VMware Communities : Thread List - Virtual Machine & Guest OS

Windows 7 support?

yougotiger0 — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:29:10 GMT

Right now when adding a Windows 7 VM to our vSphere host, Windows 7 is listed as 'experimental'. Is there an ETA on when this will no longer be experimental and be officially supported?

"Ghost vNIC" VMWare Tools and Virtuasl Hardware V4 to V7 upgrade.

vmproteau — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:28:20 GMT

I have recenetly upgraded ESX 3.5.0 (build 163429) to ESX 4.0 (build 175625) I am beginning VMware Tools and then Virtual Hardware upgrades from V4 to V7.

I'm aware that a new vNIC is created and the setting copied over from the old. It also appears it renames the vNIC as a result. All appear normal behavior for the upgrade. However, I see another anamoly that I'm unsure is expected behavior. If not expected what am I doing to cause this:

Every Windows guest I have upgraded VMware Tools on Viirtual Hardware on works fine technically but, when I go into the TCP/IP properties of the new vNIC and then just click "OK" to get out, I get this dialog box (NIC TCP-IP message.jpg attached).

I understand this is a result of the old "Ghost vNIC" and I understand how to remove it to eliminate the message but, if this isn't normal, I'd like to find out what I'm doing to cause this and if it can be avoided. If specific to my environment or upgrade process, I'd like to understand more before proceeding.

Server 2008 x64 Memory issues - VM using all available memory for system cache

Bill.Morton — Fri, 29 May 2009 20:28:33 GMT

I have just deployed my first Windows Server 2008 into the cluster, running
SQL 2008 and I am having a big problem with memory. I have allocated 8GB of
memory to the virtual machine, of which SQL and the normal processes only use
about 5GB. The problem is that Server 2008 is using all of the extra memory to
cache 'junk' which is causing the entire set of memory to be used, all of it
unique, and active. Our other VMs (Server 2000, 2003, etc) do not show
this behavior and benefit greatly from memory sharing, and inactive page penalties
built into ESX.

I experienced this same issue with Vista on my workstation and I was
able to resolve it by turning off superfetch and pre-cache, but super fetch is
already disabled on server 2008, and the registry key values I used on Vista do
not appear on server 2008.

Does anyone have experience making server 2008 play nice with memory
in a virtual environment and not hog everything? I want to leave enough
headroom for load spikes, but if the OS fills all the available free memory
with system cache junk we will have a huge problem as we migrate to more 2008
servers as memory is our most scarce cluster resource. There is alot of information about this problem with Vista, but nothing with server 2008, perhaps it is too new to be well implemented in VM environments.

what's wrong with the bridged network option?

dagobert39duck — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:06:05 GMT

I have an intel iMac with 2.5 GB RAM running Snow Leopard, I recently installed VMware Fusion 3.0 and installed both Windows 7 and OpenSuse as guest operating systems. Everything seems to work fine when I use the NAT option for networking. Whenever I try to use a bridged network neither internet nor communication between the mac and either of the 2 guests is possible (I only run one guest at the time). The system seems to create an "unknown public network" which impedes all communication.

Does anybody know what could be the cause of this?

Thanks in advance.

Allocate 4 vCPU to Windows 7????

shalpern — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:30:35 GMT

We are getting a stats program that can run on Xp/Win7 x64. It really needs a Quad core CPU to run efectively, but the OS only allows for 2 physcal processors. Is there a way to make it look like the virtual machine has 4 vCPU?

TIA

error loading operating system on VM

JayGregory — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:35:18 GMT

I recently used the VMWare Converter Standalone Client 4.01 to p2v my own Windows XP SP3 machine and import it into our ESXi 4.0 server. The conversion completes without any errors but when I try to boot the VM, it says "error loading operating system."

This is the first time I've used the converter, so any advice here?

Thanks, Jay

VMware-Tools fail after SLES10-SP3 Update

hackenhans — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:36:46 GMT

Hi,

VMware-Tools work fine in SLES10-SP2 guest even with VMXNET3-NIC. But after update to SP3, there is no chance to start the tools, neither with FLEXIBLE-type nor with VMXNET3-type. It always fails with the following message:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Starting VMware Tools services in the virtual machine:
Switching to guest configuration: done
Paravirtual SCSI module: failed
Guest memory manager: done
Guest vmxnet fast network device: failed
VM communication interface: done
VM communication interface socket family: done
Guest operating system daemon: done
Unable to start services for VMware Tools

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The only way to get the nic working is to change the adapter type from VMXNET3 to FLEXIBLE before start updating. The pcnet32 module loads properly in the new environmen, the vmxnet3 module doesn't. What's required to get it working

Thanks in advance

Ferdi

Slow performance of Virtual Machine

singhpdeep0007 — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:40:49 GMT

I have a ESXi4 and which is mapped with iSCSI Storage and one top of that I have created on new Virtual Machine of Windows 2003, 64 bit but the Virtual machine tooks more than 10 min to boot up once i start the virtual machine. and even we have the same virtual machine on ESX1 3.5 which is booting very fast.
Please let me give some tips how can my virutal machine boot up fast.

Regards,
PS

Connect virtual machine directly to LUN

Arkady — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:47:36 GMT

Hi.

We have a physical file server (Windows 2003 R2) which connects to a LUN on SAN.

Is is possible to connect virtual machine to the same LUN and be able to read data?

Thank you in advance!

downWhenAddrMisMatch - What does it do? How does it relate to NLB?

xmaveric — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:32:10 GMT

I'm working with Microsoft Premium support to set up a NLB cluster for 2 Win2003 R2 Enterprise terminal servers. Both machines are VMs. I've got the NLB cluster set up correctly, but I can't ping the cluster IP. Microsoft asked me to move these two machines off of our Layer 3 switch (a Dell 6224) and onto a Layer 2 switch because they said NLB won't work properly on L3.

I did that, but still can't ping the cluster IP from another machine on the same subnet. The next thing they want me to do is set this flag "ethernet0.downWhenAddrMisMatch=TRUE. So my questions for the VMWare community are...

1. What does this setting do and why is it required for NLB to work properly.

2. Is there a way to set it in the GUI or do I need to edit the .VMX file of the VM?

3. Can the setting be changed while the server is running?

4. Is the setting on the VM itself or in the vSwitch?

Possible to extend C:(system drive) when deploying VM from template?

MicroAdmin — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:58:14 GMT

Going with the reccomendation of my instructor for my last VMware course I created my Windows 2003 templates with a 10GB system drive so that I'm not wasting space with the template.

My problem is that I need to make the system drive more than 10GB when I deploy a VM. When I increase the size after deploying the VM, Windows just sees another partition and I can't combine it in to the "C:" drive.

Is there a way to fix this so I can have a 40GB C drive instead of being stuck with 10GB?

Enquiries on Snapshots Management

crescendas — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:19:43 GMT

I have multiple snapshots. I assume these will slowdown my system right?

Removing snapshots take a long time and I often receive Operation timed out when removing snapshots. What will be the fastest way to remove multiple snapshots?

Delete the oldest or newest first?
Does suspending or shutting down the VM helps?
Will taking or removing snapshot when VM is booting up or shutting down cause any damage?

I also notice that my first snapshot do not have a "play" icon. What does this mean?

Thanks,

Boon Hong.

vmware-tools-config build modules for different kernel?

stateless — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:32:29 GMT

I'm running 2.6.24-22-server at the moment and ubuntu has just updated to 2.6.24-23-server.

Is it possible with vmware-tool-config or manually to pre-compile the vmware modules tools before rebooting? The appropiate kernel headers have been installed.

Install issue - XP Pro on ESXi 3.5

mtooze — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:29:14 GMT

Hello everyone. I've been pouring over the forums and can't quite find the answer I'm looking for. I'm trying to install XP Pro on ESXi 3.5.

Here's where I'm at.

Placed XP ISO on the datastore
Placed the Buslogic and LSI .flp on the datastore
Created a VM selecting LSO as the controller
Atatched the .flp to the floppy drive
Mounted XP iso and booted to CD
Hit F6 and select the LSI driver it presented
Format disc, then says it making a list of files to copy and an error pops up saying it can't find the .sys files that are on the floppy. I didn't disconnect it. I hot ESC to continue and it lists all the files on the floppy, but it can't copy them.

Any idea what the problem is? Thanks.

