VMWare Workstation 12.5 Pro just released!

VMWare Workstation 12.5 Pro was just released yesterday!

You can download VMWare Workstation 12.5 Pro from here: https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/details?downloadGroup=WKST-1250-WIN&productId=524&rPId=12749

You can read the Release Notes for VMWare Workstation 12.5 Pro here: http://pubs.vmware.com/Release_Notes/en/workstation/12pro/workstation-125-release-notes.html

The network bridge on device 'VMnet0' is not running

I recently went through a Windows 10 Update and when I subsequently starting my using VM in VMWare Workstation, I noticed that I no longer had network connectivity!

I attempted to connect my Network Adapter in my Guest VM when I suddenly encountered the following error message:

Fortunately, it seems this problem is widespread and is reasonably well document on the Internet in the form of YouTube videos such as this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWqZg25YUTY

If you want to save yourself the time of watching the YouTube video, this is what I did:

1. Go to your Network Adapter
2. Right click and go to Properties
3. Click on Install...
4. Select Service and click on the Add... button
5. Select VMWare Inc.  and the VMWare Bridge Protocol
6. Click OK
7. The VMWare Bridge Protocol should now be checked in the Network Adapter Properties
8. From the Services Applet (services.msc) restart the VMWare DHCP Service and VMWare NAT Service
9. Now try connecting your Guest VM's Network Adapter
10. You should have network connectivity in your Guest VM now!

 

You may also be able to use "Restore Defaults" from the Virtual Network Editor, but this will wipe out any network settings that you may have configured in the Virtual Network Editor:

1. Click on the Edit menu from VMWare Workstation
2. Click on Virtual Network Editor
3. Click on Change Settings... 
4. Click on Restore Defaults
5. This will reinstall the virtual network settings on your network adapter as well

VMWare Workstation 12 now available!!

You can read more about the new release of VMWare Workstation here: https://blogs.vmware.com/workstation/2015/08/vmware-workstation-12-now-available-worldwide.html

This virtual machine appears to be in use

If you have ever worked with VMWare Workstation and had your Host Windows OS freeze/lock up or crash, you may encounter the following error message:

If you attempt to Take Ownership, you may get the following error message:

Eventually you will discover that you are in an infinite loop that prevents you from ever launching the virtual machine.

So what do you do??

Fortunately, the solution is EXTREMELY SIMPLE!!

On the file system for the virtual machine, you will find a file that ends in the extension: vmx.lck

Once you delete this file from your file system, you will be able to once again launch your virtual machine!!

Requesting VMWare Product Features

If you want to request a new Product Feature for any of the various VMWare products, you can submit a Product Feature request here: http://www.vmware.com/company/contact/contactus.html?department=prod_request

Recovering data from a VMWare Workstation Snapshot Disk

I was recently working with one of my VMWare Workstation Guest VMs and the OS failed on me.  Since I usually keep my data on a separate VMDK file, I hastily deleted the OS disk and replaced it a brand new one in my template library of virtual machines.

Unfortunately, however, I had created snapshots of that VM and when I attempted to mount the VMDK file containing my data, I suddenly discovered that I could not mount the data that I had stored after I had taken the snapshot.

Fortunately, this VMWare Community forum post pointed me to the root cause of my issue: https://communities.vmware.com/message/2520716#2520716

The parent chain from the snapshot VMDK file and the base VMDK file was broken.  This could be manually edited using the dsfo.exe and dsfi.exe tools: http://faq.sanbarrow.com/index.php?action=artikel&cat=47&id=111&artlang=en

Using the commands outlined in the VMWare Community forum, I was able to successfully edit the parent CID for my snapshot VMDK file and mount the virtual disk to be able to recover my data!

Below are the PowerShell scripts I used to accomplish this:

$VMDKFiles = "D:\VMWareVMs\MyData.vmdk", "D:\VMWareVMs\MyData-000002.vmdk"

$dsfoFilePath = "C:\Downloads\VMWare\dsfo.exe"

$BaseDir = "C:\Temp"

Clear-Host

foreach ($VMDKFile in $VMDKFiles)

{

$OutputFileName = Split-Path $VMDKFile -Leaf

$DSFOCmd = @"

""$dsfoFilePath" "$VMDKFile" 0 1536 "$BaseDir\$OutputFileName.txt""

"@

Write-Host $DSFOCmd

& "$dsfoFilePath" "$VMDKFile" 0 1536 "$BaseDir\$OutputFileName.txt"

}#foreach

$dsfiFilePath = "C:\Downloads\VMWare\dsfi.exe"

$VMDKFile = "D:\VMWareVMs\MyData-000002.vmdk"

$BaseDir = "C:\Temp"

$OutputFileName = Split-Path $VMDKFile -Leaf

#dsfi.exe vmname.vmdk 0 1536 modified_file.bin

$DSFICmd = @"

""$dsfiFilePath" "$VMDKFile" 0 1536 "$BaseDir\$OutputFileName.txt""

"@

Write-Host $DSFICmd

& "$dsfiFilePath" "$VMDKFile" 0 1536 "$BaseDir\$OutputFileName.txt"

Using Multiple Monitors for a VMWare Workstation Virtual Machine

I recently started using multiple monitors for my development workstations, and since I work so heavily with virtual machines, I naturally wanted to know if I could use multiple monitors with my VMWare Workstation virtual machines.

