PCoIP – A New Technology for a New Day

Greetings! It’s been busy here getting ready for the holidays and the new budget year. I’m a little behind in my posting.

The more I learn about VMWare’s Vsphere and VMWare View 4, the more impressed I become. My current version (Infrastructure 3 and View 3) uses the old RDP technology to present the virtual desktop. 90% of the time, it works perfectly. However, if you add multiple monitors to the mix, things can get a little sticky.

Enter View 4 and Vsphere. VMWare introduces a new remote desktop technology with this release called PCoIP. I could spell out the details here, but would rather you hear about it from the experts. So, here’s the link to their white-paper: http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/VMware-View4-PCoIP-IG-EN.pdf

Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

Until Next Time!

Techmill

Automatic Reboots With Windows XP

I have had the need to make some of my XP virtual machines automatically reboot on a weekly basis to clear up some issues with a medical application. You can do this on any Windows XP machine regardless if it’s virtual or physical. Here are the steps:

1.) Open Control Panel and then open scheduled tasks
2.) Add a new scheuled task
3.) Click next and then browse
4.) Navigate to %root$\windows\system32 and select shutdown.exe
5.) Follow the wizard to name your task and schedule it
6.) Enter valid credentials to run the task
7.) Select the “Open Advanced Properties” box and finish
8.) In the advanced properties, add /r at the end of shutdown.exe
9.) Re-enter your valid credentials

Hope that helps someone out.

Until Next Time!

Techmill

Mobile VMWare?

I’m probably a little behind the eight-ball on this one, but I’m doing some research on mobile technology for our company and realized that VMWare is getting into that game. Two items from VMWare for your reading pleasure:

VMWare MVP (Mobile Virtualization Platform: http://www.vmware.com/technology/mobile/

VMWare Vcenter Mobile: http://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/2009/03/introducing-vmware-vcenter-mobile-access.html

Again, I’m still researching this myself, but my brain is equating MVP to the Blackberry server and the VCenter Mobile as a mobile device portal to manage VCenter. When you get time, check them out. As I learn more, I will update you here.

Happy New Week!

Techmill

Microsoft RDP Upgrade

I’ve been noticing that many of my RDP connected VM’s continue to display the bar at the top of the screen regardless if I tell it not to display. I can manually click the little thumbtack and it will go away but the next time the user remotes in, it’s back again.

Enter RDP 6. I downloaded RDP 6 directly from Microsoft’s website and it doesn’t allow the bar. It will show up briefly and then go away for keeps. This keeps my users from closing their automatically-opened RDP sessions.

When downloading, be careful to download directly from Microsoft or a trusted source. One of my co-workers downloaded it from an unknown site and go a myriad of stupid toolbars along with it.

Hope this helps somebody out.

Until Next Time!!

Techmill

VCP Certification

Happy Saturday! Just a quick note to let everyone know that I passed my VCP3 exam on Thursday! Whoo Hoo! I made a 90 on the test. I must recommend the ExamCram VCP book. It was a necessary tool while preparing for this exam. I also bought the VMWare Infrastructure 3 Advanced Technology Design Guide. Also an excellent desk reference.

PearsonVue can be very proud of their branch in Fayetteville, AR. That was an excellent testing experience.

Until Next Time

Techmill

Virtual Desktops – Another Printer Issue

Holiday weekend…let’s make it brief.

I had a VM that was responding very slowly this week. I got into the OS (Windows XP) and saw that spoolsv.exe was maxing out the CPU. I rebooted the VM and the problem came back.

Finally, I found that a document had been inadvertantly printed to the Microsoft Image Writer. I deleted that job, bounced the print spooler, and life became good again. Hope that tip helps someone out.

Happy Weekend!

Techmill

RDP Printing in VMWare: The Lost Printer

We are using several thin clients with local printers that connect via RDP to a VMWare desktop. As long as I check the box that shares my printer with the RDP session, I’m OK…for the most part.

We had a situation where the user deleted the shared printer from inside the RDP session. Checking, unchecking, and rechecking the box to share the printer had no effect. My printer was just gone.

If this happens to you, what you must do is create a printer in the VM that uses the same driver as your local printer. Point it to LPT1 but don’t print a test page. Then close your RDP session, make sure your printer check box is checked, and reconnect. That should bring your shared printer back. A little ticky and frustrating, I know, but it works.

Until Next Time!

Techmill

WSUS Woes With Virtual Desktops

Happy Friday, all. Virtualzation of the desktop environment is a big buzz in the industry today. There’s much to be said about replacing bulky under-utilized hardware with smaller thin-clients connected to VMWare desktops. I am currently building a virtual desktop environment for the hospital where I work and love every minute of it. That being said, I ran into a snag that had me perplexed for a while. I would build a virtual desktop from template, make the changes to point it to our WSUS server, and it would show up in WSUS but it would replace an older VM in the WSUS folder. Then I discovered that, even though Sysprep preps the system for cloning, there is a key in the registry that it does not reset. Thus, multiple machines with the same ID equals only one being seen in WSUS. Here’s the fix:

1.) Run regedit
2.) Navigate to HKLM\software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate
3.) Delete the SusClientId Key
4.) Close regedit
5.) Run your script or make the necessary changes to point your system to your WSUS server
6.) Drop out to a command prompt
7.) Type in net stop “automatic updates” to stop the service
8.) Type in net start “automatic updates” to start the service (or go to services and restart that way)
9.) Type in wuauclt /resetauthorization /detectnow
10.) Check your WSUS server as your system should now show up in the unassigned folder

Happy Weekend!

Techmill

VMWare View

Happy Thursday. I’m running late as usual. I’m five minutes from my next meeting so I’ll be brief. I’m right in the middle of building a VMWare View desktop environment for proof of concept.

This is my first rodeo with View but I must say, the documentation provided by VMWare is very easy to follow so far. If you’re not familiar with VMWare View, I encourage you to hit their website and check out the highlight reel. Some of the hot features are virtual desktop pools, tight integration with Virtual Center, update one image rather than all virtual desktops, and goodbye RDP and hello web access!

Until Next Time!

Techmill

Fun Friday

Well, here it is again – Friday! I’ve been so busy that Friday sneaked up behind me and slapped me in the back of the head. As per the norm, let’s have some fun today. Talk to me about your worst technology job. Here’s mine:

There was a period of time when I was going back to college to finish my degree and trying to get on full time with a particular company at the same time. This company finally hired me but to get my foot in the door, I had to take a 3rd shift position as a computer operator. Basically, my job was to take massive quantities of reports that printed on greenbar paper, separate them, and deliver them to the departments. I also changed out backup tapes. I wasn’t allowed to fix anything and was instructed to call their on-call staff if I had problems. It was a definite step-down as far as what I was used to. I was coming off of being a project manager and now I was calling tech support that knew less than me to fix basic PC repair problems.

The good news is that I made it from 3rd shift computer operator to Systems Engineer in less than three years. Not too shabby.

So there you have it for me. I hope to hear about some other dastardly tech jobs from you guys!

Happy Weekend!!

Techmill