ESRI ArcGIS As A VM

jjahns — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 04:29:43 GMT

I was just wondering if there is anyone out there who has implemented ArcGIS in a virtual machine. We have been doing this for approximately 1 year now, and so far have been extremely happy. Recently, after the vSphere 4 update and discussions from vmworld, I took the opportunity to restructure our datastores. We use a Compellent SAN, so on the actual GIS VM, we changed a few things.

LDFs are on a separate datastore pointing to FC RAID 10 disks.
Data, OS, and MDFs are on the main datastore (separate VMDKs) pointing to FC RAID 10 disks, then migrating down to FC RAID-5-5, then to SATA disks at RAID 5-5.

Upon doing this, I noticed a massive performance improvement (on top of what we already had gotten over physical). Before, we had LDFs and MDFs as RDMs pointing to FC RAID 10 disks. I found this a bit odd, but went with it. It was, after all, an experiment. The only caveat we have is that the database resides on SQL 2000. I don't really like SQL 2000 on a VM, and have gotten better performance running SQL 2005. Aside from that, everything is great.

So... anyone else out there that has tried this endeavor? By the way, we also virtualize Informix 10 and are extremely happy with this.

Thanks.

vmtool install problem!

linglong768 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:48:42 GMT

a vm installed openfiler , now i want to install vmtool for this vm,but error appears!

"the following vmware kernel modules have been found on your

system thatw were not installed by the vmware installer please

remove them then run this installer again.

vmxnet
vmmemctl
vmci
vmblock
vmhgfs"

is there anyone meet the same problem?

Connect LUN directly to Physical from Virtual Machine

RohitGoel — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:23:12 GMT

Hi ,

We have a senario wherein we need to present the Raw LUNs to windows machine, copy the drives data and present back the same LUNs to physical box.
Can anyone has a experience on such senario...will we able to maintain the data copied or physical box need to format the LUNs once presented?

Regards,
Rohit

Inability to extend boot partition of win2003 on GSX 3.0.1 client server

mattabah — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:08:11 GMT

Hello great pals,
I have a problem on how to increase the boot/system partition of all my win2003 vm Clients, all seating on a win2000 VMWARE GSX 3.0.1 Host Server.
I have Eight (8) Guest servers: 4 running Win2000 and the other 4 on Win2003. I used Vmware-Vdiskmanager.exe to entend both Boot/System and Data partions of all the win2000 client boxes, as well as all the data(E:\) partitions on all the win2003 client boxes. My Challenge/difficulty is on the Boot/Windows system partition of all the win2003 client servers. After growinging their respective sizes, I used diskpart.exe to extend but.....to my surprise, Disk Mangement able to recognise the newly increased size but Windows could not see the newly increased sizes. It shows/sees it as they were.
From online support and researches, I have used gparted-livecd-0.3.4-10 and KNOPPIX_V5.0.1CD-2006-06-01-EN, while booting with them from cd-rom. When booted and executed, they see these extended sizes. Yet nothing is really effected. See attached images. Could someone kindly help out on how to makje windows see the new increment?

Regards.
Matt Abah.

Windows 7 not Booting after installing vmware tools

Ace007 — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:31:13 GMT

Hello,,

i have vSphere 4.0.0 version, i am using vcenter server to manage. recently i created new virtual machine for windows 7 the configuration is as follows :

1 CPU,
2 GB of Ram,
35 GB of HDD, (Thin provisining)
1 Network Card

i was running fine untill i install vmware tools, after installing succesfully it asked for restart that it, after restarting i never boots, just it shows me a black screen in the console and wont respont.
it show on the virtual machine as the attached image.

looking for help..

Thanks in Advance.

Windows 2000 SP4 doesn't show more than 1 CPU in Task Manager

Paulo_souza — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:50:06 GMT

Hi all ....

My enviroment :

ESX 3.5 Update 3

VM : Windows 2000 SP4, 2 Gb RAM, 2 Vcpu

Problem : Task Manager doesn't show 2 CPU.

This VM was migrated from a VMware Server 2.0 by VMware Converter Standalone 4.0.1, and if I add 1 to 2 Vcpu, or 4 Vcpu, task manager still showing only one CPU.

Running VC, selecting the machine, performance TAB, I can see CPU 0 and CPU 1, but CPU shows minimal utilization.

I attached 1 document with 2 images, one is the task manager and the other Virtual Center.

Fax Modem with MS Server 2008

Compex2 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:29:01 GMT

I need to setup a fax modem with Microsoft Server 2008 running on ESX, Currently we have not been able to find a solution. We have tried a Startech USB server, however it did not support the modem, We have also tried a Startech Serial to IP ethernet which was working in XP but will not work with Server 2008, Has anyone been able to get this working, and if so how? Thanks!

Backups VMs while they are running?

mpg187 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:21:51 GMT

Is it safe to backup VMs while they are running? Or do I have to shut them down before backing them up?

Dual boot

cl0ne — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 04:48:59 GMT

Hello everyone,

I have Windows Xp on my host machine but I would like to dual boot Xp and Fedora in vmware. Can someone please explain the step-by-step procedure on how to do this? This is purely for learning purposes. I found the following link (http://www.vmware.com/support/ws5/doc/disks_dualmult_ws.html) but it did not help much because I was thrown off by the terms used, like raw disc. Please let me know if I need another HDD in order to do this. I only have one HDD which I have partitioned.

Thanks a bunch!

When the Windows 2000 Advance Server guest OS is assigned two CPU, but just one CPU is seen in the task manager?

zhangfred_vm — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:46:26 GMT

When the Windows 2000 Advance Server guest OS
is assigned two CPU, but just one CPU is seen in the task manager?

Do you know what’s the problem? Thanks.

The Guest OS:

1.
Two CPU is assigned to the VM.

2.
Just on CPU is seen.

Message was edited by: Texiwill: Removed Microsoft Word Foo

Maximum No. of Virtual CPU's recommended

gmreddy — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:20:19 GMT

Hi,

We have a Virtual Machine (windows 2003) hosted on ESX 3 environment. VM configuration is 2 vCPU and 8 GB RAM.
This is a Database server and it is very very slow; average cpu utilization is above 80% always.

I proposed to increase the vCPU on this machine from 2 to 4 but my senior is opposing the same and he is telling some negative implications will be there if we increase vCPU.

Please let me know what will happen if I increase the vCPU and what are the negative implications.

Regards,
GMR

how to autoload guest on reboot?

kourkoutsavlos — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:28:49 GMT

hello everyone!

i'd like to ask...is there a way to autoload my guest machines in case of host reboot for example after a power failure?

i mean..host machine goes down,then reboots...i need to autoload my guests so i dont have to worry about it...

thank you for your attention!

Connect a VM to external storage?

pommierr — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:06:43 GMT

We have a file server attached to a SAN that we would like to virtualize. Is it possible to P2V the server and connect the VM back to the SAN? Or should I just create another drive in the VM and copy the data from the SAN to it?

Thanks,
Rod

Cloning issue a Windows 2008 VM ID.

digitaex — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 01:10:53 GMT

We successfully cloned a Windows 2008 VM but we cannot clear the Computer ID. WSUS keeps seeing the server as the previous machine. It has a new SID from adding it to the domain but the computer ID is the same. We tried the vm configuration wizard but that didnt work. We tried using sysprep but it gets a fatal error attempting to prep the OS. Is there another way or a tool that will help us reset the computer ID on this Windows 2008 VM?

vmware tools for windows 2008 R2

steveharder — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:09:16 GMT

hi,
when I install win2008 R2 in VM i see that my only option is to install the experimental tools for 2008 R2.
Since 2008 R2 is out now, how can I check or download the proper tools for it and not the experimental one I have.
the same goes for windows 7

Thanks

WinRegKeys enabled when using VMachine?

gguay — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:25:51 GMT

Hi guys,

I am sure it is trivial for you experts but since I am fairly new to VMware I am still ramping-up.

I need to know what would be the WinRegKeys to look for in order to
know if a user is coming from a VMachine or a Native Desktop.

Actually my goal is to use an End-Point Profiler agent that would be
able to query the specific WinRegKeys to not allow a user session if it
is coming from a VMachine. Only a user coming from a Native Windows or
Linux Destop could access to a specific portal.

Since my End-Point Profiler agent is able to query WinRegKeys, files,
process, etc. I would like to know what are those WinRegKeys and the
status to look for in order to know if it is a VMachine session or
Native.

