Hyper-V on the Dell Optiplex

With the correct BIOS settings enabled on a E8500 processor (see http://processorfinder.intel.com/ for the processors that support EM64T, Virtualisation and Execute Disable which is needed for Hyper-V to work), and with them and the Trusted Execution property set to On in the BIOS I got the following errors with Hyper-V RC1 on Windows 2008 Enterprise Server RTM (running Server Core):

• Hyper-V launch failed; Either VMX not present or not enabled in BIOS.
• Hyper-V launch failed; at least one of the processors in the system does not appear to provide a virtualization platform supported by Hyper-V.

Fixed this by rebooting and pressing F2 to enter the BIOS and disabling the following settings

• Security > Execute Disable (set to Off)
• Performance > Virtualization (set to Off)
• Performance > VT for Direct I/O Access (set to Off)
• Performance > Trusted Execution (set to Off)

Press Esc and save settings. When the server reboots do a hard power off. Power on, and then in the BIOS again ensure that the following is set:

• Security > Execute Disable (set to On)
• Performance > Virtualization (set to On)
• Performance > VT for Direct I/O Access (set to On)
• Performance > Trusted Execution (set to Off)

Press Esc and save settings. Hard power off again once the server reboots. Turn power on and let computer boot normally.

At this point I got an Hyper-V error in that the entries in the event log above did not appear anymore, but were replaced by an error indicating that Hyper-V was not installed.

So I removed Hyper-V by running:

• ocsetup Microsoft-Hyper-V /uninstall

and reboot.

Reinstall Hyper-V by downloading the latest build and install it using:

• wusa

or if you have the latest build already installed, then reinstall using:

• ocsetup Microsoft-Hyper-V

Media Player 11 jumps or skips near end of songs

Finally fixed this one! On Windows Media Player 11, running on Vista on Dell hardware the sound-card (with a SigmaTel device) would ruin the end of every song, but sync the song to a mobile device or use a different media player (VLC for example) and the songs play the bit near the end fine.

The problem is the device and its interaction with Windows Media Player. For the device you need to disable the playback enhancements.

This is done from Control Panel > Sounds. Right-click the Speakers/Headphones entry and choose Properties. On the Enhancements tab select Disable all enhancements. I did not need to reboot or even restart Media Player as I have read reported.