Plain Virtualization

Recently someone asked me why are they not able to open up a converted VM using VMware vCenter Converter Standalone which was migrated from Hyper-V Gen 2 VM running on their Windows 10 machine with VMware Workstation. The error they hit was something that looks like below to Device/Credential Guard issue. Do note that this does not happen on VMware Fusion on Mac OS. You will know why later. If you follow the KB , it is meant for Workstation 12 and below workaround. What if you are running something higher? Typically this happens on Windows 10 machine and if you are on a joined domain, this is likely unable to be resolved if your Group Policy turns on Device/Credential Guard. Let's understand what is this Device/Credential Guard. What this is doing is, it is running another layer of a hypervisor, in this case, Hyper-V on your Windows 10. In such, VMware workstation is unable to run any virtual machines are your machine is already been abstracted by another virtualization eng...

Recently encounter valid license key but not accepted by the system. This was done on vRealize Operations as shown below. Was adding the license key for vRealize Operations for Horizon Adapter. A license gotcha here, it seems that VMware has a fixed format for all the license key. It should come in 5 segments instead of 4, each with 5 digits. Sometimes simple things like this might just slip our eyes.

Recently I was tasked to do a demo on Thinapp.  I have a Windows XP SP3 32bit running with Thinapp version 4.x. I did some thinapp on Internet Explore 7, 8 and 9.  Everything was working fine. Next I spin off a Windows 10 64bit VM and try to run these Internet Explorer thinapp'ed and I got the error below: Did a Google search and came across information that Windows 10 can only support Internet Explorer 8 and above which I find that weird since Thinapp should be able to support to run as it's a packaged container. Eventually, I chanced upon Thinapp release notes to discover it only support Windows 10 in version 5.2.0 and 5.2.2 recently support Windows 10 Anniversary Update.  How silly of me not checking out my Thinapp version. Upon updating my Thinapp on my Windows XP VM and using relink to update my Thinapp Package in the bin, it is now able to run in Windows 10.  Yes, I do not have to run through the prescan and post scan all over with ...

Recently during an outage of my host during to hardware issue in my home lab where my vCenter 6.0 sit on it, resulted some strange behaviour on my View Connection Server 6.1.  I encounter the below error message: When I go to my Horizon View Dashboard, it looks fine. When I try to remove the vCenter entry under the Server options and adding it back I end up with another error when trying to add the View Composer. However this is not related to the strange behaviour above.  But rather this is due to my login did not contain a domain\username but instead of use just username . Back to the strange behaviour.  It seems my connection to my vCenter via Connection Server has a sudden slowness and the certificate seems to be corrupted.  I tried to find a solution to replace the self-signed (in my case) certificate on my View Connection Server however in vain.  I tried removing the vCenter and re-adding it back, that does not help. So I chanced upon some ...

I am writing this for anyone who is facing a Java issue after updating to 1.7 Update 51.  With this release, there is a security check on all Java site and if it does not contain any certificate or self signed, it will not load the page or load with error.  Refer to the release notes . This affect Mac as well as Windows.  The resolution is to go to the Java Console For Windows user, go to Control Panel>Java For Mac user, go to System Preferences>Java Enter the website that you are access to or loading Java, under the Security Tab.  Remember to add in https:// for the site your are accessing to. This affects not just VMware solutions but also Citrix as well as VPN client that uses Java. Hope this resolve your error.

Was doing a Proof of Concept for Horizon View at one customer with a partner.  The infrastructure was setup and network trunked on the uplinks. We started out deploying all the components leveraging on customer's Active Directory, DHCP server and as well as Database. All was well and setup but two things was encountered: Every Desktop pools will always have some desktops not getting IP address. Horizon View client receive connection error after choosing a desktop or while using a desktop. Spend a bit of time troubleshooting by the partner.  Things like using a Windows DHCP instead of Linux (customer's was linux DHCP) and putting Horizon View Connection Server in the same subnet as the Desktops. I took over to see what have gone wrong since my partner has already done so many work.  Did some tests with my colleague, Wei Chiang who is strong in networking.  We managed to isolate the issue and even set static IP on those Desktops that does not have IP howeve...

If you have been doing your booking for VMware exams, you would know you can do it over at Pearson Vue website .  However if you have now try to do the same you might find yourself seeing the below page after login and unable to make any registration. VMware Education has recently revamped the way you make your exam booking.  Instead of viewing the information at VMware website and decide to schedule an exam and head to Pearsonvue, what VMware Education has done is let you do everything via VMware Certification site . Head on to VMware Certification site to choose a certification you are preparing for.  Here I am going to use VCP5-DV for example. You will find all the information for VCP5-DV including the course listing that is eligible to be certified.  At time of writing, only vSphere 5.1: Install Configure and Manager and vSphere5.1: Optimize and Scale are the only two courses (I am not here to explain how to be certified but to address the change). To...

This is happening to many customers and it seems to be happening on several new models of servers typically most heard on IBM System x M4 series of servers and some Dell ones as well . Did some internet searching however none gave much resolution but refer to resolution for white boxes. These servers must be also be listed in VMware supported list of hardware here . Below are the two common problems identified: Problem 1 "Loading /imgpayld.tgz Relocating the modules and starting the kernel..." Resolution: Make sure all firmware including BIOS is updated.  In this scenario, BIOS firmware was updated and installation was successful.  Seems like this was due to the UEFI used on IBM servers need to be updated.  Do find out from your respective vendor on the latest supported firmware. Problem 2 "Loading /imgpayld.tgz Multiboot could not setup the video subsystem. Relocating the modules and starting the kernel..." Resolution: This is a strange...

Decided to write a post on this as I receive just too times the questions from different customers due to the confusion. Say if you are using a free edition of the vSphere Hypervisor or you are on any purhcased editions of vSphere, and you like to licensed it or upgrade to the next edition.  Now you have the new license key what do you do? This is the most asked question: 1. Do I need to reinstall the ESXi server applying a new license key? Answer is No.  You just need to either go to the Hypervisor via the vSphere client, select the host and on the right under the Configuration Tab and choose Licensed Features.  Click on Edit and enter your serial key.  Alternative if  you have a vCenter, just select Home>Administration>Licensing and choose Manage vSphere Licenses.  The features of the edition you have purchased or licensed will be activated and shown. 2. Can vSphere 5.0 serial keys work in vSphere 5.1? Answer is Yes.  All vSphere...

I came across this incident which is really minor but can get you wasting time troubleshooting.  If you are currently running the free ESXi server and have also purchase a licensed copy, you may encounter this error when trying to add an ESXi host to the vCenter. "The host is licensed with VMware vSphere Hypervisor. The license edition of vCenter Server does not support VMware vSphere 5 Hypervisor." Let me explain this. Prior to purchase a licensed vSphere edition, you would have entered the free license on the ESXi server to run a standalone ESXi server.  This license is also known as VMware vSphere 5 Hypervisor.  This is as show below.  It is limited to 32GB of physical memory with unlimited core or processor. When adding this host to the vCenter, if you did not enter the vSphere license into the vCenter prior adding the free standalone ESXi server, you will NOT be prompted to change the license. In this case, you will encounter the above err...