VMWare | Ward Vissers

Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter Solution Accelerator

The Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter (MVMC) Solution Accelerator is a Microsoft-supported, stand-alone solution for the IT pro or solution provider who wants to convert VMware-based virtual machines and disks to Hyper-V®-based virtual machines and disks.

MVMC provides the following features:

Converts and deploys virtual machines from VMware hosts to Hyper-V hosts including Hyper-V on Windows Server® 2012. As part of the machine conversion MVMC converts the virtual disks attached to the source virtual machine. It also migrates configuration such as memory, virtual processor and so on from the source virtual machine to the converted virtual machine deployed on Hyper-V. It adds virtual network interface cards (NICs) to the converted virtual machine on Hyper-V.
Converts VMware virtual disks to Hyper-V based virtual hard disks (VHDs).
Supports conversion of virtual machines from VMware vSphere 4.1 and 5.0 hosts to Hyper-V.
- Note MVMC also supports conversion of virtual machines from VMware vSphere 4.0 if the host is managed by vCenter 4.1 or vCenter 5.0. You have to connect to vCenter 4.1 or 5.0 through MVMC to convert virtual machines on vSphere 4.0.
Offers fully scriptable command-line interfaces for performing virtual machine and disk conversions that integrates well with data center automation workflows and Windows PowerShell scripts.
Has a wizard-driven GUI, making it simple to perform virtual machine conversion.
Uninstalls VMware tools prior to conversion to provide a clean way to migrate VMware-based virtual machines to Hyper-V.
Supports Windows Server guest operating system conversion, including Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003 SP2.
Enables conversion of Windows® client versions including Windows 7.
Installs integration services on the converted virtual machine if the guest operating system is Windows Server 2003 SP2.

System requirements

Supported operating systems: Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012

Before you install MVMC, you must install the following software on the computer on which MVMC will run:

Operating systems: Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012 (full installation)
Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 and Microsoft .NET Framework 4 if installing MVMC on Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 if installing MVMC on Windows Server 2012

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VMware Workstation 9

Windows 8

Workstation 9 has been designed to run on Windows 8 and run Windows 8 virtual machines. Easy Install has been enhanced to recognize Windows 8. Workstation 9 has been enhanced to support the Windows 8 user interface (formerly known as Metro). Toggling between Metro and the Windows Desktop can be done by simply pressing the Windows key on the keyboard and Unity intelligently handles the Metro interface. Workstation 9 also includes multi-touch support for driving the Windows 8 Metro interface running in Workstation on a Windows 8 tablet.

Graphics Improvements

VMware has made substantial changes to Workstation 9 graphics virtualization infrastructure. The enhancements include a display-only graphics driver that can render 3D in Windows 8 without hardware acceleration, improvements to make graphics applications like AutoCAD and SolidWorks render more quickly and accurately, an improved Windows XP graphics driver and fundamental changes to improve performance and enable more advanced graphics capabilities in the future.

OpenGL for Linux Guests

VMware has developed an OpenGL graphics driver and up-streamed it to X.Org. This allows VMware’s customers to use the new graphics capabilities in current Linux distributions without needing to install VMware Tools. The version of X.Org that includes the driver is being shipped in Ubuntu 12.04 among other Linux new distributions. Workstation 9 includes enhancements to the virtual graphics device to improve the overall speed and accuracy of rendering OpenGL graphics in Linux virtual machines.

Restricted Virtual Machines

This new capability allows the author of an encrypted virtual machine to require users to enter an additional password to change their virtual machine settings. This feature enables IT professionals and educational institutions to create virtual machines to be used by their employees and students that prevent these users from enabling shared folders, dragging and dropping files, attaching USB devices, and overcommitting system resources. Restricted virtual machines can be run in VMware Workstation 9, VMware Player 5, and VMware Fusion 5 on Windows, Linux or Mac PCs.

