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jshelly
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Guest OS in ESX is listing a Vista session as Windows NT4?

I'm working on figuring out why a vm on our ESX 3.0.1 server is not showing up in VDM, and I just noticed that the Guest OS is indicating that the Vista session is "Microsoft Windows NT4"

Has anyone else experienced this problem?

Thanks in advance

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nkrick
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Edit the settings on the VM, go to the "Options" Tab and under "General" set the Guest Operating System to "Microsoft Windows Vista."

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nkrick
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Edit the settings on the VM, go to the "Options" Tab and under "General" set the Guest Operating System to "Microsoft Windows Vista."

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jshelly
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Actually, that did not fix the problem. Even with Vista selected, it's listed as NT4

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nkrick
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Strange...I would have expected that to work. Have you tried re-installing the VMware tools? The VM tools install is performed based upon what OS VC/ESX thinks is running in the guest OS. Re-installing the VMware tools after changing the guest OS to Vista may help...

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jshelly
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Thanks for the reply.

When booting the vista session I can see the Guest OS change about half way through. It switches from Vista to NT4. I guessing just about the time the vmtools service starts.

This happens regardless of what I select as the os and even after a re-install of vmware tools.

I'm stumped now.

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nkrick
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I am not sure...that is a strange problem. It does definately seem to be related to the VMtools. My next step would be to completely uninstall the tools, restart, and then do a reinstall using the "full" install option...

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jshelly
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Weird is a good way to describe it.

I just managed to trick it by shutting down the VM at the moment the guest OS says Vista and then it shows up in VDM and I'm able to provision it.

What is this full install option you mentioned? And my .vmx reads longhorn as the guest os - is that what it should have as the value for Vista?

Thanks Again

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nkrick
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When you install the VMware tools, you can choose to do a custom install, and then select all the install options. In general it is not needed because the addition features are things used for other VMware products (VM tools are not exactly the same for ESX and Workstation, for example). By doing the full install, it makes the VM tools compatible with other VMware products, so you don't have to re-install if you use Converter to make the VM into a Workstation VM, for example. There are also some beta features that will be installed.

I do not have any Vista VM's to check to see if they are still using "longhorn" in the .vmx file.

jshelly
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Success!

Thanks for hanging in there with me and this issue. Your replies pointed me in the right direction.

What I wound up doing was installing an updated version of VMWare tools from workstation 6.0.2 instead of from our 3.0.1 host and 2.0.1 VI server and that resolved the problem.

Incidentally, with just the VDM agent installed, it still reported NT 4.

Much Appreciated . . .

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