Hyper-V and Domain Controllers – Demo Tips and Tricks

In the past I have talked about the different configuration options when running Domain Controllers and Hyper-V.  One of the more interesting configurations I discussed then was having a Hyper-V server joined to a domain where the domain controller was a virtual machine running on the same instance of Hyper-V.

This is actually a configuration I use all of the time when I am doing public demonstrations.  The reason why I do this is because:

1. I do not like to ship hardware – as I have had hardware get damaged in shipping too many times.
2. I do not trust networking in a demo environment – so if I can keep it all on one computer, I will.
3. I often have to demonstrate software / configurations that need a domain controller.

This all means that I need to have a domain controller in a virtual machine on my laptop.

Over the course of many demos – I have gleaned a few interesting tips and tricks for this sort of configuration.

One of the biggest differences (for me) about doing this on my laptop, is that I need to system to be able to boot quickly and reliably.  Often when speaking publicly – I only get to take the stage about 10 minutes prior to speaking.  I need to be able to boot my whole system and be confident that my demo is going to work in under 10 minutes.

Sometimes I also need to run my PowerPoint presentation on the same laptop – so make that 8 minutes to “up and running”.

Tip #1 – Disable the use of cached credentials

The rest is on :

http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2009/11/20/hyper-v-and-domain-controllers-demo-tips-and-tricks.aspx