Last year we already posted about creating a bootable USB stick. In the last post we used WinImage to create the bootable USB stick to boot ESXi. Some time ago I found a tool which makes it much easier to create a bootable ESXi USB Stick. I am going to use UNetbootin to create bootable USB stick. You can download it here.
1. First connect the USB stick and start UNetbootin
Vmware released a new vCenter Converter Standalone version which is now fully compatible with vSphere 4.1.
What’s New
The VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 4.3 includes the following new functionality:
- Support for VMware vSphere 4.1 as source and destination targets
- Support for importing powered-off Microsoft Hyper-V R1 and Hyper-V R2 virtual machines
- Public API and sample code for submitting and monitoring Converter jobs
- Support for importing Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 sources
- Ability to throttle the data transfer from source to destination based on network bandwidth or CPU
- IPv6 support
Discontinued Support
- Support of the following operating systems is discontinued:
- Windows 2000
- Windows NT
- Support for OVF format is discontinued
- Support for VCB image sources is discontinued
- Linux installation support is discontinued
Check out the release notes after the jump and download it here
At long last, Microsoft publicly recognizes a shift in IT computing trends as indicated in their recent announcements around desktop virtualization and their changes to VECD licensing to support the adoption of virtual desktop environments. By loosening up the restrictive desktop virtualization license policy (VECD), Microsoft has finally bowed to intensive customer pressure. This validates the acceleration in demand in the desktop virtualization industry that VMware helped start and continues to lead. Microsoft’s move here is extremely positive for the industry.
This decrease in Microsoft licensing costs will decrease the overall CAPEX cost, thus building a better business case for VMware View. Starting July 1, 2010, VECD is going away for customers with Software Assurance (SA) and for those without SA, Virtual Desktop Access (VDA) is available for purchase to allow for VDI environments. Here are the details:
| Source: | VMware |
The NoDrives tool creates a ADM files to remove the icons representing selected drives from My Computer and from Windows Explorer. Also, the drive letters representing the selected drives do not appear in the standard Open dialog box.
This tool creates a easy to use Group Policy Template. You do not need to calculate the drive value you only have to check the drives you want to hide and create the ADM.
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.
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}”
Read more…
All of the elements and processes indicated in the graphic above are covered by granted (not just requested) European Patents. These patents would have been rendered legally enforceable by the soft patent directive which the European Parliament managed to reject in 2005, as a result og the awareness raising from Eurolinux, the FFII and concerned software professionals from all over Europe. However, the still unresolved legal uncertainty has recently allowed some companies to enforce soft patents in Europe. New projects of European institutions are underway to create a centralized patent court that would decide case law favorable to soft patentability.
Patent regimes dilute our ownership of our commercial assets, our web applications and sites. So while copyright protects the fruits of our work, patents take them away and protect empty talk of others. ‘Inventors’ may author patent applications without any skills in software and business development. Most patents in our field are extraordinary trivial. Contrary to popular belief it does not stem from sloppy patent examination but subject matter. General business ideas or software conceptions are not scarce in any way. Soft patents don’t impress us and we do not care who first came up with them. Entrepreneurs who transform common visions into great products and commercial success earn our respect.
A patent portfolio is a powerful tool for an established player to fence out an emerging competitor and delay creative destruction of its market. Patent trolls will extort you once you succeed commercially. As a consequence of legal ambushes more and more innovators stay away from a ‘mined’ innovative market. Do we need patents for defense then? At least against trolls patents are barely useless. They do not sell any product which could infringe upon our patent. When we commercially fail a troll will obtain our ‘defensive’ patents and sue competitors.
Software patents don’t impress you at all? You embrace open competition for the best solution, in terms of commerce or technology? You don’t fear sharing and imitation but legal minefields? Join us and make a difference.
Dear VMware Certified Professionals,
First, let us say thank you for supporting VMware’s certification program! We appreciate our VCPs who have worked hard over the past few months to achieve our newest certification, the VCP on vSphere 4. In order to meet the December 31st 2009 deadline, many of you recently scheduled (and hopefully passed!) your exam with our testing partner. In fact, so many of you scheduled exams that some of our VCP professionals were unable to find a testing center with available seats prior to the December deadline.
In order to accommodate participants that despite best efforts were unable to schedule their exam prior to the deadline, VMware will continue accepting the VCP3 certification as a qualification to take the VCP4 exam without requiring attending the ‘What’s New" class through January 31st 2010. We fully expect that the additional four weeks will allow remaining participants ample time to find a testing center with available seating, and will NOT be extending the deadline any further, so please take advantage of this opportunity! Regards, The VMware Technical Certification Team
| Source: | VMware Certified Professional (VCP) |
When attempting to upgrade ESX 4.0 to ESX 4.0 Update 1, you may experience the following symptoms:
Customers using VMware vSphere 4 upgrading to Update 1 with 3rd party management agents running.
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