Fortunately, you can!

This article describes exactly how to accomplish this: https://pubs.vmware.com/workstation-9/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.ws.using.doc%2FGUID-E51CADFC-31C3-491F-92D9-C9C1D9615668.html

Windows 10 (Build 10130) constantly crashes VMWare Workstation 11

I recently decided to install Windows 10 (Build 10130) inside VMWare Workstation as a Guest OS and everything was running great for a while until I encountered the following error message:

I thought that this occurred because I upgraded my earlier Windows 10 build to the latest Preview build.

Therefore, I decided to rebuild my VM Guest from scratch directly from the Insider Preview ISO media.

As you can probably guess, this issue occurred once again!

Therefore, I knew that there was some inherent defect introduced this build that was not present in earlier builds of Windows 10 x64 that was causing my VMWare Workstation Guest to consistently crash.

UPDATE: This issue has now been resolved with the release of VMWare Workstation 11.1.2: https://www.vmware.com/support/ws/doc/workstation-1112-release-notes.html

SharePoint 2013 Dream Machine

If you are familiar with the system requirements for SharePoint 2013, you may already know that the recommended memory requirements for SharePoint 2013 is 16 GB.

Well, that puts many developers/administrators and architects in a precarious situation if they want to test varying SharePoint 2013 Farm configurations since most modern desktops only ship with 16 GB or 32 GB of RAM.

Even if you have 32 GB of RAM, you might only be able to get 2-3 VMs running alongside SharePoint (such as a Domain Controller and an Office Web Apps Server, or a Domain Controller and a Search/Index Server or possibly an Application Tier Server and a Web Front End).

If you want to test out integration points with SharePoint 2013 such as Team Foundation Server, Microsoft Dynamics CRM or Project Server, this will probably require implementing your SharePoint Farm across multiple machines.

Well, I was taking a look at the Costco website today and it seems that they have a SharePoint Administrator's Dream Machine!  http://www.costco.com/CyberpowerPC-Desktop-|-Intel-Core-i7-|-2GB-Graphics-|-Windows-8.1-Professional.product.100172430.html

With 64 GB of RAM and plenty of CPU horsepower and expandability, it makes it easy to set up even a very sophisticated SharePoint 2013 Farm virtual environment!!

With so much memory available, you can readily configure a full SharePoint Farm complete with multiple load-balanced WFEs, a SharePoint Application Tier Server, a separate SQL Server, a Domain Controller and perhaps even a separate Search/Index Server or Office Web Apps Server!

How cool is that??

VMWare Workstation automatically suspends/pauses Windows 10 VMs

I had recently built a Windows 10 virtual machine in VMWare Workstation when I noticed that the VM was automatically suspending/pausing without any user interaction from me!

Well, this was very curious because this never occurred when I was using my Windows Server 2012 R2 VMs (or any Server VM for that matter).

Therefore, I figured there was something specific to my Windows 10 configuration that was triggering this behavior which would not be triggered in my Windows Server virtual machines.

Well, I decided to check out the Power Options in the Control Panel to see if the underlying Guest OS was going to sleep or hibernating:

As you can tell from the screenshot above, the display was being turned off and the computer was being put to sleep after 30 minutes!

Well, I decided to change the Power Plan settings to the following:

As you can probably guess, changing this setting resolved my issue of VMWare automatically suspending my Windows 10 virtual machine!!

Joining a VM to a Windows domain on a Bridged Network

In the past, I have always set up Networked VMs using NAT Mode since that would ensure that the VMs can properly communicate with each other when I join them to a domain as well as ensuring no name conflicts on the network.

The procedure for joining a VM to a Domain using Bridged Networking is surprisingly similar as joining them using NAT mode with a few caveats:

1. After you update the Primary and Secondary DNS Servers on your Domain Member Server to the IP Addresses of your Domain DNS Servers, make note of both the NetBIOS Name as well as the FQDN of your Domain.
2. Make sure that none of your Windows Firewall rules are not blocking connection attempts from the Domain Controller(s) and the Member Server.
3. If the FQDN of your Domain does not conflict with an existing domain name on the Internet (such as google.com or microsoft.com, mycompany.com etc.), then you may be able to join your Domain Member Server using the FQDN of your Domain.  If not, then you should try using the NetBIOS name instead.  