I saw there are some RegKeys under a VMware Workstation running Windows2003 server which have VMware RegKeys like this:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\VMware Tools Service

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VMware, Inc.\VMware Tools

but I don't know which key to look for and the value it should be when it is running on a VMachine

Ideally, I would like to have those for any kind of Client VMachine like:

[/products/view/]
[/products/thinapp/]
[/products/ace/]
[/products/workstation/]
[/products/player/]

Thanks in advance if anyone know this.

-GG

P2V error please help

banumuth — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:59:18 GMT

I am getting the following error while doing p2v.

I have done the following steps.

I have stopped p2v due disk size and I tried to restart P2V, now I am getting this attached error. Please help.

best practise on iSCSI initiator Multipath inside a VM

sgul — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:50:40 GMT

Hi,
Could someone comment on the best practise on using Multipathing inside a Win2008 VM.

I'm wondering if there is any speed or performance gains if I setup two vNIC's and then enable Multipathing on them via the iSCSI initiator.

We're connecting to iSCSI volumes on an Equallogic array.

Appreciate any comments and thoughts.

cheers

Anyone try Windows 2008 R2 in ESX 4 yet?

cypherx — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:29:08 GMT

I have the RTM of Windows 2008 R2 Standard (x64) in our ESX4 environment on a test network, along with a test xp client and a smoothwall linux based firewall/router to allow internet access from our main network into the test network.

Microsoft allows you to try Windows 2008 R2 and you can rearm the 10 day activation grace period 5 times, so you may use it for 50 days to try. I am evaluating this server to see how many licences we want to budget for next year, as we have some servers worth upgrading, and also I would like to up our Domain to 2008 R2.

However I am noticing through vSphere Client that the Windows 2008 R2 OS appears to freeze occasionally. It's happened when creating an OU, adding groups to a user, and even just sitting there doing nothing. It appears as if the mouse and keyboard have no effect. Even the num lock / caps lock states do not change when the guest is in focus. However the Windows XP client can still ping the machine and do remote registry, group policy, etc... so it's not as if the OS is hard locked.... just the I/O is locked. I'm not sure if vSphere is causing this to freeze, but I was just sending a reset to the guest and hard booting it to get working again. So now I enabled remote desktop and will work on this Guest O/S from the XP client via mstsc. I'll let you know if it freezes up that way, but I want to put this post out there to see if anyone else has had the same problem.

Microsoft NLB

laieh — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:10:41 GMT

Hi,

I have some issue configure NLB on my VM and this 2 VM is host in different ESX server. I found that my NLB now working fine is just intermittent when I PING to the virtual IP. When I try to move 2 VM running in single ESX is working fine.

Annoying "move" verses "copy" question

jasimon9 — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:01:51 GMT

Many times I rename a VM and start it up. I get the annoying "move" verses "copy" question. The only reason it is annoying is because I never know which to choose, as a rename could be construed as either.

What is the correct choice for a "rename?"

iSCSI Connectivity

dwisby — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:49:18 GMT

I have a host configured with a vSwitch for iSCSI traffic. A VM guest is set up with RDM access to a volume on an iSCSI SAN. The connectiviy to the iSCSI SAN is available and functioning. However, connectivity from our Enterprise storage solution fails. From the VM we can ping all iSCSI devices except for the iSCSI ip on the host VM and no iSCSI device can ping the iSCSI ip on the host VM . This doesn't make sense, as I can access the iSCSI SAN via these iSCSI settings on the host. One night we were able to back up all the data on the SAN connected to the VM guest. The next night the backup servers could not connect to the VM hosts iSCSI IP.
Any ideas on what could be causing this anomaly?
Thanks for any assistance.
David

Performance on VDI (Windows XP Virtual Machines)

timjim88 — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 01:04:58 GMT

We have 2 ESX servers running VMWare Infrastructure 3. There are 32 GB a piece in each of these servers. We are also running fiber between our SAN and ESX servers (All VMs are on the SAN only). We run 66 Windows XP VMs in this environment with Wyse V10L thin clients. The thin clients use RDP to connect to our VMs. This environment is in a K-12 corporation.

Over the summer I rebuilt 2 of our thin client labs (total of 40 VMs). When I say "rebuild" I am meaning that I took an existing VM (VDI-XP18 for this example) and brought it off the domain. I then cloned it and began updating it (the clone). I went ahead and put VDI-XP18 back on the domain and let it run again. At that time I was working on the clone (renaming it of course) and installing SP3 for WinXP. Once this was done I cloned the VM to another one. The reason for this is to create my second image for another lab. Once both of my templates (at the time VMs) were built up I converted them with VMWare back to templates. I then deployed each template to the prospective labs. Everything was working fine in the summer (Keep in mind that when I say "working" I mean that when I booted up each VM I could get into them (RDP and on VIC) and things worked fine. Now that students are back everything is SLUGGISH. I look at the processes within the VM and on the ESX hosts themselves. Everything appears normal. I would say there is about 50% utilization.

Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas on why things may be sluggish all of a sudden? Both labs have Service Pack 3 now. One lab now has Office 2007, whereas before it was 2003. The other lab has SynchronEyes 7.0 (SmartTech Technologies). I did power down ALL VMs at one point. When booting up one lab at a time things were still sluggish. The 26 VMs that were never touched this summer work perfectly fine, indicating that something has gone wrong when I made the changes to the VMs.

Any help is GREATLY appreciated! By the way, I did also ensure that the VMs are divided up on the VNICs. 50% is on VNIC0 and 50% on VNIC1. This goes for both ESX hosts. Thanks!

-t.j.

Reahat 5 - CD/DVD Creator NOT working ESXi

pjooi8 — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:32:27 GMT

Hi,

I am new to VMware ESXi, trying to evaluate it now. However, I am unable to burn CD onto either the VM host (CD/DVD writer), or the client machine (CD/DVD writer) .

On the CD/DVD creator window, I am able to select "write to Disc", it show me the virtual CDROM drive, and I can click on "write" , and it goes through the preparation, and eventually write to "complete", but it never automatically eject the CD. Unfortunately after all the work, NOTHING actually written to the CD !!

Does anyone have any clue to this ? or am I not doing the correct thing?

Thanks in advance

regards

Run away `top` in RHEL5 virtual machine

Brian Buchanan — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:54:23 GMT

I have a VM of a minimal install of RedHat Enterprise Linux 5.4 i386 on ESXi 4 (downloaded from hp.com) on a HP ProLiant DL380 G4.

CPU usage on the host is pretty excessive and I'm trying to figure out why. When I run `top` it goes crazy with refreshes as if I had set a delay of 0. If I set the delay to 60 `top -d 60` then I get updates about 1 per second.

If I run vmstat, I see interrupts around 13k. If I run it with a delay, the interrupts jump to about 45k, regardless of the interval (`vmstat 1` shows 45k interrupts, `vmstat 10` showd 45k interrupts)

I have vmware tools installed.

My suspicion is that my minimal install is missing some critical service, like acpid or cpuspee. This is a samba fileserver, and the only one of four RHEL5 VMs on this host giving this trouble.

Thanks for any advice or links.

Mouse pointer is missing after VMware tools installed

Bones3876 — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:30:43 GMT

Might be a bit late but just for info:

If you have issues with the Mouse pointer being missing after VMware tools installed

http://communities.vmware.com/message/419558

Then try installing the vmware tools then using the keyboard navigate to device manager and select:
Mice & Other pointing devices, right click VMware Pointing Device & select properties,
Selected Advanced Settings tab, change Wheel Detaction to disabled.
Click OK and reboot.

This worked for me fine.

Virtualizing PACS Solution - AMICAS, VI3.5U4, DS4800.

mnasir — Tue, 05 May 2009 03:03:50 GMT

Virtualizing PACS Solution -
PACS Vendor: AMICAS,
Server: IBM systemx 3650, Quad Xeon 5400
SAN: DS4800/5300

Is there a VMware VM that can be play/run in macOS and Windows 7?

echi111 — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 03:14:49 GMT

Hi,

I have both macbook and Windows 7 desktop at home. Is there a product that I can make one VM and be able to run it in both mac and windows 7?

Eric

My virtual machine can not start up

wrtlw09 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:30:49 GMT

Hello,everybody.

recently,when I want to start up my virtual machine,I find that it can not work.And I get a message:Operation failed to change the VM to che expected power state.And I have no idea to start it up.
Can Somebody had met the problem??Any suggests is welcoming,Thank you!!