WSX

WSX is a prototype of a new VMware Workstation web interface that enables users to access their Shared virtual machines via a web browser on a tablet, smart phone or PC without installing any additional applications or browser plug-ins. This service renders an HTML5 web page that can connect to your Workstation hosts, enumerate the available Shared virtual machines and allow you to power them on and interact with the desktop. Both the Windows .msi and Linux .bundle installations are available for download along with VMware Workstation 9.0

WSX is currently not supported for production environments. The number of devices and browsers available on the market make it extremely difficult to test this feature thoroughly to ensure it works well everywhere.

This feature requires a very modern browser that supports HTML5 with WebSockets. VMware recommends using the Google Chrome 17 browser on PCs and the Apple Safari 5 browser on Mac OS hosts and iPads. Currently there are issues using this feature with Microsoft Internet Explorer 10. WSX may work with other browsers and on Android tablets running Ice Cream Sandwich with the latest version of Google Chrome installed, but more testing is required.

Downloading Virtual Machines from vSphere

Workstation 8 enabled customers to upload virtual machines to vSphere. Workstation 9 now enables downloading virtual machines from vSphere by dragging them from the remote host to the My Computer section of the Virtual Machine Library.

USB 3.0

Workstation 9 supports attaching USB 3.0 devices to Windows 8 virtual machines. The latest portable devices use USB 3 (SuperSpeed) to achieve faster transfer rates for data. USB 3.0 devices such as portable storage devices and video equipment can be connected directly to Windows 8 and Linux virtual machines that contain in-box drivers USB 3.0 controllers.

Nested Virtualization

Workstation 9 improves the implementation of virtual Intel VT-x/EPT or AMD-V/RVI extensions. This allows users to run ESX as a guest OS and run a 64-bit operating system nested in ESX using less system resources.

Note: If you enabled the virtualization extensions in a virtual machine running on Workstation 8, you might need to disable the extensions, upgrade the virtual machine to the latest virtual hardware version (compatible with Workstation 9), and then re-enable the extensions.

Hyper-V

Hyper-V has been added to the Workstation 9 guest operating system list. This enables customers to run Windows 8 with Hyper-V enabled, or install Hyper-V Server. This can be used for educational purposes or for building prototype Hybrid Clouds. This feature is NOT SUPPORTED and probably never will be. Microsoft does not support nesting of their hypervisor which makes it extremely difficult – if not impossible for VMware to fix issues that may occur in this configuration. For this reason, this capability has been implemented purely to see if we could do it!

CAUTION: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO RUN HYPER-V ON A VIRTUAL MACHINE IN PRODUCTION.

Virtual Performance Counters

VMware virtual processors now include the capability to enable virtual performance counters which will allow developers to run profiling applications, such as Intel’s vTune, in a virtual machine.

Remoting Improvements

The experience when remotely connecting to a virtual machine running in Workstation 9 with a VNC client or interacting with the desktop of a virtual machine running on vSphere from within Workstation has been significantly improved.

Disk Cleanup

Virtual machines consume a large amount of space on your hard drive. Workstation 9 includes a new management option to easily recover disk space.

Quick Switch II

Previous versions of VMware Workstation included a view mode called "Quick Switch" that displayed tabs along the top of the screen to easily switch between running virtual machines. We removed this functionality in Workstation 8. The feedback we received has encouraged us to introduce a similar feature. On Windows, hosts tabs have been included in the full screen toolbar.

Thumbnail Actions

Views of your virtual machine on the task bar now include controls to change the power state.

Saved Filters

Workstation 9 automatically saves recent virtual machine library searches as filters to easily apply them the next time you run Workstation.

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Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate Build 8400 in VMware Workstation Technology Preview 2012

This procedure describes how to install Windows Server 2012 in VMware Workstation. The following versions are used:

VMware Workstation Technology Preview 2012 e.x.p Build-646643
Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate Datacenter Build 8400

In VMware Workstation Technology Preview 2012 create a new VM with the following settings:

