Month: September 2006

Once in awhile I use a product and like it enough to tell the world. http://www.invirtus.com/ has created one – Invirtus VM Optimizer 2.5. This product is simply amazing. I bring a Virtual Server 2005 R2 Virtual Machine Domain Controller to my ClusterHelp.com classes. Before using this product it was almost 16 GB, after it was "Optimized" it was almost 50% of the size and it was indeed faster, just like the marketing says it should be. Funny that, marketing that works. I sent them an email and told them how much I love the product. They have a referral program and … Continue reading Shrink your VMWare, Virtual Server or Virtual PC Virtual Machines (VMs) images

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/925568.mspx   For a better definition of VML http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/workshop/author/vml/default.asp. You can stop VML, though this is not really a fix but a very good band-aid:   Start – Run -> regsvr32 -u "%CommonProgramFiles%\Microsoft Shared\VGX\vgx.dll"   More from Microsoft on the matter – http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2006/09/22/458266.aspx

Recently I wanted to install R2 on a Volume License copy of Windows Server 2003. When I tried our R2 key the system denied that the key was valid and would not install. Darn it, what key did they use to install? How can I tell? Q article 889713 gave me the clue (though this is not for R2, I will explain in a minute) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/889713/en-us   To find your current PID: 1.      Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties. 2.       On the General tab, the PID appears in the Registered to box. Standard Edition 32 bit retail 69712-000 Standard … Continue reading How to change your Volume License (VL) key with Windows Server 2003 or R2

This past week in my ClusterHelp.com class Jim Thyne from Thomas H. Lee Partner, L.P. gave me a great tip. He is an MCT that teaches SMS, but please don’t hold that against him. Microsoft now has a free utility that can read live logs, it’s called SMS Trace.  Go to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=61e4e21f-2652-42dd-a04d-b67f0573751d&DisplayLang=en and download the .exe. Run SMS2003Toolkit2.exe and it will expand a few folders and create SMS2003Toolkit2.msi. 1.       Run SMS2003Toolkit2.msi. 2.       On the SMS 2003 Toolkit 2 page click Next. 3.       On the License agreement page select I accept the license agreement and click Next. 4.       On the Selected Components … Continue reading Read your cluster log live with SMS Trace