Cannot setup NMI watchdog; calibrate_APIC_clock: the APIC timer may be wrong; sda: assuming drive cache: write through

mackop — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 19:46:00 GMT

I am using ESXi 4 and as a guest CentOS 5.4 x86_64. I have captured screen while guest OS was booting (the screen is attached).
Are the messages caused by running CentOS as virtual machine? Can I fix them or should I worry?
1) Cannot setup NMI watchdog
2) WARNING calibrate_APIC_clock: the APIC timer may be wrong.
3) sda: assuming drive cache: write through
....

WinXP VM installation, can't find hard disk ...

ndhert — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:32:02 GMT

ESX3i 3.5:
Creating a Ubuntu Virtual Machine: no problem.
But when creating a WinXP Professional VM, I am faced with the following:
(As for Ubuntu VM installation, I connected the CD/DVD1 to my local DVD
on the VIclient windows PC) When powering up, my Windows installation CD is found
and Windows installation shows the blue "Windows SetUp" screen, and prepares
installation (different messages about what it is doing in bottom line).
Then a screen appears where is asked to press Enter to start installation
on disk. Pressing Enter gives a screen:
"Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer.
Setup cannot continue".
Why is that and how to remedy?

I have set aside in my Datastore a 5 Gb space for the WinXP VM, which
is sufficient (I installed a WinXP VM already once in a VMWare Workstation 7
without problems)

VMWare Clone will not Boot INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE

crummer — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:48:40 GMT

Guys,

Disclaimer: I'm a novice at VMWare. I have it, I've used it, but I've never had to really troubleshoot problems. So if this question is poor I apologize.

Here's what I have. I have taken an IBM Intellistation Pro 6850-67U printer that I am VMWare Converter to make an image of.

When I put it on my ESX 3.5 box (a Dell) and power it on I get a blue screen INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE error. Can't get in safe mode or anything else.

Did a little searching and found the following article:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=36

However it says for image / cloning to post the problem on the community boards... so that's what I'm doing. Help or suggestions?

I have tried changing the settings for the SCSI / Serial Port / etc. to see if I could get it to boot somehow, but have thus far struck out.

Thanks for help in advance!

Sysprep to be updated in the future to skip SID generation

vmroyale — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:02:17 GMT

Just ran across a very interesting read over at Mark Russinovich's site: The Machine SID Duplication Myth

Set up Tape Drive (Overland 2000E)

abhi1024 — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:10:11 GMT

We are running ESX 3.5 that has a Windows Server 2003 as a virtual machine. We are trying to set up a new Tape Library (Overland NEO 2000E) on Windows 2003.The Tape library has two Tape Drives and 1 medium changer. Its a multi-LUN device and the SCSI set up is as follows
Tape Drive 1 : SCSI ID :1 LUN
Tape Library: SCSI ID :1 LUN :1
Tape Drive2 : SCSI ID: 2 LUN

When we hook up the device to the ESX host it detects the two drives and the library as above. However, when we try to attach the SCSI devices to the virtual machine by going into settings, we are unable to do so as it does not let us use the same SCSI ID ( ID 1) to the tape library once its already assigned to the tape drive 1.
Is there a workaround for this ? Please help

Thanks,
Abhi

Keyboard not getting released from guest.

wdamon — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:47:33 GMT

Recently installed an ESX system and also vSphere server. When I start a virtual machine (OS does not seem matter) and click in the console of the vm, I am then unable to get the keyboard released back to the host. Pressing any key on the keyboard pops the cursor back to the last guest console I was in. The mouse works with no problem both in host and guest. Closing the console gives the host back it's control. This seems to be specific to my workstation becuase I have two other people run the same vm from the ESX and vSphere and they work okay.

I also have VMware Workstation and any vm's running there acts normal.

Any input would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

ACPI Multiprocessor issue?

run262nc — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:51:53 GMT

Hello all,

I've got 6 citrix servers, all windows server 2003, Xenapp 4.5. I'm using Citrix's Provisioning Server to provide a virtual disk that all VMs boot from. When the intial virtual disk was configured, it had dual vCPUs. So, the HAL for the virtual disk was "ACPI Multiprocessor". Three new VMs were recently created, all which had 1 vCPU. Now, they boot fine from that vDisk that has the multiprocessor HAL. However, i've got a few strange issues:

1. Time jumps around on the new 1 vCPU boxes (not using time sync in VMWare tools; letting AD do the time)

2. When reconnecting to a disconnected session, Outlook will jump to 100% for the user reconnecting sometimes.

3. Internet Explorer will just "stop" cold when trying to navigate to certain pages.

I realize these are Citrix related but all of the VMs run on VMWare ESXi 3.5. Could the HAL mismatch be the cause? I can't find anything else that is different.

Matt

How to Automate Installation of VMware Tools for Linux Guests?

setha — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:48:21 GMT

We're looking for a more automated way to install VMware tools on our Linux guests.

Our environment: ESX hosts. Two flavors of Linux guests, mostly RH8.0 and a some CentOS 5.3. Sometimes, our Linux guests are fresh installs, made from a CD-ROM or a CD-ROM image. Sometimes, we install that CD-ROM on a physical system. Later, we might relocate the physical system to a virtual system. To do that, we would save that physical Linux system to tape. We make the ESX host's tape available to the VM. And we restore the save tape to the VM. Then we boot the VM. That physical system is not always nearby and is not always in our facility.

In any of these cases, once the OS is running on an actual VM, we want to install VMware tools on it, for the usual reasons to install VMware tools. We could do it the way the instructions say to do it:

1. tell the ESX host to install VMware tools on the guest. The ESX host makes a CD-ROM image appear on the guest's /dev/cdrom.
2. tell the guest to mount /dev/cdrom onto /mnt/cdrom. The guest can then install the rpm it finds in /mnt/cdrom onto the guest. The guest can then configure vmware tools.

That all works. But we're wondering if that can be automated. We would like to skip the manual steps. Computers are, after all, for automating things.

Yes, we could create templates. We'd put VMware tools inside the templates. We'd deploy the templates. We would only have to manually install VMware tools once for each template. But we'd still also have to install VMware tools manually for each system we restored from a tape made from a physical machine.

I'm thinking of a script run during boot. The script would parse dmidecode to decide whether it is running on a physical machine or a virtual machine. On a virtual machine, dmidecode with no parameters outputs, in part:

Handle 0x0001, DMI type 1, 27 bytes.
System Information
Manufacturer: VMware, Inc.
Product Name: VMware Virtual Platform

Once the guest Linux sees "VMware", it knows that it is running on a VM. The script would then say, "Hey, ESX Server, please make the CD-ROM with VMware tools available to me". The script would mount /dev/cdrom onto /mnt/cdrom, install VMware tools from /mnt/cdrom, and run vmware-config-tools.pl -d. No manual intervention required.

Other alternatives are to have a server make the VMware tools rpm available to the virtual guests, at some fixed IP address, either through NFS or http. I don't like that very much. I already have the ESX server which knows how to make the VMware tools rpm available. It just needs to be told to do it.

Just including the VMware tools rpm, uninstalled, sitting in a directory, on each virtual or physical system would work, technically. Whenever the system found itself on a virtual server, it would install the VMware tools rpm, configure it, etc. But, putting the VMware tools rpm on each physical system we install may not be allowed, at least according to my non-lawyer reading of the EULA. The EULA says, in part, "(ii) you distribute the VMware Tools in object code format only and solely in conjunction with, and as part of, the Virtual Machine you create with the Software;" See http://www.vmware.com/download/eula/esx_server.html

What does everyone else do about this?

Thanks,

--Seth Alford
seth_alford@adp.com

Windows 2008 Multicast NLB

Dr.Virt — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:14:27 GMT

We have been installing Exchange 2007 and ran accross an oddity when testing the deployment - We cannot restart our HUB/CAS servers without them failing.

We have tracked the issue done to the NLB configuration on the VMs. We configured the NLB according to the following document:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1006558

Now when we reboot the HUB/CAS boxes they reboot without error. I log into the desktop and find the VMTOOLS stopped and unable to be started along with most of the Automatic services.

I go into the VMware Infrastructure Client and disable the vNic, reboot the vm. After it comes up, I reenable the vNIC and all works.

So, we cannot restart the VM with the NIC enabled.

Anyone have any ideas?

