Welcome to System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2008. This document contains important information and known issues about this release. To get started, click one of the following sections:

Adding and Configuring Hosts

Missing Hyper-V or BITS update causes hosts to go into a Needs Attention state

VMM requires an important update from Hyper-V and a critical update from Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS). Without these updates, VMM hosts display in the state of “Needs Attention” and the virtualization service version as “Upgrade available”.

Download and install the following updates on all of your Hyper-V hosts:

Changing the non-trusted host agent service account password fails if the default setting is not changed

Non-trusted hosts are hosts in a domain that does not have a two-way trust relationship with the domain in which the VMM server is located. By default, the This host is not trusted by the domain that the VMM server is in check box is selected on the Credentials tab of the Host Properties dialog box. If you attempt to change the password for an agent service account on a host domain without a two-way trust relationship with the domain in which the VMM server is located, by default, VMM attempts to validate the credentials against Active Directory and fails because the connection is not trusted. Therefore, VMM will block you from changing the password.

To change credentials for non-trusted host, clear the This host is not trusted by the domain that the VMM server is in check box before clicking OK.

Disabling the automatic start action policy at the host level in VMware Infrastructure Client disables the automatic start action for all virtual machines on that host regardless of the setting in VMM

You cannot configure the Automatic start action policy for a virtual machine on an ESX Host server unless Allow virtual machine to start and stop automatically with the system is enabled in the VMware Infrastructure Client user interface. If you attempt to set the Automatic start action policy for a virtual machine on a host where Allow virtual machine to start and stop automatically with the system is disabled, the virtual machine will follow the policy of the host, overriding the setting you choose on the Actions tab in the properties of the virtual machine.

Creating and Managing Virtual Machines

Migrating stopped virtual machines that have checkpoints and a pass-through disk will fail and result in data loss

If you attempt to migrate a stopped virtual machine that has checkpoints and a pass-through disk, the migration will fail. When this occurs, you cannot repair the virtual machine, and you must re-create the virtual machine configuration.

During migration, the VHD and pass-through disk are migrated to the new host prior to the failure. Therefore, you can locate the VHD and pass-through disk on the new host and use Hyper-V Manager to re-associate the disks with the virtual machine.

To prevent this issue, manually disconnect the pass-through disk prior to migrating, and then reconnect the pass-through disk after the migration is complete.

Importing a VMware virtual machine and a VMware template with the same name results in only the virtual machine importing

If you attempt to import a VMware virtual machine and a VMware template with the same name, only the virtual machine will import, and the template will not appear in the Import Templates dialog box. To work around this issue, rename the template with a unique name, and then import it.

Converting a VMware virtual machine with a pass-through disk by using V2V conversion is not supported

When you attempt to convert a VMware virtual machine with a pass-through disk to a Hyper-V or Virtual Server–based virtual machine, the pass-through disk is ignored during conversion. The conversion will succeed with information.

Attaching an ISO image to a highly available virtual machine (HAVM) puts the HAVM into an unsupported cluster configuration state

If you attach an ISO image to the DVD drive of an HAVM, the HAVM goes into an unsupported cluster configuration state. To return the HAVM to a usable state, perform the following procedure.

To remove an ISO image from an HAVM and update its status

  1. Open Hyper-V Manager by clicking Start, Administrative Tools, and then Hyper-V Manager.

  2. Remove the ISO image from the DVD drive of the HAVM.

  3. Return to the VMM Administrator Console and repair the HAVM, choosing the Ignore action.

Setting MAC addresses outside of the valid range for VMware virtual machines causes the virtual machines to not start

The valid static MAC address range for VMware virtual machines is the following: 00:50:56:00:00:00 - 00:50:56:3F:FF:FF. If you set a static MAC address for a VMware virtual machine outside of this range, the virtual machine will not start. To recover the virtual machine from this state, set the MAC address to a value within the valid range, or set the MAC address to dynamic. Additionally, you can set the global static MAC address range to use addresses from the valid VMware range, which will apply to all virtual machines created with VMM.

To set the Global Static MAC Address Range

  1. In Administration view, click Networking, and then click Static Global MAC Address Range in the results pane.
  2. In the Actions pane, under Settings, click Modify.
  3. Enter the starting and ending addresses for the MAC address range.

Migrating a virtual machine after deleting a checkpoint might fail

If you attempt to migrate a virtual machine on a Hyper-V host after you remove a checkpoint, the migration might fail. To mitigate this issue, wait before migrating, because it might take a while for the checkpoint to delete. If you attempt the migration before the checkpoint finishes deleting, the migration will fail and you will need to repair the virtual machine with the Undo option.

To ensure that the checkpoint is deleted, perform the following procedure.

To ensure a checkpoint is deleted from a virtual machine

  1. In the VMM Administrator Console, stop the virtual machine.

  2. On the host, open Hyper-V Manager by clicking Start, Administrative Tools, and then Hyper-V Manager.

  3. In the Operations column, merge is in progress will indicate that the checkpoint has not been deleted. Wait until this operation has completed before you migrate the virtual machine.

Self-Service Portal

To manage VMware virtual machines, Self-Service Portal users must download a VMware ActiveX control through a secure SSL channel

To manage VMware virtual machines, users of the Self-Service Portal must download and install a VMware ActiveX control. This control must be downloaded through a secure SSL channel. VMM connects to the VMware host by using SSL. However, to ensure that users can download and install the ActiveX control, you must enable SSL on the VMware host computers. Alternatively, you can install the Virtual Infrastructure client on the client machine, which will also install the ActiveX control, thereby eliminating the need to download the ActiveX control from the host.

VMWare ActiveX control does not work with a 64-bit browser

Users accessing VMware virtual machines through the Self-Service Portal with a 64-bit browser will receive the error “VMware Remote MKS ActiveX control is not supported on a 64-bit browser”, and the VMware Active X control will not load. To mitigate this issue, access the portal with a 32-bit browser.

.Net Framework 2.0 or later is required to view the Hyper-V console as a self-service user

The Self-Service Portal ActiveX control requires .NET Framework 2.0 or later. If you do not have the .Net Framework installed or if you have an earlier version installed, you cannot view the Hyper-V console as a Self-Service user. If you encounter the following error when accessing a Hyper-V console or installing the ActiveX control, download and install the .Net Framework: Application failed to initialize properly.

Download and install .NET Framework Version 2.0 Redistributable Package from the Microsoft Download Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=76902.

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