Hiya,
I currently build my windows OSs (on VMs hosted on ESX 3.01) via a scripted build.
(I appreciate that I could use a template and perhaps get round the issue that way - but I am interested to see if there are any alternatives)
I want to turn off the W32Time service which I can easily do via a WMI script.
I then wish to automatically set the vmtools to time sync.
Unfortunately this is not the default setting.
I know that this is a setting held in the .vmx file - so I guess I have at least three possible alternatives:
1) Maybe there is an (undocumented?) switch I can use at the vmtools install time with the vmware tools.msi?
2) Perhaps I could amend the default vmx file used at build time by VC - I imagine that this is possible but appreciate it would be unsupported. Does anyone know where this info would be held? I am guessing in an .xml file somewhere?
3) I could maybe write a script to open the vmtools from the system tray and manually check the box.
Has anyone ever done something like this?
Any ideas how it could best be done?
Cheers
Dinny
Here is the tool I used to do this.
http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/vmtools.html#vmw
Just copy the vmw.exe to a location in the system path of your VM Template.
I created a group policy in AD that would shutoff w32time service and run a startup script with this command in it "vmw option +t"
Wes
I'm guessing.
1. use regmon from sysinternals to monitor where the value is stored in the registry then script the reg file import.
2. use AutoIt to change the checkbox
3. test the vmx config change
AFAIK The value is not in the registry but the value is in the *.vmx file
Yeah, but does the time get synced if the box isn't checked?
The way I understand it is once that box is checked the value is written to vmx file for that VM and the tools then update the time
Hiya,
Thanks for the suggestions.
I'm fairly certain that the setting is not held locally on the windows OS - I don't think it is even there for a transient time?
So I don't believe I can use a reg file or similar.
I may well be able to use something like autoit?
I know that things like the default VM disk name and other standard settings used when creating a VM in ESX 2.5 were held on the ESX 2.5 server in:
/usr/lib/vmware-mui/apache/htdocs/vmware/src/sxAddVirtualMachine.js[/i]
You could amend the defaults used to create a VM by editing this file.
I am guessing that the default settings used to create the vmx (or at least some of them) are held somewhere on the ESX box in ESX 3.
I don't suppose anyone has any idea if this is the case - or where that might be?
Dinny
Here is the tool I used to do this.
http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/vmtools.html#vmw
Just copy the vmw.exe to a location in the system path of your VM Template.
I created a group policy in AD that would shutoff w32time service and run a startup script with this command in it "vmw option +t"
Wes
Thanks Wes,
That's just the sort of thing I was after.
Cheers
Dinny