WinXP - host memory usage

roc.ker — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:57:29 GMT

Hello,

I am testing VDI and I have noticed that memory sharing/release doesn’t work on
my WinXPs. I have 15 WinXP running on the box and all of them use all memory
which I assign them. Every VM has 1GB RAM assigned. I see 1GB in “Consument
Host Memory”. When I start W2k3 server on this box I see memory release after
few minutes.

I have installed latest Vmtools and this issue is on ESX 3.5 and ESX 4.

Could you help me with this issue? Does anybody have the same experiences?

Thanks Roman

Networking problem with Suse Linux

schoeffel — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:53:35 GMT

Hi there,

I have to run a Suse 7.2 VM, because there are some still used applications on it.

I converted the VM from VMware Server 2 to vSphere 4 but I cannot reach anything via network. The NIC is running and up. The default gateway is there, yet I cannot ping it or other machines. I'm new to vSphere and don't have a clue where to look for the error.

Thanks

Stephan

Snapshot and time sync

leschenko — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:53:06 GMT

Hello!

Does anybody know how to preserve time after snapshot reboot on VMWare Server v 2.0.1?

I take snapshot at 13.00pm, then I revert to the shapshot. Time on my guest OS win XP SP3 become 13.00pm, but after reboot

it returns to time when I make reboot. I have disabled windows time service, and have added this lines to vmx file

time.synchronize.continue = "FALSE"
time.synchronize.restore = "FALSE"
time.synchronize.resume.disk = "FALSE"
time.synchronize.shrink = "FALSE"
time.synchronize.tools.startup = "FALSE"
tools.syncTime = "FALSE"

I have disabled VMware tools services but nothing help.

Login is black on Virtual Machine

juchestyle — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:22:32 GMT

Has anyone seen this before? When I open a VM, where you enter your Username, Password, and log on to, all of those inputs are black. Now what is interesting is that they are black in the vmware client, and through an RDP log on. This is an exchange server, the blackness is always there, even after you reboot, so I don't think this has anything to do with low or running out resources. I don't think this is vmware related, but of course everyone else does; I point out that RDP logon is independant of virtualization and therefore no.

Ideas?

Matthew

Kaizen!

Snapshots and independent disks

Balasarius — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 21:13:56 GMT

Ok, I think I'm going crazy here.

I have several VMs with a vmdk file for the C: / OS drive and an RDM for a large data drive. I want to snapshot the C: drive (and back it up with vcb). I'll use an agent within the VM to back up the large data drive (up to a TB or more).

So, I figured out how to do this. By setting the RDM as virtual, independent, and persistent, I seemed to get what I wanted. In fact, I had begun a project to change all my VM's RDMs to this.

But now all of a sudden, it's not working. ANY independent disks means I can't take a snap shot. I get the error, "failed to take memory snapshot since the virtual machine is configured with independent disks". What's going on here?!

I upgraded one of the ESX hosts in my cluster to 3.5. The rest are 3.0.2. I'm running VC 2.5. The VMs get this error whether they are on a the 3.5 or 3.0.2 servers. I tried to changing to independent / non-persistent, but no change.

I'm very confused here. Isn't the whole point of independent disks so that they won't be affected by a snapshot?

ESXI 4.0 and Windows Server 2008 instalation

shadowrifty — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:29:11 GMT

I have ESXI 4.0.0 installed, and i can import 64 bit guests with the vmware converter. But when i create a guest from scratch, and try to install windows server 2008, at the instalation screen i can only choose the x86 options. I tried to find out if there was a specific configuration change i needed to make to the CPU tin order to get the 64 bit options to show up but have come up blank.

Can anyone tell me why i owuld be able to import 64 bit OS's without being able to create them?

Windows 2008 R2

Rohail2004 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:37:45 GMT

Will work with ESX 3.5 update 3?

ESX 4.0 - Windows 7 hangs at 'Starting Windows' - with workaround

jamaxwell — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:27:25 GMT

Host:

ESX 4.0.0 175625
Dell PowerEdge R900
Intel Xeon E7330
32 GB RAM
Managed by: vSphere 4.0.0-162856

Guest:

Windows 7 Ultimate x64 RTM (English)
VM Version 7
VMware Tools: 4.0.0 build-175625

Expected Behavior: Windows 7 starts normally
Actual Behavior: The VM hangs when the Starting Windows screen appears (I've waited for hours and it is still there).
Workaround: Disconnect VM's NIC at startup.

This is a duplicate of http://communities.vmware.com/thread/223674, but you might want to know the bug exists in esx 4 too. (Yes I know Win7 & 2k8R2 support is still experimental, but how are you going to fix it unless you get bug reports?) VMX, logs attached.

ethtool errors on Linux VM (rhel5.1)

bomahony — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:51:48 GMT

I have a RHEL5.1
server running kernel 2.6.18 running as a VM on a Dell R900. One network
interface.

I have " ethtool operation 3 not supported" errors filling up dmesg. Lists &
Forums say to ignore it, as it's a known issue, but I would like to get to the bottom
of it.

Here is the output:

~~root@server ~~~# ethtool -k eth0

Offload parameters for eth0:

Cannot get device rx csum settings: Operation not supported
Cannot get device tx csum settings: Operation not supported
Cannot get device scatter-gather settings: Operation not supported
Cannot get device udp large send offload settings: Operation not supported
Cannot get device generic segmentation offload settings: Operation not supported
rx-checksumming: off
tx-checksumming: off
scatter-gather: off
tcp segmentation offload: off
udp fragmentation offload: off
generic segmentation offload: off

The thing is I have a copy of this server on my test
network, which doesn't have any of these errors. The clone was taken a few days
ago, and this problem has been happing since we migrated to VM (about March).
The test network doesn't get hit anywhere near the same kind of requests as the
live system, but if I could just find out what is causeing it, then maybe I can
turn it off. Here is the ethtool output from my test lan:

~~root@server ~~~# ethtool -k eth0

Offload parameters for eth0:

tcp segmentation offload: off
udp fragmentation offload: off
generic segmentation offload: off

Any help / suggestions on how to find the root cause
would be appreciated.

B

Message was edited by: Texiwill: Removed Microsoft Word foo

Cannot remove vmware-2966.log: Device or resource busy

bjmoore — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:37:03 GMT

One of my VCBMounter commands is failing with the following info:

~~2008-06-30 05:09:38.122 'vcbMounter' 736 error~~ Error: Could not back up config file: VMFS_Volume4 vmname//vmware-2966.log

When I SSH into the host that the VM's on, get into its folder and try to remove the file in question, it errors out with:

rm: cannot remove `vmware-2966.log': Device or resource busy

ls -l shows I have permissions and the log file has not been modified recently:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 244249 Jun 19 19:18 vmware-2966.log

lsof|grep vmware-2966.log returns nothing.

Anybody know what I can do to troubleshoot this further, other than powering down the VM and trying to delete it then?

Thanks!

Ben

RE: I Need an Expert Opinion

shara555 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:57:37 GMT

Hi There,

Could someone "please advise" as to an expert opinion as to what might be happening as well as a possible solution to the following issue. Each time that I reinstall my os or purchase a new computer with Windows (xp, live 7, vista), I notice the following and at random:

1. Under admin tools, computer management, disk management, the service that connects initially is the logical disk service. However, once I run updates for either Norton or Windows Updates, the service converts to "virtual disk services". I am concerned because I am constantly crashing due to inadequate drivers.

2. I also notice that each time this happens that the software distribution folder under windows has a new update service WSUS, which is a totally separate application that you can install on Windows Server 2008 that automates the updates process for windows update for server 2008. Correct? Please note that I am running workstations without virtualization as they are new or repurposed and not servers.

3. Also, I find a unique key in the registry under Windows CE Services and Windows CE RNDIS whereby a smart phone and a pocket pc is enabled with a value of "2". Additionally, there is a URL listed under source 1386 for x:Ms-Windows-source1386/asms/. If I go to the system root, I am able to find 1386 in Windows with about a trillion files in it.

4. Although, I am very familiar with virtual hosting and troubleshooting guest os's from a pure administration standpoint, as well as the development of virtual appliances, I would like a 2nd opinion as to "what to do" and "how to handle" this situation as it continues to crash my workstations.

5. All things aside, could someone please tell me "how" to avoid this "virtual" hell as I am tired of installing and reinstalling after updates run? All responses and opinions are greatly appreciated.