New Virtual Machine
Custom (advanced)
Workstation Tech Preview
Select “I will install the operating system later”
Select “Microsoft Windows” and select as version “Windows 8 x64”
Set the Name and Location
Minimal 1 processor, 1 core
2048 MB memory
Select “Use network address translation (NAT)”
Select “LSI Logic SAS”
Create a new virtual disk
SCSI
60 GB disk size
Leave default disk file
Finish
After the VM is created, edit virtual Machine settings and browse for the Windows Server 2012 ISO in the the CD/DVD option

Edit the VMX file and add the following line to the end to of the VMX file:

vmGenCounter.enable = FALSE

During the installation choose for the Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate (Server wit GUI)

Special thanks to my colleague Ivo Beerens

Windows Server 8 Beta Active Directory install in Workstation 2012 Tech Preview

Some days ago I was installing Windows Server 8 aka 2012 in Workstation 2012 Tech Preview. I used the default settings where I choise for Windows 8 x64 as version.

I have used these VMs with the VMware Tools from the TechPreview.

As soon as I try to install and configure the Active Director Domain Services, the VM needs to reboot. Once it has rebooted, it goes in a blank screen, and there is nothing I can do. Workstation thinks the VM is running, but there is no response via the GUI in the VM, no response to ping traffic to the VM or RDP.

Solution:
Downgrade from Workstation TP2012 hardware to Workstation 8 hardware and to select Windows 2008 R2 as the guest OS Knipogende emoticon

DPM Migrate your protection data to a new disk

There are some cases you might need to migrate your protection data to a new disk. DPM is shipped with a Powershell script (MigrateDatasourceDataFromDPM.ps1) that allows you to migrate your protection data to new storage.

First get a list of disks attached to your DPM server:

Start the DPM Management Shell

PS> get-dpmdisk –dpmservername WARD-DPM01

Name Status NtDiskIdty Total Capaci Unallocated Space Type
—- —— ——– ———— ———— —-
VMware Vir… Healthy 1 150 GB 28 GB Basic #0
VMware Vir… Healthy 2 250 GB 100 GB Basic #1

Read the disk order in to a variable ($disk)

PS > $disk = Get-DPMDisk -DPMServername ward-dpm01

Now you can use the script MigrateDatasourceDataFromDPM.ps1. First find the disk number of the source disk, these numbers are not displayed when you use the get-dpmdisk command. Do not get fooled by the NTdiskID, you do not need those. You just need to count the disks listed starting with 0 (see red numbers in example). Now find the number for the destination disk using the same trick.
In the example below we like to migrate the data from disk 2 to disk 1

PS > ./MigrateDatasourceDataFromDPM.ps1 -DPMServerName ward-dpm01 -Source $disk[2] -Destination $disk[1]

More options and examples can be found on Technet

VMware Workstation 2012 TechPreview

What’s new for Workstation?

Installation and operation of VMware Workstation on Windows 8 and Windows Server 8
Installation and operation of Windows 8 consumer preview and Windows Server 8 in a virtual machine
Rendering and graphics correctness issues on all platforms and applications
Linux 3D desktop experience, particularly when using the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Beta
Linux 3D application graphics correctness and performance
Stability in real-world scenarios including suspend/resume and display and device support
Nested Virtualization – running ESX and even trying Hyper-V* as a guest OS
VNC connection performance and stability

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Teradici released Firmware 3.5.0 for PCoIP Zero Clients and PCoIP Host Cards & PCoIP Management Console 1.7.0

Teradici released a new PCoIP zero client and host card firmware and the PCoIP Management Console. The following releases are now available for download on the Teradici support site (techsupport.teradici.com):

Firmware 3.5.0 for PCoIP Zero Clients and PCoIP Host Cards.
PCoIP Management Console 1.7.0

Firmware 3.5.0 update includes key feature enhancements including:

USB2.0 with VMware View sessions
Imprivata OneSign® Virtual Desktop Access via proximity cards with VMware View
IEEE 802.1x network security
IPv6 support.

With this release, Teradici continues to innovate PCoIP zero client technology and accelerate the adoption

VMware Workstation 8.0.1 Released

What’s New

Highlights of VMware Workstation 8.0.1 functionality include:

Graphics performance and compatibility enhancements.
Improvements in creating and using shared virtual machines and remote virtual machines.
Ubuntu 11.10 is officially supported as a guest operating system.
Disk and memory management issues have been addressed.
Many customer-reported issues have been resolved.