If you are unsuccessful joining the Member Server to the Domain using the FQDN, you may get error messages similar to the following:

Therefore, you should attempt to join the Domain using the NetBIOS name instead.  If everything is configured correctly, you should be able to join the Member Server to the Domain.

So, what is the main benefit of using Bridged Networking vs. NAT Mode?  Well, if you are setting up multiple VMWare Host Machines that are hosting VMs, you can set up a network across VMWare Hosts just as you would do if you were setting up normal physical machines/workstations on the network!!  This is especially useful if you are a developer and want to test out numerous environments and do not have enough physical memory on a single workstation machine to host multiple VMs needed for that environment configuration. 

For example, if you wanted to set up a SharePoint Farm, you could set up a Domain Controller and a SharePoint Application Server on one VMWare Host and on another VMWare Host, you could create a SharePoint WFE (Web Front End) and a SharePoint Search Server or Office Web Apps Server.  Being able to leverage Bridged Networking allows you to split out your VM environments across as many physical VMWare Hosts as you have available!!

BIOS Screen flashes by too quickly in VMWare Workstation

If you frequently build virtual machines using VMWare Workstation, you may encounter an annoying problem in which the BIOS Screen flashes by or displays too quickly prior to booting or loading into the guest OS.

Well, although the fix is not as easy as point and click, VMWare has documented a suitable workaround rather than using a "hit and miss" strategy to attempt to open the BIOS screen for editing:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16876/how-to-increase-the-vmware-boot-screen-delay/

You basically have to add the line:

bios.bootdelay = "5000" (or any value you choose)

to the VMWare VMX File in order to increase the time before the Guest OS boots into its respective OS.

Optionally, you can also add this setting to the VMX file:

bios.forceSetupOnce = "TRUE"

This VMWare Knowledgebase article used to describe the exact steps, but it seems that the KB article is no longer available and returns with an "Access Denied" error message:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1004129

Windows Machine SIDS DO MATTER!!!

As you may already know, the tool NewSID was retired some time ago because there appeared to be a "myth" that Machine SIDs matter and this no longer matters with more recent releases of Windows.

Sadly, this is not a "myth" at all and for those who think otherwise are greatly mistaken as is evidenced by the Windows OS itself!!!

I heavily use VMWare Virtual Machines for my development and therefore copying and pasting VMs over and over again is a common operation I perform frequently.

As you can probably guess, copying and pasting the same VM over and over again retains the original SID of the VM if you have not performed sysprep on the machine prior to creating the template VM. 

You can verify this for yourself by running the PsGetSid Utility that is part of the SysInternals Suite: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897417.aspx

In any case, I attempted to create one machine as a domain controller and a subsequent VM as a member server.  When I then attempted to join the member server to the domain, I received the following error message:

If you read the article which the link points to: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816099, even though it refers to Windows Server 2003, it definitely indicates that duplicate SIDs cause problems particularly with Active Directory.  Since I was using Windows Server 2012 R2 on both VMs, I assume that this issue still persists even in the latest version of the Windows OS. 

The simple solution to this problem, of course, is simply to run sysprep on the machine (which can be found at C:\Windows\system32\Sysprep\sysprep.exe). 

When you run sysprep, you will want to choose the Generalize option:

Choosing this option will generate a new SID for the machine as well as remove any Windows-specific settings such as Windows Activation status.  Therefore, after running sysprep, you will once again have to activate the virtual machine.

Once the machine has been assigned a new SID, you can successfully add the server as a member server to your Active Directory domain!

Moving vs. Copying VMWare VMs

There seems to be a great deal of confusion regarding what it means to "move" or "copy" VMWare VMs.

When you are copying over Template VMs and you also copy over the corresponding VMX file, you may get a prompt similar to the following:

Well, when you select the option "I Moved It", VMWare essentially keeps all of the information related to the VM including the originally assigned Network MAC Address.

Of course, if you are assigning or managing Network IP Addresses by MAC Address, this can be problematic with IP Address assignment if your actual intention was to use the VM as another copy.

However, if you choose "I Copied It", VMWare will assign a new MAC Address to the Network Adapter, thus avoiding any IP Address conflicts on the network.

This seems to be the only major identifiable change that VMWare makes in regards to the VM by choosing either option.

The Windows Machine SID does not appear to change regardless of the option that is chosen:

In addition, the Windows Activation state also appears to remain intact:

Here are also a few good articles on understanding the differences between the 2:

https://www.vmware.com/support/ws5/doc/ws_move_uuid_moving_virtual_machines.html

http://techhead.co/vmware-esx-i-moved-it-or-i-copied-it-whats-the-difference/


So there you have it!!  Now you know the difference between "Moving" and "Copying" VMWare VMs!!

