Improve VMware Console Mouse Experience with Windows Server 2008

Did you notice that since Windows 2008, console mouse experience is really crap. Not a big deal because you need to get out of that console view ASAP anyway. But after working with some environments which I only had console access I got really frustrated and fired up Google to look for a way to improve it. Right away I found that changing the VGA driver would solve the problem, this is so simple that it makes me wonder why this alternate driver is not default?

Here how to do it:

1. Open the Device Manager and expand your Display adapters. Right click the display adapter and select Update driver software…
2. Click Browse my computer for driver software
3. Now select the driver shown in the image below. It is copied to that location upon installation of VMware tools, so they must be present. For best results ensure you are using the latest version of VMTools.
   
4. Finally, Windows will find and update the video adapters driver with the WDDM version as seen below. You will need to restart your server as is noted in the dialog box 

Source: http://vm-pro.com/improve-vmware-console-mouse-experience-with-windows-server-2008/

“Delete all” snapshot: A general system error occurred: concurrent access

When deleting multiple snapshots at the same time with the “Delete All” button I received the following error on many of my Virtual Machines: “A general system error occurred: concurrent access”

After verifying that there was no concurrent access I start googling this error but there was nothing related out there.

Just before calling VMware support I tried to delete de snapshots one by one and this didn’t generate the error and the snapshots were succesfully removed. Strange but I’m happy I could remove the snapshots.

“No guest OS heartbeats” when attempting vMotion

When attempting to vMotion a couple of my virtual machines I received the “No guest OS heartbeats” error with many of them. Googling resulted in a number of possible reasons like

• ensure that the VMware Tools are installed in the virtual machine before performing a migration
• ensure that the virtual machine has been running long enough for the operating system to be completely started before performing a migration
• if VMware Tools are already installed, reinstall the VMware Tools to ensure that you are on the latest version and that there is no corruption in the configuration

but I just could not beleave this was going on all my VMs.

Then I found out this was related to a recent reboot of my vCenter server and there are a number of fixes:

1. Just ignore the warning, vMotion will run just fine and the warning behavior will disappear at some point
2. Quickly open the console view of the virtual machine
3. Restart the vmware tools services process(could be scripted if you have many)

How to: Copy and Paste in vSphere Client 4.1 and later

Do you want to copy and past from and to your VM consoles?

Here’s how to enable it per Virtual Machine:

1. Power down the VM
2. Right click the VM and choose Edit Settings.
3. Navigate to Options > Advanced > General and click Configuration Parameters.
4. Click Add Row.
5. Type these values in the Name and Value columns:
   • isolation.tools.copy.disable – false
   • isolation.tools.paste.disable – false

   Note: These options override any settings made in the VMware Tools control panel of the guest operating system.

6. Click OK to close the Configuration Parameters dialog, and click OK again to close the Virtual Machine Properties dialog.
7. Power on the virtual machine.

And per host:

1. Log in to the ESX/ESXi host as a root user and open the /etc/vmware/config file using a text editor.
2. Add these entries to the file:
   isolation.tools.copy.disable="FALSE"
isolation.tools.paste.disable="FALSE"
3. Save and close the file.
4. The setting will be activating when (re)starting the virtual machines running on the host.

Source: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1026437

HP G6 server with and without Smart Array Battery Kit ESXi i/o performance

No IO performance in ESXi on a high spec HP DL380 server was caused by not having the Smart Array battery kit installed. Installing the 512 cache module wasn’t enough, performance as expected came after adding the battery kit.

Read/write performance without battery kit:

Read/write performance with battery kit:

Tested on a brand new HP DL380(Quad Core Xeon, 8GB memory and 146GB 10K disks, P410i smart array(firmware v3.00)) running ESXi 4.1

ATTO Disk Benchmark

Looking for a simple, quick and free disk benchmark utility to test your new hard drive, SAN, NAS, Virtual Machine  read/write performce? Go for ATTO Disk Benchmark!

Visit the official website for the latest version.

Or click here for a direct download.

Forcefully kill a virtual machine in ESXi

One day you’ll run into a  not responding virtual machine that won’t power off in the vSphere client. If you don’t want to reboot your ESXi host, here is how to forcefully kill the bastard leaving all other virtual machines peacefully running.

Method 1: Use the vmware-cmd command in the vSphere command-line interface (CLI)

1. Download and install vSphere command-line interface(http://www.vmware.com/download/download.do?downloadGroup=VCLI40)
2. CD to C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware vSphere CLI\bin>
3. List Virtual Machines
   vmware-cmd.pl -H <ESXi host name> -l
4. Get state:
   vmware-cmd.pl -H <ESXi hostname> “<vmx file path>” getstate
5. Kill Virtual Machine:
6. vmware-cmd.pl -H <ESXi hostname> ”<vmx file path>” stop hard

When method 1 fails move to method 2.

Method 2: Find the VM’s process identifier and forcibly terminate it

1. List active virtual machines: vm-support -x
2. On the ESXi console, press Alt-F1.
3. Type the word unsupported and press ENTER
4. Type root password and press ENTER
5. Look up the VM process pgid: ps –g | grep
   (The number you are looking for is the one that is right before and after mks: and vcpu)
6. Kill the process: kill -9 <pgid, the number you just found>
7. Wait a minute and check if the machine is not running anymore: vm-support -x

GParted live/boot CD of USB

A good, simple and free partition table editing boot cd  for all operation systems.  GParted also works great in VMWare(VMWare Server, VMware ESX, VMWare Workstation) guests, just load the iso into your virtual CD drive and boot from CD.

GParted just does what it says:  create, resize(expand and shrink), edit and move partitions with ease

• More info
• Direct ISO download