Sysprep file locations and versions vmware

Running sysprep without files can be hard ;) Vmware has a kb about this which is very handy. All the information is in one place. See link at the bodem.

Description:

Symptoms
When attempting to customize the deployment of a virtual machine the radio buttons are disabled (greyed out).
When a virtual machine (VM) is deployed from a Template, you find that the SID is always the same, despite the fact thatyou chose the option to generate a new SID during Template deployment and guest operating system customization.
When attempting to create a new virtual machine from a Template in ESX v3.5 you receive the following error message:

Warning: Windows customization resources were not found on this server
Message in the guestcust.log:
deploy doesn't contain known sysprep files

Link to Knowledge base

Vmug.be 19 june

Last week there was a nice vmug event in belgium. They couldt pick a better place then PALM. I loved the presentations and had a chance to speak to some people. But wow who made the A12(road) in belgium! Bad design! ;)

The presentations are online

•8th meeting on 19 June 2009 - Palm -
download vSp presentation
download Command Central presentation
download backup consistency presentation
view Powershell in a Nutshell Presentation)

http://www.vmug.be/vmug/fullpage.cfm?id=3

Vmware library

A collegea of me had a usefull tip. The online library of vmware.

With a nice little search function ! :)

http://pubs.vmware.com/vi35u2/wwhelp/wwhimpl/js/html/wwhelp.htm

And alot of console commands
http://www.b2v.co.uk/b2vguide2vmware3.htm

Vcenter

Mike Laverick's post on the build numbers helped me fighting the numbers !

http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/?cat=3

ESX 3.5 U4 - 153875
ESX 3.5 U3 - 123630
ESX 3.5 U2 - 110268
ESX 3.5 U1 - 82663

vCenter 2.5 U4 - 147633
vCenter 2.5 U3 - ?????????
vCenter 2.5 U2 - 104263
vCenter 2.5 U1 - 84767

Disable screensaver on vmware machines

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=9275881

* Screen savers are not necessary for virtual machines
* Running screen savers wastes CPU resources
* There is no interface option to disable the screen saver on the log on screen in Windows



To disable Windows Logon Screen Saver:
Click Start > Run, type regedit, click OK.
Locate the following registry key:

HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop


Double-click the ScreenSaveActive string value item in the Details pane.
In the Value data box, replace the number 1 with the number 0 , and then click OK.
Alternatively, you can save the attached registry file and double click it. The key above is set for you (Windows 2000 and 2003 only).

For more information, see Microsoft KB article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/185348 .
Note: The preceding link was correct as of June 4, 2008. If you find the link is broken, please provide feedback and a VMware employee will update the link.

Vmware perfmon "addin"

Scott Drummonds created the following post on the vmware communities:
They are busy too ! :)


My colleague in product management, Praveen Kannan, has been working to extend Perfmon to show some ESX performance counters. This capability is automatically installed with VMware Tools on vSphere 4. But Praveen and I have made a stand-alone version available to those of you that are still on VI3. Download it here to give it a try.

To install, place the file in an appropriately-named directory on any Windows VM on VI3. Double-click the executable, which will self-extract the files into the same directory. Run "install.bat" and you're done.

Once you bring up Perfmon you'll see two new performance objects on your computer: "VM Memory" and "VM Processor". These objects contain counters exposed by ESX that accurately reflect the VM's memory and CPU usage. Here's Perfmon on my test VM after I've installed the tool.

Disclaimer:
This is a pre-release "sneak peak" version. Eventually this tool will be available for download on vmware.com and supported by VMware. But today there is no support for this tool and you're using it "as-is". Use at your own risk and do not contact VMware support for help with this release.


The post:
http://communities.vmware.com/blogs/drummonds/2009/06/18/using-perfmon-for-accurate-esx-performance-counters
The tool:
http://ftpsite.vmware.com/download/vmStatsProvider/vmStatsProvider_006_release.exe

vsphere-land

2 much to read :) but its wonderfull info!

http://vlp.vsphere-land.com/

Snippy screen capture software

Founded snippy today. a nice small screen capture tool.

Snippy !
http://www.bhelpuri.net/Snippy/SnippyDownload.htm

Handy vmware console commands

Handy commands
http://www.b2v.co.uk/b2vguide2vmware3.htm