My PC Geek

When running vmware tools, you encounter Error 1606: cannot find shared\mydocuments,

Solution (as described in vmware’s help section):
Search for the program regedit.exe. Run the program, and follow the following path by clicking on the appropriate folders on the left portion of the window: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders.

Then look at the path of each file. They should all begin with %USERPROFILE%. “Personal” will be the file that has the path \\vmware-host\Shared Folders\My Documents. Add %USERPROFILE% to that path by right clicking on “Personal” and selecting “Modify.” After your path looks like this: %USERPROFILE%\\vmware-host\Shared Folders\My Documents, click OK and do not close regedit.exe. I don’t know if this matters, but I didn’t close it.

Next, run the install of vmware tools. It should be able to find the files now and will finish successfully.

If you want, you can return the “Personal” file to its original directory by Modifying it again and getting rid of %USERPROFILE%. I don’t know what this will do to your system… but feel free.

This issue occurs sometimes when you have Folder Redirection Group Policies. If you do not want to modify the registry, just log in as a local admin and not a AD user account.

Troubleshooting this issue came across when we had some SnapMirror lag time for one of our customers.

SnapMirror volumes were failing on the volumes below.

OfficeMailData
OfficeMailTrans

Ran Command “snap list” on the DR NetApp found that a LUN was busy causing the SnapMirror job to fail on both volumes OfficeMailData and OfficeMailTrans.

Open up FilerView (MAKE SURE YOU ARE ON THE DESTINATION FILER) > LUNs > Manage. Yeah we are going old school and saw two frozen LUNs.  These are created temporarily for backup purposes but were never removed by the filer after the job completed.

These need to be taken offline and removed.  Select one of the LUNs (for this example I am using /vol/OfficeMailData/{unique code, sorry too lazy to type it all out).rws

First Offline the LUN and click ok.

Then Delete the LUN and click ok.

Wait…Warning (Read-Only File system)

Okay we need to break the SnapMirror because it has the LUN locked.

Go to SnapMirror > Manage and click the advanced tab

Click on Quiesce

Click on OK

Click on Break

Click OK

OK now go back to LUNs.

Select the copy of the LUN OfficeMailData (/vol/OfficeMailData/{unique code, yadda dada da).rws

First Offline the LUN and click OK.

Then Delete the LUN and click ok.

Now go to Volumes > Manage: (AGAIN MAKE SURE YOU ARE ON THE DESTINATION FILER)

Check the Volume that has the issue and click Restrict

Click OK

Now check and click Online

Now go back to SnapMirror > Manage and go back to the Advanced tab.

Now click the Resync

SnapShots should start transferring now.

Type “SnapMirror” Status to view the status.

Yay! “Does happy dance” transfers started back!

This is an article on how to troubleshoot a SnapShot locked due to busy state.

I was getting an error due to trying to remove a shotshot and the Filer is complaining it is busy.

Tried removing the snapshot via Netapp System Manager and Filer View.

snap delete COPS_DATAVOL0 COPS_DATAVOL0_OldSnap

Did not delete it:

To find out what snapshots you have:

Run command

snap list volume name

Now to find out what is currently utilizing the snapshot.

lun snap usage -s COPS_DATAVOL0 COPS_DATAVOL0_OldSnap

Found out that SnapShot COPS_DATAVOL0_NightlySnap

So we need to delete this snapshot before the OldSnap snapshot.

Ran command:

snap delete COPS_DATAVOL0 COPS_DATAVOL0_NightlySnap

Same Error:

Ran command Snap list COPS_DATAVOL0 again and noticed NightlySnap was being utilized by a backup

Looks like a Backup is currently running:

Run command to view ndmpd status: Active

Ndmpd status

Now run command:

ndmpd probe

Checked Backup Exec and there currently is a backup job running:

After job was finished, I was able to delete the locked snapshots.  But remember we needed to delete the Nightly SnapShot first.

snap delete COPS_DATAVOL0 COPS_DATAVOL0_NightlyJob

snap delete COPS_DATAVOL0 COPS_DATAVOL0_OldSnap

My Apologies, due to a licensing issue with my firewall the site has been down for a few days.  Issue has been resolved!

vCenter comes with SQL Server 2005 Express.  This works fine for smaller environments, but after a while your environment the number of ESX host and Virtual Machines will grow and you will quickly exceed the 4Gb licensed limit for this “free” SQL 2005 Express instance.

Once exceeded, your vCenter service will stop and will not start back.

Errors vCenter server vpxd log file will look like:

Error inserting events: “ODBC error: (42000) – [Microsoft][SQL Native Client][SQL Server]Could not allocate space for object ‘dbo.VPX_EVENT_ARG’.'PK_VPX_EVENT_ARG’ in database ‘VIM_VCDB’ because the ‘PRIMARY’ filegroup is full. Create disk space by deleting unneeded files, dropping objects in the filegroup, adding additional files to the filegroup, or setting autogrowth on for existing files in the filegroup.” is returned when executing SQL statement “INSERT INTO VPX_EVENT_ARG

You can purge old data, but this will not last long.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1025914

I recommended upgrading to SQL Server Express 2008 R2.

1. Make sure you have plenty of space before upgrading.  10-15GB free.
2. Take a snapshot of your vCenter VM "preSQL upgrade" (just in case)
3. Check SQL Server Version you have installed.  Run a query on your SQL server “Select @@version“

4. Download SQL Server 2008 Express R2 - https://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=23650
5.  With the assumption you are running Server 2008 R2 there are no need for prerequisites.  If you are running Server 2003, you will need some prerequisites.

6. Run the SQL Server 2008 R2 upgrade and select the VM Instance name.
7. You will likely get an error towards the end:

error on SQL Server 2005 tools – “Please remove” -

To Re-run with success, you need to rename the registry entry: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools out of the way (eg HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools_old)

8.  Once the registry entry is renamed, click the re-run button to retry without restarting the upgrade

http://www.utgsolutions.com/2012/01/17/malware-%E2%80%93-and-how-to-prevent-it/

To install using PowerShell, run PowerShell on your Exchange Server 2010 as administrator and run the following commandlets:

Import-Module ServerManager followed by Add-WindowsFeature Web-WMI.

• Open RegEdit.
• Set the HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Updates\UpdateExeVolatile key value to 0 or delete it.
• Delete the HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\PendingFileRenameOperations key.
• Rerun Setup.

I just don’t understand credit card companies that force insecure passwords!  5-10 Characters and letters and numbers only?!?!?!?!?!  There is a lot of fraud that happens with credit cards and you would think DiscoverCard would be on their A game and allow customers to make passwords over 14 chars with special characters.  FAIL!

I opened a chat to see ask the question and this is what I got.

I read this article on Life Hacker.  Yes, I love to hack things other than computers. It is supposed to save you around $100 bucks on your water bill annually.  I am going to test this theory and see if it holds true. HA!

Materials:

• 1 Gatorade Bottle or Water Bottle
• Water or Sand

I tried it with the Gatorade bottle and water and it works.  Just fill the Gatorade bottle with water or sand and place it in the water reservoir.