Windows Server 2008 sluggish mouse in VMware

 Install the following for the display driver:


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

Switch / Disk Array serial connections

For console access to your switches & disk arrays, connect the serial cable up to a physical Windows server, then RDP to that server, then use PuTTY for the serial connection

VMware Cold Clone

The vmware COLD converter CD is only included with the Enterprise level version.

Latest version is 3. If you don’t have this, there are other options available from PlateSpin, for example.

Before P2V’ing with the COLDCLONE CD, remove the static IP address i.e. set to DHCP in the OS. This makes it easier to re-assign that IP once the P2V has completed. If you don’t, then that IP will still be assigned to a non existing NIC and you will have to delete stuff via Device Manager, which while not a problem, there's no need if you'd removed the IP first.

Upgrading from VMware ESX 3.5.0 v123630 to ESX 4.1.0 v348481

NOTE: you have to go via ESX 4.0.0 398348 – you cannot go directly to 4.1


NOTE: with new software comes new hardware requirements. Are your servers on the vSphere supported list?

First, upgrade vCenter Server to v345043 (perhaps take a snapshot or VDR of it first)

(afterwards, this upgrade might not allow your current vm hosts to connect to the vsphere vcenter, but you can still connect to them directly. This is not a problem as we’re about to upgrade the hosts anyway)

SSH to the ESX host you want to upgrade, to check the amount of disk space.

Use df -h

By default, ESX does not let you SSH to the shell as ROOT, so create another user (admin), give it a password and permissions equivalent to root.

You get the option to create another user on install, or if you didn’t do this, use the vSphere client to connect directly to the ESX host and use Users & Groups to create your admin user.

Once logged into the shell (using your admin account), type

su – root

to connect as ROOT.

We used the following versions / files to upgrade:

“ESX-4.0.0-update03-398348.iso” with Host Update Utility 4, Build 385281

(this is to upgrade from ESX 3.5.0 v123630 to ESX 4.0.0 v398348)

Then copy the “upgrade-from-esx4.0-to-4.1-update01-348481.zip” to the local datastore of the ESX or ESXi host you want to upgrade and run the zip file.

(log in to the shell as admin, via SSH)

It does hang for a while at certain percentages, but you can always check what the server is upto via your RAC. Which hopefully is configured. I've found that Firefox seems to be the best browser for handling the Java screen, it seems to work much more consistently than IE, or Chrome.

Dell switches and Cisco switches

First off, Dell switches are compatible with Cisco switches, but due to Dell (and other vendors) choosing to follow the 802.1q standard in a different way to Cisco (they choose to allow only tagged traffic on the native VLAN, while Cisco ignores traffic for their native VLAN), this can lead to problems if you use the default VLAN(1) for management. Using the default VLAN(1) for management was something I inherited and would not recommend. I think VMware's not too keen on it either, from what I remember during installs.

In order to get the switches working together, we need to configure the Dell port-channel as a trunk, thus only allowing tagged traffic and ignoring untagged traffic.

To force the Cisco switch to send/receive VLAN1 traffic as tagged traffic you locally configure another native VLAN on the trunk-interface of the Cisco switch. On the interface, configure an unused VLAN as the local native VLAN.

Further info can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.1Q)

& here: http://standards.ieee.org/getieee802/download/802.1Q-2005.pdf

TheGreenButton.tv

Since Microsoft took over TGB and merged it into the WEC (Windows Experts Community) its become a PITA, in all honesty.

Some old TGB members have started up www.thegreenbutton.tv in a bid to get the old feeling back to the forum.

Excellent!

Where's that email address?

Go to ADUC, choose Find > Custom Search > click the advanced tab where you can type in a LDAP query, type proxyAddresses=smtp:sales@yourdomain.com.

Remote Potato

I can't recommend this highly enough; it's the missing part of Windows Media Centre:

http://www.remotepotato.com/

Where are my FSMOs?

The quickest way to find out where they're hiding is (after you've installed Support Tools):

netdom query fsmo

The best Remote Desktop switch

If you're ever in the position where a server's 2 remote desktop sessions are locked and tsadmin isn't doing it's job (maybe the server isn't part of the domain), the the only choice is:

mstsc /v:servername /admin


Effectively, this simulates you actually being at the server, where you can kill the sessions.

Missing Sky Player & MSN Videos

The new graphics card (Sapphire 5450 HD) really required a new build of Windows as the HDMI hand shaking appeared to've screwed up after install.

