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
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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:
- 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:
- PCs covered under SA will no longer need a separate VECD license, instead this usage right will be included in SA thus eliminating the separate $23 per device fee.
- PCs not covered under SA, thin clients or other clients that cannot run a full Windows OS, customers can purchase VDA for $100 per device/year, a $10 decrease from the previous VECD license price.
- Roaming use rights allows users to be able to access their virtual desktops from secondary devices like home PCS, kiosks and internet cafes without additional licensing costs.
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.
APPLIES TO
- Windows Server 2008 R2
- Windows Server 2008
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003,
- Microsoft Windows 2000
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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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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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.

When attempting to upgrade ESX 4.0 to ESX 4.0 Update 1, you may experience the following symptoms:
- Update Manager (VUM) upgrade operation fails or times out at 33%.
- Upon reboot, the host that was being upgraded displays a purple diagnostic screen with the following error:
COS Panic: Int3 @ mp_register_ioapic
Customers using VMware vSphere 4 upgrading to Update 1 with 3rd party management agents running.
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