Shara

can I use SCSI passthru to pass a local SCSI partition to a VM?

chacho — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:02:52 GMT

I have an ML350 G5 server with 2 drives( a raid 1 and a raid 5 ) created on my scsi controller I install all the esx system in raid 1 drive(300G) an also created vmfs partition(on raid 1 drive). I want to present the other drive(raid 5) to a VM that has been loaded on this esx host can I??? thanks in advance

Decrease the Provisioned Size of a VM in VS4

vash2009 — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:45:17 GMT

Hello!,

I have VS Enterprise with four ESX 4, one of my VM´s (VM version7) have one Virtual Disk of 100GB, Type Thin, and using 40 GB, I want to change the Provisioned Size from 100GB to 50GB whith the VM powerred off, but only allow me to increase the size, not decrease.

Any suggestion?

Thanks!

scsi controllers - LSI Logic v Bus Logic

Eire09 — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:11:24 GMT

Hi,
Can someone answer the following two questions:

1. When you select a Typical build when created a new VM is the scsi controller LSI or Bus Logic?

2. What are the benefits of using LSI over Bus & vice versa?

Solaris 10 with ESX4

michael.custance — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:11:40 GMT

Is it possible to install vmware tools in Solaris 10 running on ESX4? Guest compatability guide says 3.X only. Specifically I only need the tools to be able to display the IP address of the Guest OS in the VI client, could I just install 3.5 verison of the tools? If this is the case where can I donwlod them I only have ESX4 hosts

Cheers

vmTool for Solaris.

eXeC001er — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:25:02 GMT

Say me please vmxnet3 from vmtools for solaris support all features or not? (Jumbo Frames, TSO,....)

increase disk size of a partition

puzzledtux — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:53:41 GMT

A windows 2000 virtual machine having one virtual disk. There are three partitions C,D and E. Need to increase D drive size.
What is the safest bet to implement this? I have converter in mind.

Can't communicate with other virtual machines when firewall is on.

jkslz — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:50:49 GMT

I have a small network that consist of one esxi host, one server 2003 vm and two xp vm's. I am managing the vm's through Vsphere. When I turn the firewall off on the vm's I can ping the other machine's. But when the firewall is enabled I can't ping the other machines. I have opened TCP ports 427, 443, 80, 902, and 903. What other ports do I need to open in order for the vm's to communicate with each other when the firewall is turned on?

Has anyone noticed mac os x can run in vmware workstation i have it running on my laptop which has windows 7 ultimate x64

OSx86Dev — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 13:04:25 GMT

its specs are 4 gb of ram, 320 gb harddrive, intel gma hdx4500, 15.6 inch screen, intel core 2 duo 2.1 ghz better specs than macbook for 500 more cost 650 dollars btw it used to be a hackintosh teehee lol

Redhat Cluster supported with ESX3.x or VSphere?

hape1311 — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:42:34 GMT

Hello.

Although searching in the docs and communities, I could not find an official statement if Redhat Cluster is supported in the meantime by VMWare. Can anyone tell where the compatibility matrix for supported OS's can be found?
I am also interested in getting short feedbacks from members who already are using redhat (5) clusters in their ESX or VSPhere environment. If they would recomend or not.
(This is not a question for a technical "how-to", I could find some information about that, but could only read from members that it works, but is not supported)

Thanks!

Hape

BAD TRAP: type=8 (#df Double fault) rp=fffffffffbc311b0 addr=0

sbalvir — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 03:35:10 GMT

Hi All,

I'm new to VMWARE platform. We already using VMWARE for other guest OS but first time, there was recommendation to use VMWARE for Solaris 10 (x86) for our content management services.

I installed Solaris 10 guest OS but unfortunately, node is not stable since then and it is getting crashed with error
"BAD TRAP: type=8 (#df Double fault) rp=fffffffffbc311b0 addr=0"

The details are

Guest OS: Solaris 10 ( 64 bit) Generic_141415-10 i86pc i386 i86pc
Solaris Release: s10x_u7wos_08
VMWARE Product: ESX 3.5
CPU Spec

root@aumelesx02 root]# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 15
model : 4
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 3.00GHz
stepping : 8
cpu MHz : 3002.663
cache size : 2048 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 5
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss tm lm
bogomips : 5989.99

Also attaching /var/adm/messages file.

I would really appreciate if anyone can help on this. It appears to be a bug. Unsure if it is new or existing bug and if it is related to Solaris or VMWARE.
Already opened case with VMWARE too.
I tried adding latest Solaris OS patch cluster too but affected node completely crashed. Thanks to snap feature of VMWARE, which helped me in recovering my node.

Is there an alternative to Update Manager - get the latest VMWare Tools for Windows Server 2003

ts9999 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:40:03 GMT

Hi,

I'm really struggling to find an alternative to Update Manager in order to download the latest VMWare Tools for Windows (Server 2003)

There has to be a download link somewhere right? I have scoured VMWare.com to no avail...

I can find the OSP's for other platforms (SUSE, Ubuntu etc.) but nothing for Windows! Why?!?

Any help really appreciated!

Regards,

Tony.

install a guest os on another guest os

quasar28 — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:50:12 GMT

I want to create a guest os on another guest os which is on an ESX server. When power on the VM, system claims error: Running VMware Workstation in a virtual machine requires the outer virtual machine to be configured for running a VMware ESX guest operating system. You may not power on a virtual machine until virtual machine is reconfigured" Does anyone know how to reconfigure?

The simplest way to resize vmware disk and partition

powerzhu — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:06:54 GMT

Many users do not know how to increase disk and partition of VMware, hope this article can help.

How to increase VMware Server virtual disk?

Step1:
Open up the run dialogue from the start menu (Start -> Run) or hold
down the Windows key and press R. Type "cmd" and hit enter to open up
the Command Prompt.

Step2: Assuming that your VMware installation
is in the default location type or paste the following, replacing
CAPACITY with the new size of the virtual disk image and "xx" with the
absolute path and name of your VMDK in "xx.VMDK"

"C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmware-vdiskmanager.exe" -x CAPACITY "xx.VMDK"

The
capacity should be entered with the following extensions depending on
the new size, MB or GB, for example 20GB will resize the new hard drive
to 20 gigabytes.

However,
this tool can only increase VMware Server virtual disk space, as the
"WARNING" message above. To increase the Virtual Server partition, you
need diskpart.exe, but this tool cannot expand the partition if there is no unallcated space and it is command line, it is inconvenient. I use third party partitioning software.

How to resize VMware Server virtual partition?

Firstly,
install EASEUS Partition Master Server Edition in this VMware Server
virtual machine and launch it. Current size of the server partition is
displayed on the top of the dialog box. You'll find that the increased
disk space is at the end of the VMware virtual disk and displayed as
unallocated.

Secondly, drag partition F rightwards to move it at the end of the VMware virtual disk.

Thirdly, drag the right borderline of partition C rightwards to expand it.

Fourthly,
click "Apply" to process resizing. If there is no file open, you can
enlarge the VMware virtual partition without reboot.

More detailed operation about resizing and moving, see Resize/Move partitions

No CTRL+ALT Delete Logon screen after P2V

DannyGerman — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:43:37 GMT

Hi - I have a customer with some really old physical NT 4 Terminal Servers (running Citrix Metaframe 1.8), I'm trying to virtualize them. After running a successful P2V the new VM appears to starts up successfully, go through the normal NT 4 boot process, but it never display's the logon box. Has anyone ever come across this before after P2Ving a NT4 server?

I'm using vSphere 4.0. I've tried the VMware Converter which is built into vCenter and the standalone version. Both converters report a successful conversion. I've also noticed that the VM runs at 100% CPU once it's been converted and is sitting on the blank Windows NT 4 screen waiting for the logon box to appear. I've also noticed that because it’s NT4 Terminal Server, it's using a slightly different GINA than the normal NT4 Server, maybe this has something to do with it. - Any help is appreciated. Thanks Danny

Help: redhat3u9 x64 guest os hung on VMware ESX 4 with kernel: mptbase&mptscsih error

dandandongdong — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:27:14 GMT

Hi,

I am running redhat3u9 x64 guest os on vmware ESX 4 host.
redhat3u9 x64 guest os is sanboot os with LSI Logic scsi type.
And add three harddisk for it as below:
hard disk 2 RDM LSI Logic (0:1)
hard disk 3 vmfs LSI Logic (0:2)
hard disk 4 vmfs LSI Logic SAS (1:0)

Run IO on these three disks.