So, after re-install, the Sky Player & MSN Video entry point tiles were missing. Also, the download log was reporting errors.

Turns out this is down to some dodgy servers being presented via DNS - so I changed the primary Windows DNS to 63.251.62.33 & 192.168.1.1 (my netgear router) in the second. Flush DNS.Then, as admin, run mcupdate.exe -uf (does the uf stand for un fuck?!)

The entry point tiles reappeared. Mad.

Broken graphics card on Media Centre, part 2

So the new Sapphire 5450 GFX card has been in the Sony Vaio XL201 for a couple of weeks now...removed the NVIDIA 7600 GTL without any problems and put the 5450 in.

The Sapphire version of the card has the slimmed down heatsink - good job, as otherwise it wouldn't fit.

Thankfully, ATI have updated their drivers to v11 to make the finding the overscan option much easier now; it was pretty well hidden before...certainly not in keeping with any Windows navigation standards.

Anyway, the picture quality is better than the NVIDIA card, although The Guide has a slight jerkiness when laid above an HD source...odd, considering the spec of the card. It's not a complete show stopper though...normal SD is fine.

HDMI Audio now works, which is great...it's something I had to route into the TV via an additional cable from the XL201 before.

Overall, an excellent upgrade for the XL201.

Microsoft vs. Tivo futures?

I read this post about Microsoft filing against TiVo on my fave El Reg:

http://bit.ly/gLsXII

And then saw a similar post from MaryJo Foley:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/more-codenames-provide-clues-to-planned-microsoft-mediaroom-iptv-blitz/8520?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+zdnet/microsoft+(ZDNet+All+About+Microsoft)

Combined with Windows Embedded:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/en-us/default.mspx

...I think the future of Media Center is looking interesting.

Ian Dixon at TDL had an install going of this:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/en-us/downloads/default.mspx

I think it looks pretty good:

http://thedigitallifestyle.com/cs/tdl/b/ian/archive/2011/01/26/building-a-windows-media-center-set-top-box-install-with-windows-embedded.aspx

Broken graphics card on Media Centre

Over the last few days, the Media Centre has been 'playing up'. In particular, the screen would freeze and what can only be described as 'pixellated artifacts' would appear on the screen.

So, we've just ordered a replacement GPU:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-HD5450-DDR3-Graphics-Card/dp/B0036DD4CO

Hopefully, it'll extend the life of the Sony Vaio XL201, as it's clearly into it's twilight years now.

Tivo vs 7MC

Even though this looks like an exceptional product, I won't be swapping my Media Center PC for it.

http://tivo.virginmedia.com/

7MC might seem a bit rough around the edges in some places, compared to this, but it's still preferable.

Remote Potato Update

I've been fortunate enough to be selected by Carlos Remote Potato to be amongst some of the early users to download the brand new Remote Potato iPhone App! (search remote potato on App Store)

It's great to see it out of Beta testing so quickly, seems like Fattitude really have got their tech skills dialled. Over the course of the Beta test, it's been a pleasure to see this develop (backgrounds, artwork etc) and flourish to the finished article, which is flawless and definitely worth £3.99

The Remote Potato iPhone App purposes the content available that is published to your dyndns address via your favourite browser by your media center PC and allows you to access / manage just about every part of your Windows Media Center PC, from an iOS 4 device (there's a bit of jiggery pokery to do on your media centre PC first, but it's really simple):

• Browse the live EPG


• Schedule recordings at anytime (no Sky+ 30 min buffer requirement here, you're directly connected to your PC!)


• Stream films


• Stream recorded TV


• Stream music


• Stream pictures


• Download music

...amongst other stuff.

It is definitely one of the missing parts of media center, plus it's been made by a highly skilled team from the UK (no doubt in their spare time), which makes me want to give them the 3 thumbs up even more than I would do usually.

Here's my App Store review:

Remote Potato is the missing part of Windows Media Centre 7 and is an awesome app, definitely worth £3.99!It's great being able to schedule from my iPhone. It's brilliant for those times when you're out and you realise that you've forgotten to set something to record - you can just connect in and tap record (recording starts instantly, no delays).
The server side takes a few minutes to set up, but it is straight forward - the forums give really detailed instructions too, if you get stuck.
Streaming your recorded TV & other content to your iPhone is great - all the stuff I can't get in 16 GB, can just be streamed on-demand - the wow factor is pretty high.
Everything works great - if you use Windows 7 Media Center, you need this. 5 stars

Good skills, dudes.