Tech Encounters

Invalid File Format Descriptor is too large Using the Starwind v2v Converter to convert two v5 .vmdk files to Hyper-V. Got the message "Invalid File Format" "Descriptor is too large". Sadly recopied the files back out of the VMWare box, thinking a broken copy process, but again with the same result. The fix is simple, don't try to convert the large file.  Instead direct the v2v to the small pointer vmdk file, see below.  This one fails: SOURCEDISK1-flat.vmdk (430Gb) Use this one: SOURCEDISK1.vmdk (1Kb) Sometimes its the simple things that get you...

Situation: Had an old server that customer data was needed from. The server has not run for a few years and the password unknown.  Boot from Windows PE or Windows RE or Bart CD and access the command prompt Find the drive letter of the partition where Windows is installed  Type the following command (replace “C:” with the correct drive letter for Windows) to create a copy of sethc.exe to restore later. Copy c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe c:\  Type this command to replace sethc.exe with cmd.exe: copy /y c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe Reboot your computer and at the logon screen, press the SHIFT key five times You should see a command prompt. Enter the following command to reset the Windows administrator password  Net user administrator newpassword Now log on with the new password Afterwards replace sethc.exe with the copy you stored in the root folder of your system drive in step 3. Boot up again with a boot CD  Then enter this...

AWS Plugs in MS Virtual Machine Manager - Hybrid Cloud Just got Easier The battle between the cloud giants continues to heat up with  AWS releasing System Manager for Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM). The add-in for SCVMM enables management of EC2 instances from within SCVMM.  The concept of managing both private and public cloud infrastructure from a single pane implies simpler management.  There are some gotchas, while you can move workloads to AWS there is no simple method to move them back again. Oh and you'll need license mobility for your System Centre Licenses - this means having Software Assurance or licensed through a Microsoft SPLA partner.  Of course AWS is not the first to offer cross cloud infrastructure management, but this move by the giant sets the scene for more growth and action in the cloud wars. Amazon used a similar attack on VMware some time back when a new connector was developed to control external EC2...

The Task is Created but Shows the Path Broken into Parts When you create a task with spaces in the path, the schedule task is created with part of the path in the arguments section. Using quotes as normal will not fix the problem. THE FIX Use the syntax shown below to embed the path within quotes. schtasks /create /tn "the task" /tr "\"c:\foldername name with spaces\program.exe\" arguments" /sc once /sd 07/29/2003 /st 10:01

The system cannot access one or more event logs because of insufficient rights The Problem: Configuration refresh message. The system cannot access one or more event logs because of insufficient rights, file corruption, or other reasons. For more information, see the Operation channel in the ServerManager-ManagementProvider error log on the target server. Problem occurred on Server 2012 servers that have been upgraded to Server 2012R2 servers. Servers are also clustered. The Solution: Following the event logs leads to a few registry keys. You can eliminate the messages by: 1. Export the following registry keys (for safety) 2. Delete the following keys: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WINEVT\Channels\Microsoft-Windows-DxpTaskRingtone/Analytic HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WINEVT\Channels\Microsoft-Windows-IME-Roaming/Analytic HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WINEVT\Channels\Microsoft-Windows-IME-SCDICCOMPILER/Analytic HKLM\SOFTWARE\Mic...

Shrewsoft VPN client - can't open Access Manager Problem Access Manager is not visible Occurred after adjusting using dual monitors. Reinstall does not fix the issue. The Fix Use regedit to rename or delete the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ShrewSoft\vpn\user Had a look around the Shrewsoft support site - nothing useful in there to fix this problem.

THE PROBLEM: Browser not supported message Occurs on RDWeb 2008 site when using IE11 or IE10 - message reads.  "Browser Not Supported - This Web browser is not supported by RD Web Access. RD Web Access requires Internet Explorer 6.0 or later. You can download the latest version of Internet Explorer from the Windows Update Web site" You could provide a temporary fix by setting the browser to emulate IE7...  But this is a user by user fix. THE FIX: Thanks to the work of Dale Hayter Add a new response header  requesting the browser to display the page as IE9.  1. On the RDWeb server open IIS Manager 2. Add the new response header .   3. In the box type: Name : X-UA-Compatible Value : IE=9 4. R un IISReset f rom an Administrative command prompt . 5. Job Done!