I found after doing some case on storage, found redhat3u9 hung without response. After power off/on, check the /var/log/messages,
found following error:
Oct 7 20:31:33 rhel3u9x64 kernel: scsi : aborting command due to timeout : pid
215992636, scsi0, channel 0, id 2, lun 0 Write (10) 00 00 01 44 d0 00 02 b8 00
Oct 7 20:31:33 rhel3u9x64 kernel: mptscsih: ioc0: id=2 OldAbort: scheduling
ABORT SCSI IO (sc=000001003f714000)
Oct 7 20:31:34 rhel3u9x64 kernel: scsi : aborting command due to timeout : pid
215992637, scsi0, channel 0, id 2, lun 0 Write (10) 00 00 01 47 90 00 02 b8 00
Oct 7 20:31:35 rhel3u9x64 kernel: mptscsih: ioc0: id=2 OldAbort: scheduling
ABORT SCSI IO (sc=000001003f714800)
Oct 7 20:31:35 rhel3u9x64 kernel: scsi : aborting command due to timeout : pid
215992638, scsi0, channel 0, id 2, lun 0 Write (10) 00 00 01 4a 50 00 02 b8 00
Oct 7 20:31:36 rhel3u9x64 kernel: mptscsih: ioc0: id=2 OldAbort: scheduling
ABORT SCSI IO (sc=000001003f713800)
Oct 7 20:31:38 rhel3u9x64 kernel: scsi : aborting command due to timeout : pid
215992639, scsi0, channel 0, id 2, lun 0 Write (10) 00 00 01 4d 10 00 02 c0 00
Oct 7 20:31:39 rhel3u9x64 kernel: mptscsih: ioc0: id=2 OldAbort: scheduling
ABORT SCSI IO (sc=000001003f711c00)
Oct 7 20:31:39 rhel3u9x64 kernel: scsi : aborting command due to timeout : pid
215992640, scsi0, channel 0, id 2, lun 0 Write (10) 00 00 01 4f d8 00 02 c0 00
Oct 7 20:31:39 rhel3u9x64 kernel: mptscsih: ioc0: id=2 OldAbort: scheduling
ABORT SCSI IO (sc=000001003f709c00)
Oct 7 20:31:39 rhel3u9x64 kernel: scsi : aborting command due to timeout : pid
215992641, scsi0, channel 0, id 2, lun 0 Write (10) 00 00 01 52 a0 00 02 c0 00
Oct 7 20:31:39 rhel3u9x64 kernel: mptscsih: ioc0: id=2 OldAbort: scheduling
ABORT SCSI IO (sc=000001003f70cc00)
Oct 7 20:31:39 rhel3u9x64 kernel: scsi : aborting command due to timeout : pid
215992642, scsi0, channel 0, id 2, lun 0 Write (10) 00 00 01 55 68 00 02 c0 00
Oct 7 20:31:40 rhel3u9x64 kernel: mptscsih: ioc0: id=2 OldAbort: scheduling
ABORT SCSI IO (sc=000001003f715000)
Oct 7 20:31:40 rhel3u9x64 kernel: scsi : aborting command due to timeout : pid
215992643, scsi0, channel 0, id 2, lun 0 Write (10) 00 00 01 58 30 00 02 c0 00
Oct 7 20:31:40 rhel3u9x64 kernel: mptscsih: ioc0: id=2 OldAbort: scheduling
ABORT SCSI IO (sc=000001003f712800)
Oct 7 20:31:41 rhel3u9x64 kernel: mptbase: ioc0: WARNING - IOCStatus(0x004b):
SCSI IOC Terminated

I also tested redhat3u9 x86, it was ok.

Can anyonw help about this problem? Does it a LSI Logic driver issue?

Many thanks.