VMware Workstation 8.0.1 is a free update for all VMware Workstation 8 users.

Resolved Issues

The following sections list the resolved issues in VMware Workstation 8.0.1.

Windows 7 guest installation failed after powering on the virtual machine with the error A required CD/DVD drive device driver is missing. If you have a driver floppy disk,CD, DVD, or USB flash drive, please insert it now.
VMware Tools failed with the message VMware Tools unrecoverable error.
VMware Tools failed to start in Fedora 15 guests.
An Ubuntu 11.10 guest crashed with a signal 11 error if you installed or upgraded VMware Tools.
On hosts with Nvidia GeForce and Quadro video cards, some of the clouds in the Unigine Heaven Benchmark application were drawn solid black.
Easy Install did not properly function on Ubuntu 11.10.
If remote virtual machines were open, you could not shut down the Windows hosts.
When transitioning from Full Screen mode to Exclusive mode, the Full Screen toolbar sometimes failed to hide.
Host memory reservation restrictions on Windows hosts are more relaxed in VMware Workstation 8.0.1 than in previous versions of VMware Workstation.
CD/DVD mount Linux.iso failed while installing VMware Tools in Ubuntu 11.10 guests.
The AltGr key was not working in an Ubuntu guest in Unity mode when the host and guest keyboards were both set to a layout that contained the AltGr key.

VMware PowerCLI Configure Multipath Policy

Today i needed to configure the Multipath Policy from “Most Recently Used” to “Round Robin (VMware) on our vSphere 4.1 and HP EVA4400 environment. After reading “Configuration best practices for HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) family and VMware vSphere 4” I decided to change the path status

To check the status of the Multipath Policy you can run the following PowerCLI script:

Per host:

Get-VMhost ESXHOST | Get-ScsiLun -LunType disk

Per Cluster:

Get-Cluster CLUSTERNAME| Get-VMHost | Get-ScsiLun -LunType disk

To change the Multipath Policy you can run the following command:

Per Host:

Get-VMHost ESXHOST | Get-ScsiLun -CanonicalName "naa.6005*" | Set-ScsiLun -MultipathPolicy "roundrobin"

Per Cluster:
get-cluster “Cluster Name” | Get-VMHost | Get-ScsiLun -LunType disk | Where-Object {$_.MultipathPolicy -ne “RoundRobin”} | Set-ScsiLun -MultipathPolicy “RoundRobin”

Special thanks to: VMPROS

VMware View XP persistent disk can not save outlook.ost c:\document and settings\…..

I’m busy with created a new a new pool with presentment disks.

The View desktops we’ve got setup are using linked clones and persistent disks which map to the D:\ in the users sessions. Of course this means the users profile is loaded to the D:\ instead of C:\ in the virtual desktops. My issue is, when a new users comes from our old environment into the test view setup, their Outlook is trying to find their OST file on the C:\ (c:\document and settings\…etc). The users data has been loaded to the D:\ though. The only way I’ve found to get around this is going into the Contol Panel in the users session, deleting their Outlook profile,

Solution:

Microsoft saves information about profile under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\Outlook

So, within regedit, I right-clicked on HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\Outlook then chose Export. For Save as Type, I changed the value to "Text Files (*.txt)". I then opened the text file I created with Notepad. You can’t just search for "Outlook.ost", since there are null, i.e. 00, characters stored between each character. They show up in an ASCII representation as dots. E.g. Outlook.ost would be O.u.t.l.o.o.k…o.s.t.

Since the "Outlook.ost" could be broken across multiple lines, I decided just to search for o.s.t. I found the following in the text file I had created.

Value 31

Name: 001f6610

Type: REG_BINARY

Data:

00000000 43 00 3a 00 5c 00 44 00 – 6f 00 63 00 75 00 6d 00 C.:.\.D.o.c.u.m.

