Hyper-V lab corrupt after Windows 10 upgrade?

OK, So I have no idea, yet, if this has anything to do with my upgrade to Windows 10 but the timing is suspicious.

I have a simple lab setup in Hyper-V running on my Windows 8.1 Lenovo w550s. Well it was running 8.1 until yesterday.

My lab consists of three VMs, one DC, one member Server and one client. I have three Virtual switches created, one internal and two external. The external switches are simply there so that I can quickly shift from traffic going through my wired network to traffic going through my wifi. There are surely lots of ways to do this but at the end of the day this is the most logical to me.

 


So, the member server is dual-homed and has one NIC on the Internal Network and one NIC on the external. The DC and the Client only have a single NIC each on the Internal Network. The member server runs RRAS and handles all traffic going in and out of the environment. It acts as a router for the Internal network.

"OK, blah, blah, blah. What is the point Kevin?"

I'm getting there... seriously. So, I was happily running this lab with all the great SDM solutions installed. Life was grand! Then I upgraded to Windows 10.

Now I'm a huge fan of Windows 10. I've been using it for months and I was seriously clicking the little logo in the tray of my new work laptop since July 29th to get the upgrade... it wasn't coming. Finally yesterday it is there! Yeah. Now, I'm not quite as excited as I am for the new Star Wars movie but my geek flag was flying.

The upgrade was smooth, really smooth, and quick. It was really nice. One minor issue, my dual monitor stopped working. I have a DisplayLink Thinkpad mini-doc thingy, it needed a new driver. That was it. I had heard some horror stories but my experience was great.

Then I launched my VMs and some super simple config was changed. I can't say it was the upgrade but I can't think of what could have done it. It didn't take long to diagnose but it could have. It wasn't super logical what happened, but it has to do with the above configuration. I just had to go into Hyper-V, check the Switch. My External Switch was changed to Internal. It just needed to be changed back.

I was showing how to do this in PowerShell and realized another issue. It appears the hyper-v help content, even after running update-help, isn't updating. Once I figure that out, I'll get a video posted of how to address this issue with hyper-v. But to get you started...

PS C:> Get-VMSwitch
PS C:> Set-VMSwitch

A bit more than that but you get the picture. 

Best,
Kevin

Windows 10 Administrative Templates

Have you been upgraded to Windows 10 yet? Are you a fan? I am. I've been working with and running Windows 10 on most of my home clients for months now. My work computer just upgraded today with little fan fare. One minor issue where Lenovo had a new Win10 Driver for a mini-port/DisplayLink device. Once I updated that driver all seems lovely!

As you may have seen from Group Policy MVPs and other enthusiasts and writers out there, the Windows 10 Settings spread sheet has arrived. I can't tell you how many times I have anxiously awaited the new spreadsheet. I've read through and studied far too many of these that I like to admit. 

If you haven't used the spreadsheet before don't be over whelmed. It is actually quite whelming, it is not over-whelming, nor is it under-whelming... it is just whelming. I literally yawned as I typed that sentence.

It is however cool and interesting. Knowledge of what settings you can manage for these new clients is super important and this spreadsheet is key to that knowledge.

Some Highlights

If you take a look at and filter on the column called 'New in Windows 10' you will find that there are 201 Administrative Template settings that are labeled as New in Windows 10. 

That is 139 Machine settings and 62 user settings. They are in a lot of ADMX files... 46 files to be close. There is one new setting in the grouppolicy.admx file. One setting to prevent programs from loading untrusted fonts. This setting actually has an interesting 'Audit' mode which allows you to see if blocking untrusted fonts makes bad things happen. Seems interesting, we'll see if it is useful. There are a few AppX related settings, there are many additions to inetres.admx and there are 20 settings in microsoftedge.admx.

Managing Edge will be new and it will interesting to see how people are using the new browser. I'll have to add some Edge customization's to my <gratuitous plug>"Managing Group Policy and Active Directory with PowerShell" session at Spiceworld on September 25th! </gratuitous plug>.

There is a new setting related to Credential Providers. I'm sure my friends at Specops Software will be interested in that one! 

Summary

Just a brief overview, check out the spreadsheet and the actual ADMX files at these links..

• ADMX Files
• Settings Spreadsheet

I'll continue to dive in to see what other interesting stuff is in there. I'll take a look at the security tab and put up an overview soon.

Enjoy!

Kevin