In a mad dash to “reclaim some of my memory”, I built a DC with some spare hardware, and begun the installation of SP1 on my 2008 R2 host – if you’re wondering why I did that, my [only] other domain controller is a VM. The install was uneventful – I ate dinner while it was going on. When I came back, the two VMs that I had left running were now saved, and SP1 was successfully installed.
I first decided to bring up my 2003 R2 SQL server – it’s the only non 2008R2 VM I have, so I figured I would see if it worked. I had never tried the beta extensively, but I recelled reading that all you need to do is update the ICs to get Dynamic Memory working. Sure enough, as soon as I updated the Integration components in the VM and rebooted – Dynamic Memory was working it’s magic. One down, a few to go. I did the same for a few of my 2008R2 VMs- just updated the ICs, and set the dynamic memory numbers in the VM settings….but nothing happened. They stuck with the startup memory….note here how all except the top VM (the 2003 R2 VM) only show 512 MB – with nothing in the Memory Demand column and nothing in the Memory Status column:
To check, I looked at Virtual PC Guys blog about supported Guest OSs HERE.
Only the following operating systems are supported with the beta release:
- Windows Server 2003 Enterprise & Datacenter (32-bit and 64-bit)
- Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise & Datacenter (32-bit and 64-bit)
- Windows Server 2008 Enterprise & Datacenter (32-bit and 64-bit)
- Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise & Datacenter (64-bit)
- Windows Vista Enterprise & Ultimate (32-bit and 64-bit)
- Windows 7 Enterprise & Ultimate (32-bit and 64-bit)
The following guest operating systems will be supported after the beta release:
- Windows Server 2003 Web & Standard (32-bit and 64-bit)
- Windows Server 2003 R2 Web & Standard (32-bit and 64-bit)
- Windows Server 2008 Web & Standard (32-bit and 64-bit)
- Windows Server 2008 R2 Web & Standard (64-bit)
Well – the VMs not working are all 2008 R2 [64-bit]…after rebooting a few times and re-installing the ICs a few times- I noticed in device manager, there was not a Virtual Dynamic Memory device. So after more pondering and searching, I came across an article (I can’t remember where now) stating – In order to get Dynamic Memory enabled on 2008 R2 Standard or Web editions, you MUST install the ENTIRE SP1 package! I wish I had found this Technet article sooner!
So, long story short: to enable Dynamic Memory in Standard or Web versions of Server 2008 R2, you CANNOT just update the Integration Components – you must install SP1.