which sites and site collections contain the feature, type the following (note the ReportOnly switch on the end):

Remove-SPFeatureFromContentDB -ContentDB "SharePoint_Content_Portal" -FeatureId "8096285f-1463-42c7-82b7-f745e5bacf29" –ReportOnly

This command will step through all sites and site collections and display the following message whenever it finds the feature specified:
Feature found in site : http://portal/site
If you want to go ahead and remove the feature from all sites and site collections in the content database, type the same command without the ReportOnly switch on the end:

Remove-SPFeatureFromContentDB -ContentDB "SharePoint_Content_Portal" -FeatureId "8096285f-1463-42c7-82b7-f745e5bacf29"

Running this command will step through all sites and site collections, remove the feature specified, and display the following output:
Feature successfully removed from site : http://portal/site
You should now be able to reanalyse the “Missing server side dependencies” issue in the Health Analyzer to clear the problem (providing there are no other issues reported under that title, of course!).
http://get-spscripts.com/2011/06/removing-features-from-content-database.html.

Permissions to make User Profile Synchronization "Start"?

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-AU/sharepoint2010setup/thread/aa36b4a1-6d06-45af-9d31-612ef69855f9

http://www.harbar.net/articles/sp2010ups2.aspx#ups14

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/opal/archive/2009/11/19/user-profile-sync-setup-in-sharepoint-server-2010-beta.aspx

SharePoint displays users as Domain\Username instead of Display Name

Login to sharepoint by farm account and launch powershell

1. If the problem only appears with a single user, you can update a single account like so:

Set-SPUser -Identity ‘domain\Username’ –Web http:// –SyncFromAD

2. If all (or a lot) of the uesrs you can do it by the following:

Get-SPUser –Web http:// | Set-SPUser –SyncFromADS