VMWare Shared Folders not appearing in VMWare Guest Machine

I just recently upgraded to VMWare Workstation v. 11.1.0 and noticed that none of my Shared Folders were appearing from any of my earlier virtual machines!

Even after running the VMWare Tools Upgrader, my Shared Folders were still not appearing even after several reboots of the Guest OS!

I figured this was a problem with the installation of the VMWare Tools and that the new version was not properly upgrading the VMWare Tools on the system nor recognizing earlier versions of the VMWare Tools to cause this behavior.

Therefore, I decided to completely uninstall VMWare Tools from the Guest OS and then re-install them from scratch.

As expected, this resolved the issue with my Shared Folders not appearing and I was once again able to use Shared Folders within my VM!!

Changing the MAC Address of a VMWare Virtual Machine

If you use VMWare Virtual Machines, you may have created a repository of template VMs that you use as a baseline for any other virtual machines that you create.

Of course, one of the problems with copying over existing virtual machines is that they retain the same MAC address as when the VM was first created!

As you can guess, this causes problems on your network if you have multiple VMs that are all providing the same MAC address to your network switches and routers.  This is also particularly problematic if you are assigning static IP addresses on your LAN based on unique MAC Addresses.

In the past, you would use a tool such as VMWare MAC Changer to accomplish this: http://merlinsoftware.com/free.htm

However, this tool is extremely outdated and is no longer necessary.

Instead, you can readily change the MAC address of any of your VMWare Virtual Machine Network Adapters by doing the following:

1. Click on the VM Settings
2. Select your Network Adapter
3. Click on the Advanced button
4. Notice that you can view the MAC Address of your Network Adapter
5. Click on the Generate button to generate a new MAC Address.  Alternatively, you can also manually type in your desired MAC Address.
6. Click on OK to save your changes
7. Make sure you restart your VM to ensure that the new MAC Address is recognized by Windows.
8. Your new MAC Address should now reflect in your VM!
9. If for some reason the new MAC Address is not reflected, you can run the getmac command at the command prompt.  

For some more articles on changing the MAC Address in VMWare Virtual Machines, you can check out these articles:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1008473

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=507

Updated release for VMWare Workstation 11

An update to VMWare Workstation 11 was recently released with some new features and fixes.  You can read the Release Notes here: https://www.vmware.com/support/ws/doc/workstation-111-release-notes.html

To download the latest version of VMWare Workstation, you can go here: https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/info?slug=desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_workstation/11_0

VMWare Workstation 11 now available!

VMWare Workstation 11 was just recently released and it promises to be the best release of VMWare Workstation thus far!!

You can read more about VMWare Workstation 11 here: http://www.vmware.com/products/workstation

You can see how VMWare Workstation 11 compares to older versions of VMWare Workstation here: http://www.vmware.com/products/workstation/compare

VMWare is offering promotional pricing on VMWare Workstation 11 right now that allows you to get it at a 30% discount off of the regular price right now: Buy VMWare Workstation 11

The trust relationship between this workstation and the primary domain failed and VMWare Virtual Machines

I frequently use virtual machines to test out and verify installations and I was testing out an installation of SharePoint which did not work correctly, so consequently, I restored to a previous snapshot.

Unfortunately, after I rebooted the machine, I received the following error message:

Uh oh!!

In the past, I have had to log in locally to the machine and remove the computer from the domain and re-join it to the domain.

Well, thanks to these articles, however, I was able to avoid doing just that: http://implbits.com/About/Blog/tabid/78/post/don-t-rejoin-to-fix-the-trust-relationship-between-this-workstation-and-the-primary-domain-failed/Default.aspx
http://blog.blksthl.com/2013/03/18/fix-the-trust-relationship-between-this-workstation-and-the-primary-domain-failed/

Since I was running Windows Server 2012 R2, I decided to run the PowerShell script to resolve my issue:

Clear-Host

#Syntax for the command is Reset-ComputerMachinePassword -Credential [domain name\domain account] -Server [domain controller server name]

Reset-ComputerMachinePassword -Credential spfarm\administrator -Server spfarmdc

After a reboot of the server, the issue was resolved and I was up and running again!

Therefore, if restoring a VMWare Snapshot triggers this issue for you, now you know how to solve it!

VMWare Workstation 10.02 now available!

VMWare Workstation 10.02 is now available for download!  https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/details?downloadGroup=WKST-1002-WIN&productId=362&rPId=5403

It has been nearly 6 months since the last release of VMWare Workstation, so this is a welcome release since it now brings official support for Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2.

You can read the Release Notes for this release here: https://www.vmware.com/support/ws10/doc/workstation-1002-release-notes.html