00000010 65 00 6e 00 74 00 73 00 – 20 00 61 00 6e 00 64 00 e.n.t.s. .a.n.d.

00000020 20 00 53 00 65 00 74 00 – 74 00 69 00 6e 00 67 00 .S.e.t.t.i.n.g.

00000030 73 00 5c 00 4a 00 69 00 – 6d 00 5c 00 4c 00 6f 00 s.\.J.i.m.\.L.o.

00000040 63 00 61 00 6c 00 20 00 – 53 00 65 00 74 00 74 00 c.a.l. .S.e.t.t.

00000050 69 00 6e 00 67 00 73 00 – 5c 00 41 00 70 00 70 00 i.n.g.s.\.A.p.p.

00000060 6c 00 69 00 63 00 61 00 – 74 00 69 00 6f 00 6e 00 l.i.c.a.t.i.o.n.

00000070 20 00 44 00 61 00 74 00 – 61 00 5c 00 4d 00 69 00 .D.a.t.a.\.M.i.

00000080 63 00 72 00 6f 00 73 00 – 6f 00 66 00 74 00 5c 00 c.r.o.s.o.f.t.\.

00000090 4f 00 75 00 74 00 6c 00 – 6f 00 6f 00 6b 00 5c 00 O.u.t.l.o.o.k.\.

000000a0 6f 00 75 00 74 00 6c 00 – 6f 00 6f 00 6b 00 2e 00 o.u.t.l.o.o.k…

000000b0 6f 00 73 00 74 00 00 00 - o.s.t…

I could also have searched in the .reg file I created when I exported the registry information from the other computer. But, again, you can’t just search for "Outlook.ost" in the .reg file you created, either, since the information in it is the hexadecimal representation of the binary data in the registry keys. You would need to convert a string, such as "ost" to hexadecimal form. You can do that at String – ASCII, HEX, Binary Converter. In the String field, I put in ost. The converter showed me the equivalent hex value is 6F 73 74. Note: the converter shows decimal/ASCII, binary, and hex values. Make sure you use the correct one. Also note that the hexadecimal representation of "OST" is not the same as "ost". Since the error message I received referred to Outlook.ost, I converted "ost" to hexadecimal. Again, it may be better to limit the length of the string to reduce the chance it will be broken across multiple lines in the file.

Once you have the hexadecimal equivalent of the ASCII string, you still can’t just search for it, i.e. a search for 6F7374 wouldn’t work. The hexadecimal numbers are stored in the .reg file with commas and the null character, 00, between them. I.e., I would need to search for 6f,00,73,00,74 instead.

In the .reg file found it among the following lines:

"001f6610"=hex:43,00,3a,00,5c,00,44,00,6f,00,63,00,75,00,6d,00,65,00,6e,00,74,\

00,73,00,20,00,61,00,6e,00,64,00,20,00,53,00,65,00,74,00,74,00,69,00,6e,00,\

67,00,73,00,5c,00,4a,00,69,00,6d,00,5c,00,4c,00,6f,00,63,00,61,00,6c,00,20,\

00,53,00,65,00,74,00,74,00,69,00,6e,00,67,00,73,00,5c,00,41,00,70,00,70,00,\

6c,00,69,00,63,00,61,00,74,00,69,00,6f,00,6e,00,20,00,44,00,61,00,74,00,61,\

00,5c,00,4d,00,69,00,63,00,72,00,6f,00,73,00,6f,00,66,00,74,00,5c,00,4f,00,\

75,00,74,00,6c,00,6f,00,6f,00,6b,00,5c,00,6f,00,75,00,74,00,6c,00,6f,00,6f,\

00,6b,00,2e,00,6f,00,73,00,74,00,00,00

I noticed it was associated with a "001f6610" entry. When I had searched the text file, I had also seen Outlook.ost associated with "Name: 001f6610".

You can delete the following registry key with group policy preferences to disable using Offline Folders after disabling Use Cached Mode in Group Policy:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\Outlook\13dbb0c8aa05101a9bb000aa002fc45a\001f6610

Tag: VMWare

Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter Solution Accelerator

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