EVENT ID 32088 for all VMs After running out of disk space on the Replica host server, all VMs stopped replicating.  Replication cannot simply be started by right clicking on the source VM and selecting Resume Replication. No console error message just the event log event 32088.  I considered removing replication and re-replicating but this seemed an awful lot of work for simple problem. Tried stopping the Hyper-V service on the replica host and restarting, but this also did not work. THE FIX 1. Go to the destination replica server, right click each VM and select Resume Replication.  2. Now you can go to the source server, right click each VM and select Resume Replication. For some strange reason this works. Just trying one end or the other will fail without a console error message (but shows in the event log).

Locked out by Firewall for Remote Desktop connection Server 2012 R2 Snookered, I had a 2012 R2 Server operating in a remote data center with a network card which had reverted to Public.  The Public setting had no rule to permit remote desktop. Remote management using the GUI server manager did not have an option I could find to enable the firewall rule. THE FIX On another server, on the same domain  Right-click and open Powershell as Administrator. At the Powershell prompt: # This opens a remote powershell session PS C:\> Enter-PSSession remoteservername-or-ipaddress # This creates a rule to permit RDP access PS C:\> New-NetFirewallRule -Name Custom_Allow_RDP -DisplayName "Custom Allow RDP" -Description "Custom Allow RDP TCP port 3389" -Protocol TCP –LocalPort 3389 -Direction Inbound -Enabled True -Profile Any -Action Allow # Now connect to the server and deal with the problem at hand PS C:\> mstsc Done!

Steps to migrate virtual machines from Server 2012 non-clustered to Server 2012 R2 clustered. Prepare the migration At the source server, check the VM settings and the current network Virtual Switch name. A matching Virtual Switch name must exist on the destination server or you will get a nonsensical error message about not being able to connect to the destination server. As a temporary fix where the names do not match...  If both systems are production systems and you don't want to interfere with operations. Go to the destination server and create a new Virtual Switch and assign this to the internal network. This will be sufficient to get the migration working but you will need to swap the adaptor on completion. At the destination server, create the virtual machine folder in the final location on the clustered CSV volume that the machine will finish up in (only the root folder is needed). Do the move At the source server commence a 'Move'. For the destination ...

Moving VMs from Server 2008 R2 to Server 2012 R2 Error message The virtual machine cannot be moved to the destination computer.  The hardware on the destination computer is not compatible with the hardware requirements of this virtual machine.  Virtual machine migration failed at migration source. Apparent cause The destination server does not have a matching named Virtual Network Switch. The error message is a little vague. How to fix Rename one of the virtual switches to have a matching set between the source and destination servers. If the source and destination servers are part of production systems so they can't simply have the Virtual Switch renamed. And if a short pause is acceptable at the end of the migration try this: On the destination server,  Create a new network switch using the internal network and name this to match the source server network.  Start the server move, as the move completes, change the network from Internal to the co...

Troubleshooting App-v on RDS servers can be made simpler by peeking in side the App-v bubble. Use the following commands or create a shortcut: To open a command prompt that has access to the application folder Q:\ Sfttray /exe cmd "name of application" To open explorer - from the new cmd window Explorer Q: To open Task Manager - from the new command window Taskmgr More at http://appvgeek.blogspot.co.nz/2010_06_01_archive.html

Event ID 2212  DFS Replication service stopped replication on volume The Problem DFS Replication under Windows 2012 does not automatically recovery following a failure or corrupted Database.  A simple unexpected shutdown of your DFS server can result in replication stopping.  If you are not monitoring your DFS replication then this stopped replication is invisible - all services appear to be running normally, including DFSR. The Fix Change the following registry key from 1 to 0 to enable automated recovery: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\DFSR\Parameters "StopReplicationOnAutoRecovery"=dword:00000000 Notes From Microsoft

