MED-V

MED-V

MED-V Technet Wiki Exclusive Articles:

How an Enterprise Administrator can Determine MED-V 2.0 FTS Completion and Provide Remediation quickly

MED-V: MEDVHOST.EXE Command Line Options

GPO Settings which could potentially cause issues with MED-V Workspaces

The release of Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V) that is required for a Windows 7 rollout is the MED-V 1.0 SP1 Release Candidate, which can be found here.

At the outset it is important to distinguish between two virtualization products. Only one of these products can run on your Windows 7 clients:

Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7	Ships with Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate.Requires AMD-V or Intel VT. Not supported by MED-V. Used by Windows XP Mode feature.
Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 Service Pack 1	Available for Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7.Does not require hardware virtualization. Required by the current MED-V Release Candidate.

Quick Start

The official TechNet documentation is here. Official Microsoft documentation is still catching up with the Windows 7 release.

The MED-V Quick Start Guide takes you through building a lab environment on a single Windows 7 computer.

Chapter 2: Setup

In summary, the steps are:

1. Install the MED-V Management Server on your Windows 7 computer. Execute MED-V_Server_x86_1.0.105.msi or MED-V_Server_x64_1.0.105.msi.

2. Install the MED-V Client and Management Console on your Windows 7 computer. Execute MED-V_1.0.105.msi.

3. Install Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 Service Pack 1 on your Windows 7 computer. On an 32-bit build, execute VPC 2007 SP1 x86.exe, KB974918 - x32.msi, and KB979714 - x32.msi. On a 64-bit build, execute VPC 2007 SP1 x64.exe, KB974918 - x64.msi, and KB979714 - x64.msi.

Note that .NET Framework 3.5.1 ships in the box with WIndows 7. See Turn Windows features on or off in Control Panel.

KB958162 appears to be bundled and no longer required.

4. Download and execute IE6-XP-SP3.exe from here. This will give you a pre-built Windows XP test VHD. Note that this image is currently configured to expire on 2 April 2010.

5. Start Microsoft Virtual PC. Use the default settings to create a new virtual machine, and then configure Hard Disk 1 to point to your IE6 on XP SP3.vhd file.

6. Start the virtual machine. Use the Action menu to Install Virtual Machine Additions.

7. Edit the settings on your virtual machine so that you can share the parent folder that contains the MED-V downloads. Install the MED-V Workspace by executing MED-V_Workspace_1.0.105.msi.

8. Download the Quick Start policy file from here. Import this using the MED-V Management tool.