When Creating a snapshot for a virtual machine fails

Or you receive the error:
File is larger than the maximum size supported by datastore

Note: This error does not occur on ESX 3.5 or earlier.

ESX 4.0 is able to detect when a snapshot file at maximum size cannot fit into a datastore. Instead of allowing the file to be created, which may not work correctly if it grows to big, ESX cancels the operation and displays the above error.

To confirm if the snapshot files may be too big, compare the size of the virtual machine’s base disks against the block size of the datastore which contains the virtual machine’s working directory.

Note: If you are using Raw Device Map, you should compare the size of the RDMs instead of the base disks.

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VMware Infrastructure 3 Support

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Some “blogging” colleagues posted their home lab configuration on the internet, see the list below:

• Simon S. – VMware ESX(i) Home Lab – Why, What and How? Considerations when building your own home lab
• Duncan – My Homelab
• Gabe – White box ESX home lab
• Jason Boche – EMC Celerra NS-120
• Bouke – v-Water: ESXi overclocked, watercooled
• Simon – vT.A.R.D.I.S – 10 ESXi node cluster on a trolley as demonstrated at London VMUG
• Dave – Whitebox HCL
• Eric’s articles on whiteboxes
• Maish – Install ESX on your Laptop – I had a Crazy Idea
• Ultimate ESX whitebox
• Iomega IX4-200D

I also give it a try and post my test lab on my blog.

I own 3 physical machines that I moved a few months ago to the datacenter at my work in Soest (the Netherlands). With a VPN tunnel from my Cisco ASA 5505 (at home) to the datacenter, my 50/50 mbit ISP, it feels like the systems are near me
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Latest Version: 2.8 | January 31, 2010

RVTools is a windows .NET 2.0 application which uses the VI SDK 2.5 to display information about your virtual machines and ESX hosts. Interacting with VirtualCenter 2.5, ESX 3.5, ESX3i or ESX4i RVTools is able to list information about cpu, memory, disks, nics, cd-rom, floppy drives, snapshots, VMware tools, ESX hosts, datastores, switches, ports and health checks. With RVTools you can disconnect the cd-rom or floppy drives from the virtual machines and RVTools is able to list the current version of the VMware Tools installed inside each virtual machine. and update them to the latest version

Whats new:

On vHost tab field "# VMs" now only powered on VMs are counted.

On vHost tab field "VMs per core" now only powered on VMs are counted.

On vHost tab field "vCPUs per core" now only powered on VMs are counted.

On vDatastore tab field "# VMs" now only calculated for VM’s which are powered on.

Health check "Number of running virtual CPUs per core" now only powered on VMs are counted.

Health check "Number of running VMs per datastore" now only powered on VMs are counted.

During Installation there will be an application event source created for RVTools. This to fix some security related problems.

Some users run into a timeout exception from the SDK Web server. The default web service timeout value is now changed to a higher value.

New fields on vHost tab: NTP Server(s), time zone information, Hyper Threading information (available and active), Boot time, DNS Servers, DHCP flag, Domain name and DNS Search order

New Health Check: Inconsistent folder names.

Improved exception handling on vDisk, vSwitch and vPort tab pages.

Download: here

Information: here

Source: here

VMware Infrastructure Management Installer | 29 Jan 2010 (Localized version)
VirtualCenter 2.5 Server Update 6 | 29 Jan 2010 | Build 227640
Virtual Infrastructure Client | 29 Jan 2010 | Build 227671

VMware Infrastructure Management Installer | 29 Jan 2010 (English only version)
VirtualCenter 2.5 Server Update 6 | 29 Jan 2010 | Build 227637
Virtual Infrastructure Client | 29 Jan 2010 | Build 227637

What’s New

Guest Operating Systems Customization Improvements

Customization support for the following guest operating systems has been added in this release:
For more complete information about supported guests included in this release, see the VMware Compatibility Guide.

• Windows 7 Enterprise (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows 7 Ultimate (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows 7 Professional (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows 7 Home Premium (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition (64-bit)
• Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition (64-bit)
• Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter Edition (64-bit)
• Windows Server 2008 R2 Web Server (64-bit)

Support for Firefox 3.x Browsers with VirtualCenter Web  Access

This release adds support for Firefox 3.x browsers with VirtualCenter Web Access. Firefox 3.x is not a supported browser for ESX Server 3.5 Update 5 Web Access with this release

Note: In many public documents, VMware ESX Server 3.5 is now known as VMware ESX 3.5, and VMware ESX Server 3i version 3.5 as VMware ESXi 3.5. These release notes continue to use the earlier convention to match the product interfaces and documentation. A future release will update the product names.

Source information: VMware 

Information: VMware vCenter Upgrade Guide

Carlo Costanzo from VMwareInfo.com has posted the following helpful article:

The SVGA II driver installed by VMware Tools doesn’t work with 2008 R2 or Windows 7.  Console sessions will randomly lockup.

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/218244?start=105&tstart=0

According to the thread there is a WDDM driver in U1 that you can install manually to fix the problem by browsing to -

“C:\Program Files\Common Files\VMware\Drivers\wddm_video“

A good one

You can monitor/check your ESX performance with esxtop, by generating a share to your vCenter Server and view the results with Perfmon you can follow this article.

Create Credentials:

1. I created a new share on my vCenter 2003 on E:\Logging\

2. I created a new user with username: Logging and password: Logging

3. On the new created folder I add the Logging account with full permissions to the security rights:

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I stumbled upon this reg key a few weeks ago. If you want to change the default folder view for all users on the local machine use HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. If you want to change it for a single user then use HKEY_CURRENT_USER.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\Bags]
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\BagMRU]
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags]
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\BagMRU]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\Bags\AllFolders\Shell]
“WFlags”=dword:00000000
“Status”=dword:00000000
“Mode”=dword:00000004
“vid”=”{137E7700-3573-11CF-AE69-08002B2E1262}”
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Guillermo Musumeci has written a good tool for removing HP Proliant Support Pack, also a good tip @ Twitter: “Nice tool before p2v action” indeed, you must remove all driver software before you start p2v .

Download: Here