RepliStor and Windows Server 2008 Server

BillSeacrist — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:28:18 GMT

Greetings; I am in the process of setting up RepliStor to replicate 10 VMs. 5 of my VMs are 64 bit Windows Server 2008. I think RepliStore only supports Windows Server 2003 but, I can't seem to get a straight answer on this. Does anyone know of a good replication application that supports 64 bit Windows Server 2008?
~~~_/)~~~
Bill

Intel e1000 NIC Team in Windows 2008 x64 guest

J_Wood — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:57:20 GMT

I have a Windows 2008 x64 guest with four e1000 vNICs (host is BL490c with 20Gbps networking). I have found several threads discussing teaming the e1000 vNICs using the Intel PROSet software from the Intel website however when I go to install the software I get an error that no Intel NICs can be found. I have tried several different install switches with no luck.

Has anyone had a similar experience or have any suggestions?

Thanks!

JAMES WOOD | SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATOR | ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Phoenix, Arizona

kernel upgrade on linux as vm guest on esx 3.5

rotoflex01 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:05:20 GMT

Hi,

I upgraded the kernel of my red hat es 4 (vm guest on esx 3.5). Do I need to recompile or reinstall the vm driver? And how do I know if the vm driver is running properly on esx 3.5?

Thanks and more power.

Can Virtual Machine Access CD-ROM on Host device from Virtual Machine OS

theblackknight — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:44:38 GMT

Hi,

I was able to use a Windows 2008 CD to boot my virtual machine and install the OS.

I then wanted to install "vCenter" off a CD and changed out my W2K8 CD and replaced it the vCenter CD,
but it was not visable?

Can VM OS's access CDs that are mapped on the HOST device? If so, what am I missing?

ESXi4 loses connection

DCT2381 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:37:51 GMT

We are having an issue with the network. When I´m trying to pass a big file (500mb) over the network from my computer to a virtual machine, I loss the connection to ESXi, in the console the test fails, and the unique solution is to restart the esxi from console. All virtual machines have tools instlaled, and I have change the speed of the nic to 100 MB full duplex to auto negotiate and viceversanot solving the issue. Thanks.

Converting Dynamic (spanned) drives

pearlyshells — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:15:36 GMT

Our infrastructure is ESX3.5 and using VirtualCenter2.5. We have a VM that has 100gb and 360gb spanned drive in windows 2003. I have been asked to perform a V2V and relocate the drive to another FC DataStore location. However, when I try to do this, I am not able to do it. My suspicion is that the spanned drives are posing a problem since the error I am getting indicates that the file size is too large. Our DataStores are set to 1mb which means the file size that can be stored on them is no more than 256gb. Am I correct? Or, is it a combination of the spanned drives AND that one of the drives is over 256gb?

Also, was wondering...can my Enterprise Converter convert Windows 2008 VMs?

EMC Networker 7.5 and the VMware NetWorker integration module

icebun — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:20:13 GMT

Er does anyone know:-

Where I can get it and if it is free?

No one seems to have a clue?

Thanks.

Windows 2008 R2 64bit Randomly Hangs / Freezes on vSphere

A13x — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:26:30 GMT

I was wondering if anyone has started creating Windows 2008 R2 VMs and noticed that they are randomly hanging/ freezing at times. I have VMs of both standard and enterprise R2 editions and they just do just that. I have tried a variety of virtual hardware/ device combinations and this does not seem to have made a difference. I also tried assigning them resource pools but i believe this issue is closely related to the windows 2008 64bit non R2 issues reported on this forum. The dynamic cache service is not avaliable for the R2 version so i am a little stummed over what to do. Its not like it has a shortage of resources a VM with 4GB of ram on a 16GB system and plenty of CPU.

I manually assigned the page file thinking that it was just eating masses amount of disk space and this also failed.

How do I get the latest VMWare Tools?!?

ts9999 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:19:41 GMT

Hi,

I'm having a problem finding a definitive answer for the bext place to get the latest VMWare Tools download.

Is there a specific URL that anyone can point me at?

I'm using VMWare ESXi 3.5 with update 4

Regards,

Tony.

Can you edit the .vmx file using 'Datastore Browser'?

ts9999 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:17:42 GMT

Hi,

I need to edit the .vmx file for a VM, and I was wondering if it was possible, and safe of course to do so using the Datastore Browser.

I assume that I can just shut the VM down, download the .vmx file, edit it using notepad, rename the old .vmx to .bak, upload the edited .vmx, then add the .vmx to the inventory before booting the VM back up.

Is this correct?

Tony.

How do I change a Virtual Machine (Guest) IP Address?

tns1 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:53:17 GMT

I installed VMWare ESXi 4.0 and successfully performed a P2V of a Windows 2003 server. However, the VM was assigned an IP from DHCP.

I need the VM to have the same IP address that the physical machine had. How do I change a Virtual Machine (Guest) IP Address?

Going forward, how can I force the P2V process to use the same IP address as the source pyhsical machine? I did'nt see any options during the P2V setup process.

Thanks!

WindowsXP: restarts hang at "Windows is Shutting Down" on VMs

toc — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:21:04 GMT

HI there!

We are running an ESX 4.0.0, 164409 and have problems with our virtual Windows XP SP3 (with latest Updates).

After installing automatic Updates from our internal Wsus Server the guests try to make the automatic restart (not all at the same time)

but they hang at "Windows is Shutting Down"...

If this problem occurs i had to log into our vSphere client - open the console and klick one time into it... after that the vm restarts!!!

The Problem is ... we're using these vm's for a few mobile users... and there aren't allways admins in our office so we had to find a solution...

any ideas?

use a .vmdk file as a shared disk between two vm's

tinchito7 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:50:51 GMT

Hi guys,
I wanted to know if there is a possible way to create a .vmdk file as a shared disk between two virtual machines.
This is my idea:
I want to create a mscluster between two vm's an for that I need a shared disk - I dont want to use external storage, so I thought that maybe there is a way to use a .vmdk file as a shared "external" storage disk.
Is there any way of doing that? If there is, I'll appreciate an explanation of how to do that.

Thanks very much,
Martin.

Add an extra vCPU to Windows SBS 2008 ?

JJ@BigIron — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:57:26 GMT

Hi,
Is is possible to add an extra vCPU to a Windows SBS 2008 server without any problems ?
What if I wanted to add more than 1 extra vCPU ?

thanks,

JJ

cpu usage spike on VM workstation 6.5 and Server 2

yruheresteve — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:58:40 GMT

Hi,

We've recently upgraded some of the VMs from Workstation 6 to 6.5, as well as trying out the VMware Server 2, and we encountered a strange issue, not sure if anyone have seen anything similar and have worked out a solution for it. Thanks in advance for any suggestions and advices!

Environment:
Host OS: 32 bit Windows XP Professional w/ SP3
Memory: 3GB

Guest OS: 32 bit Windows XP Professional w/ SP3
Office 2003 Professional w/ SP3
Memory: 768MB
Virtual Disk: 60GB, not split into 2GB, not pre-allocated

Scenario:
We use an order management system that sends out order status emails via user's Outlook account. In order to not trip Outlook's security warning every time, we also use a plug-in called Advanced Security for Outlook by MAPILab (http://www.mapilab.com/outlook/security/) to allow access. So the operation goes as follows: User verify that the order has reached a certain stage, such as received tracking number, so he/she clicks on send tracking email to customer from the order management system. Email would end up in user's Outlook outbox, which user might add additional notes to it if necessary, and at the next send/receive cycle, email would be sent out to the customer.

Issue occurs AFTER user clicks on send email on the order management system, and BEFORE the email ends up in user's outbox. In task manager, CPU would spike to 100% (or 50% if use 2 virtual CPU) for outlook.exe and effectively freeze the virtual machine for few seconds, until the email ends up in user's outbox, cpu usage for outlook.exe will then ramp down to normal.

After some test, this behavior does not occur in physical machine or VMs in Workstation 6. It only shows up in Workstation 6.5 and Server 2.0 for us. We've tested with following step:

Creating a clean Guest OS in Workstation 6
Install Office
Perform all necessary Microsoft updates
Install our order management system
Install Outlook plug-in
Send email from order management system (tested okay)
Copy VM to Workstation 6.5
Send email from order management system (with CPU usage spike)
Copy VM to Server 2
Send email from order management system (with CPU usage spike)

We've also try to create a clean Guest OS from Workstation 6.5 and Server 2.0, instead of copied over from Workstation 6, but same behavior still occurs. Not sure if anyone seem similar behavior while performing other actions?

UNABLE TO EXTEND C DRIVE SPACE FOR A VM

vDeepak — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:59:09 GMT

i am using vsphere and want to increase one of our vm. but when i right lcik that vm select option of edit settings and go to hard disk i found that space amount is greyed out at right half.

will you please assist me how shd i extend its c drive space but before that how dhould i enable that greyed option .

would like to inform you that to be on safer side i just taken the vm snapshot as well..is that causing the issue?

vmware-mount fails "The VMware fuse daemon failed to start"

gilad.benjamini — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 23:52:16 GMT

I am trying to use vmware-mount to mount a virtual disk.
I am running the command on my linux machine, trying to access a virtual disk on an ESX4

My basic command (and outcome) looks like this

~$ sudo vmware-mount -h 1.2.3.4 -u root "[Storage1] my_vm/my_vm.vmdk" /home/user/mnt/my_vm
Failed to mount disk '[Storage1] my_vm/my_vm.vmdk': The VMware fuse daemon failed to start

Another variation

~$ sudo vmware-mount -h 1.2.3.4 -u root "[Storage1] my_vm/my_vm.vmdk" /home/user/mnt/my_vm
Failed to open disk: Unknown error (1)
Failed to mount disk '[Storage1] my_vm/my_vm.vmdk': The VMware fuse daemon failed to start

Further investigation shows that if I use 1.2.3.5, a non-existing IP address, the exact error messages appear.

I don't really who the 'VMware fuse daemon' is, and couldn't find anything of the sort.
Any ideas ?

Resize VM disk without damaging OS

anonimous — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 22:28:28 GMT

hi

I have ESX 3.5 Update2
There is a VM with just only one C:\ partition where OS WIN2003 is installed.
Howto resize this partition to a bigger disk size without damaging OS?

downloaded binary.exe from vmware and md5 does not match website. What do I do now?

wtsjes — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:59:13 GMT

I first downloaded the binary, extracted, and ran install, message said to check md5 hash. They do not match. I tried to install anyway and I get the vmware home page website link. When I try to go there I get this site does not have a security certificate. Now what? All I want to do is install vmware server on xp and work with some vm's for testing.

Can some one tell me what I am doing wrong here.

Windows 2008 SSL

phyler — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 20:37:47 GMT

I have an interesting issue. I have a wildcard SSL cert that was purchased from Network Solutions. It is *.domain.com. If I bind SSL to a website inside IIS 7 on a Windows 2008 box running on VMWare ESX 3.5 64607 the machine breaks. The VMWare tools no longer start up and the network looks disconnected yet if I go Edit the settings it shows the network is connected. I can't ping the machine at all. If I roll back to the snapshot I took right before I setup the SSL, everything works great.

I have this same setup working on both physical boxes and some MS VM's, it is just VMWare that has this issue. Anyone else ever see this?

Thanks!

Adam

BIOS access by F2 key

adiyos — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:00:18 GMT

hello,

it is hard to get e.g. into the vmware bios settings since the os boot /restart process

is too fast to see what key to press. i found out that F2 will bring up the bios settings

but the other options i could not see. like what key should i use to get e.g. the boot

selection for cdrom or lan? i could not find this in the help file either but i admit i have

not dig very deep in the manual.

would it be possible to choose this from the 'edit vm settings' before i start the os?

rgds

jos

Terrible VM Performance / CPU Usage Mismatch / Server 2008+Exchange 2007

pfsit — Thu, 28 May 2009 15:51:50 GMT

I'm running a Windows Server 2008 64-bit VM and Exchange 2007 SP1 RU7 Mailbox role on ESX 3.5u4. 4 vCPU's and 8GB RAM assigned. Performance is terrible.

CPU from the guest perspective will be pegged at 100%, filled with things like taskmgr, services, store, system, svchost, msftefd, spoolsv all taking small 5%-15% chunks of CPU time. No specific offenders. However from the ESX perspective, CPU never goes above 50% while the guest is pegged out and becoming unresponsive, even to pings.

This is a well established 4 server ESX farm with ~80 other VMs working just fine. None of the ESX servers are over 30% CPU and 70% memory capacity, and they have 8 physical cores.

Any ideas on why the guest CPU would be depleted before the ESX host would see it that way? Any suggestions?

Thanks...

I am seeing a good number of these in the system log on the offending 2008 server:

"The system time has changed to 5/28/2009 1:09:28PM from 5/28/2009 1:05:51PM"
Source: Kernel-General
EventID: 1