Converting Bootcamp partition to Virtual Machine

So the time has come where I want to replace my Bootcamp partition and move to more of a library sort of things.

USB 3.0 External HD Enclosure and a WD 500GB 2.5" SATA III 7200 RPM is enough portable storage for storing my less used VMs and only pull down to the SSD drive the ones I use most.

I'm now at the point, that my Macbook Pro 13" (MacBookPro9,2) is powerful enough to run my work development environments as virtual machines. Bootcamp while does offer better performance, it doesn't offer the ease of being able to juggle / upgrade operating systems.

But, the largest caveat was working with Windows 8 and VMware Fusion being unable to use the built-in tool to convert the partition to a VM.

Instead, I had to use the tool VMware vCenter Converter natively under Windows 8.

Only then after the conversion, it didn't work. :(

After lots of searching I found out that essentially the boot manager needed to be fixed on the VMware new virtual hard disk. So back to MSDN Subscriptions, get the Win8 ISO image and then setup the ISO image to boot before the hard drive.

A thanks to this great VMware KB Article 1037507 , I was able to reset the Boot Configuration Data (BCD) and viola, I can now wipe the partition as my old Windows 8 Bootcamp partition is now a VM. Now I can go and evaluate Windows 8.1 with the new development toolchain as a new VM. More on that later.

Win8 Native ISO Support

It's about time. Another area where Microsoft has finally caught up to what we've had in other, more powerful operating systems. Native ISO support. You can finally mount images, and burn them.

Oh, you just can't create them natively. In 2009 with Windows 7 we could burn the images, and now in 2012 we can read the images. So wait until 2015 for us to be able to create them.

Fixing issue where Win8 Enterprise can't activate

So having some free time, I finally reformatted my development laptop and installed Windows 8 RTM. All goes well until I can't activate it and get the following error message:

Windows couldn't be activated. Error code: 0x8007232B

Ok, so now time to go fix this.

First think to notice is that the key seems to be already entered. Only this is not the accurate key, you will need to install your product key via your particular method. For me, it's via my MSDN subscription.

Run the cmd application in administrator mode.

Move your cursor to a corner to bring up the Win8 overlay. Click on Search and enter cmd.

Now Right Click on the cmd app and select the Run as Administrator

Now enter the command with your given product key as:

slmgr.vbs -ipk "YOUR_PRODUCT_KEY"

You will get a prompt that the product key was installed. Re-activate and it will be successful.

And Now for Something Completely Different

WinRT/Metro...the story continues.

I love writing software. I like to tinker with new things and to see what is possible. I was quite excited by two major developments. Windows 8 with Developer tools and the G+ API released last week. This should be straight forward right? I mean promises of a new programming paradigm in HTML 5/JavaScript and visions of circles and Google goodness on a new Tablet device, it should have been a wonderful couple days of coding. Right?

Welcome to your new walled garden:

This all started when I fired up my new preview of Visual Studio 2011 and discover that this edition of VS only supports Tailored applications. Ah, there is a new version of Visual Studio 2011 for MSDN subscribers.

So after much research and continual searching, the truth seems to coalesce into a clearer picture except for all the fear uncertainty and doubt that I must be on the right track. This is after all a Microsoft product.

HTML / JavaScript skills are not about web development using these languages, but about levering the knowledge of the skillsets so that you can get access to the WinRT APIs. There will still be the requirements of learning a new API and all that that entails.

C# has gotten some slightly different interfaces to allow you access to WinRT, but it seems this is all about moving away from Win32. There is a new sandbox and security model and as such, some times will not cross over between Metro Style land and traditional C#.

If you need some shared code, then you'll have to be writing something compatible with the Portal Library Tools so that you can get access to  your existing data. And now we've got a new picture emerging. What we really have is the language of your choice, to a new WinRT API structure. You can go with C# with its really thing layer between, with JavaScript, or with C++/Cx extensions and their new COM redux.

There are two platforms that you can target. The Desktop and all the traditional .NET development, including Silverlight and all that this experience gives you, or the new Metro UI for gesture based UI development that targets tablets and smartphones sans Silverlight. This implies that the Silverlight experiment is dead. Well not dead, but on life support. It will live on for Enterprise LOB applications, but the original idea as a Flash killer will not be realized nor will it be the Apple killer Microsoft wanted. And if you want to use these new tablets and smartphones, you will have to target Metro as Win32 will not be supported on ARM.

Todd Anglin has a great diagram about how to choose the best technology with what we know at this point.
C# as a language is not going away, but you're going to have learn a new API stack. Early reports is that converting Silverlight to Metro is not fun, and it would be better to just target a creating new enhancement Metro app to your existing portfolio.

Never enough time

There are only so many hours in a day. It's amazing to hear my children talk to me about being bored with nothing to do. I wonder at what age I stopped having empty spots in my day and I started having no time and having to juggle all my appointments, meetings, and personal tasks.

Well tonight, I finally have some time to check out this tiny thing called Windows 8. After reviewing what I need to get this running, I decided that VMware Workstation 8 is what I would need to get this beast running.

So I have older hardware, an AMD Athlon II X3 with 4 Gb of memory running Windows 7 Professional. It's enough to start off with.

So after finding some excellent instructions on how to install Window 8, I'm at the happy fun time screen:

Wow, this was pretty painless.

Tons of new features to customize, link to Windows Live ID, and bam!!!

Eureka, it just works. Now time to dogfood a new C# application under the new Metrosexual, oh I mean Metro UI Style in Visual Studio 2011. More on this later.