Manage Windows Server 2008 SP2 and R2 from Windows Server 2012 Server Manager By KeithMayer 2 Oct 2012 12:10 PM Server Manager in Windows Server 2012 has been redesigned as a new cool multi-server management console, making it as easy to manage multiple servers remotely as you can from a local server's console - whether those servers are physical, virtual or hosted in the cloud!  Not familiar with the new Server Manager yet?  Check out this post over at My Thoughts On IT, the blog of my fellow IT Evangelist Brian Lewis and an all-around great guy! :-) Well, it seems it's a little known fact that Server Manager in Windows Server 2012 can manage not only Windows Server 2012 and Hyper-V Server 2012 servers, but also servers running Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 as well!  However, it's a bit of a trick to get it all working ... If you don't follow these steps on these older servers, you'll likely end up with the following status message in ...

Source  Aug. 6, 2012John Savill | Windows IT Pro Hyper-V Replica works by replicating write operations that are stored in transaction log files every five minutes to the replica server.  An expand or compact action on a virtual hard disk (VHD) isn't a write operation and therefore doesn't replicate and will break the replication of the VHD.  The only solution is to stop replication, then restart replication.  In most organizations, compacting and expanding WHDs isn't a common operation, especially if dynamic VHDs are used; however, it's important to understand that if using Hyper-V Replica for a VM, any compact or expand operations will break the replication. Below are some steps to "ease the pain": If Recovery History is off , which means when setting up Hyper-V Replica you did not enable the option to keep additional point in time replica snapshots, do the following: 1.On the same VHD on recovery, do same operation to get the identical geome...

Access to drivers on Windows Update was blocked by policy EventID:122 errors appearing on Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V host.  “Device Setup Manager” service. There is a scheduled task that runs each night in “Microsoft | Windows | Device Setup” called “Metadata Refresh”.  When that task runs it causes the “Device Setup Manager” service to start, and that’s what is causing the messages.  If you look in the Event Viewer under “Application and Services Logs | Microsoft | Windows | DeviceSetupManager | Admin” and filter on Event ID 122 then you can see the entries. The “policy” that is causing the block is actually the Device Installation Settings.  SOLUTION Use the search in the Control Panel window and look for “device installation” When that window opens, you will see the settings that define the “policy” If you change the setting to “Always install the best driver software from Windows Update.” then the Even...

Hyper-V is not in a state to accept replication on the replica server for virtual machine   Message appears at the end of the replication Wizard. A replica for this virtual machine had previously existed on the Replica server. Cause The previous successful or unsuccessful replicated virtual machine may be still exist at the replica server.   Solution Remove the old virtual machine at the  replica server and enable replication again.  Yes this pushes a fresh replication to the replica server. Additional notes Under the details of the error message on the source server a Virtual machine ID is listed, and using this ID to find the replication files from the previous replication on the Replica server (under \Virtual Hard Disks\Hyper-V Replica\Virtual hard disks\<ID>\ and under \Virtual Hard Disks\Hyper-V Replica\Virtual Machines\<ID>. These files may be locked while a previous replica exists on the Replica server

Virtual Machine failed to start worker process: Incorrect function. (0x80070001) Configuration Hyper-v Server 2012 with 4 VMs. One VM running the others would not start. Error message popup when starting VM. Further in the event logs "The authorization store could not be initialized from storage location". Cause An earlier test restore had replaced the key entry with a now redundant location. Solution Edit registry key as below [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Virtualization] Problem Key shows an invalid location: "StoreLocation"="msxml://D:\\Restore Test\\Host Component\\C_\\ProgramData\\Microsoft\\Windows\\Hyper-V\\InitialStore.xml" Change key to correct location: "StoreLocation"="msxml://C:\\ProgramData\\Microsoft\\Windows\\Hyper-V\\InitialStore.xml" Then restart Virtual Machine Service from Hyper-V console

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