One of the lads in support messaged me this week, he needed to raise the size of the hard drive on a VM, and the option was greyed out (not available).
Solution
Now assuming you actually have the rights to do this, the problem is ‘nearly always‘ that the ‘disk’ in question has an active snapshot on it. Remove your snapshots first.
Now you can raise the size.
Don’t forget: In your OS you will then need to increase the volume size to accommodate the additional space!
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I was trying to hot add some memory to a VM the other day, and found the option grayed out. Normally I’d just down the VM, add the memory, then bring it back up. But it was a production server and I was pretty sure the OS supported it.
A quick Google search told me why it was grayed out, but it also transpired there was little to no information on what version of Windows hot add and hot plug would work with.
Solution
I’m not going to argue the semantics of the differences between “hot add” and “hot plug”, if I’m taking about hot add I’m talking about memory, if I’m talking about hot plug I’m talking about adding CPUs. You also need to be aware that to date Few OS’s support hot remove or hot unplug. If you try you will see the following;
vSphere version 6 or 6.5 (Hot Unplug )
It simply wont let you lower the value;
Note: With a Supported O,S (i.e. Server 2016 and 2019) you CAN hot remove CPU.
vSphere version 5.0 or 5.5
Hot Add Memory/ CPU in vSphere 6 & 6.5
As with earlier version of vSphere, to enable hot plug or hot remove, the machine has to be shut down. Then the option can be enabled. Select the VM > Edit Settings.
CPU: Virtual Hardware > CPU > Tick ‘Enable CPU Hot Add’ > Save.
Hot Plug, Hot Add in the vSphere HTML5 Client
Hot Add Memory/ CPU in vSphere 5 & 5.5
As for memory and CPU settings you will probably see what I was seeing. Both the options are not changeable.
2. Sorry but to enable this feature you need to power off the client machine, then when you edit its settings > Options > Advanced > Memory/CPU_Hotplug > You can enable hot add and hot plug > OK . Power the VM back on again.
3. Now you will see you have the option to hot add memory and hot plug CPUs.
What Operating Systems support this?
Like I said above, I did some testing because information is thin on the ground, this is what I was actually able to make work.
With 2008 R2 Standard
1. As you can tell from the table memory hot add will work but to add a CPU will need a reboot. Before I started I had 2 CPUs and 4GB of memory.
2. Lets add more memory and CPUs.
3. For all machines I tested there was a lag, sometimes as little as 3-5 seconds, other times as long as 15-20 seconds, during this time you will see some processor and memory usage spikes. But as shown the memory eventually becomes available.
4. Post reboot, your extra CPUs will appear.
With 2008 R2 Enterprise and Datacenter
1. Note I’m using Datacenter here, but Enterprise is the same. I increased the memory from 4 to 5 GB, And added a further 3 CPUs.
2. It does work, you simply need to restart the “Task Manager” to reflect the increased CPU count.
3. Finished.
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Windows Server 2008 R2 and 2012 are a lot better with printing support over remote desktop, that their predecessors were. But to be able to print to your remote users ‘local’ machines. The TS/RDP server still likes to have the correct drivers installed.
What about Easy Print?
Easy Print (Introduced with Server 2008 R2) is a ‘proxy’ service that simply sends all print processes to the remote machine rather than the server itself, thus negating the need for a driver. That’s great! Unless your remote home users still have Windows XP or Vista (Pre SP1).
Solution
1. Before troubleshooting, make sure the printer actually works on the client machine, you don’t want to spend an hour trying to get it working when it’s actually out of paper or not turned on, (sorry but users are ‘challenging’).
2. Download the Drivers to the Remote Desktop Server. MAKE SURE if your clients are a mix of x86 and x64 bit versions of Windows you need to download BOTH versions of the driver.
Note: Download x86 and x64 bit versions of the SAME driver, i.e. Try and install an x86 PCL6 driver and an x64 bit PCL5 Driver and you may get an error.
Note 2: With some older printers, you can save a lot of time by simply plugging them into the server and letting Windows Update do the hard work for you. You might think that this is ‘time/cost prohibitive’. But I once spent an afternoon trying to get an HP multifunction printer to work that was worth about £60. The remote client was 45 minutes away, by the time I was finished the cost was greater than replacing this printer with 6 or 7 new ones that would have worked out of the box!
3. You can simply install the printer on the Server if you wish, then delete the printer and the drivers will remain, though the correct way is to add the drivers via the servers ‘Print Server Properties’.
Server 2000 / 2003
Start > Run > control printers {Enter}.
Server 2012/2008 R2
Windows Key+R > control printers {Enter}.
Note: Print server properties is not visible until you select a printer.
4. Repeat the process to add additional driers for the CPU architecture of your remote clients (x86, x64, etc).
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Before Server 2008 R2 when we needed to inject drivers into our WDS images we had to do it like this.
Now however the process is a lot more elegant! Simply import the drivers into WDS, then inject them into the boot images (Yes the boot images NOT the Windows Images you are deploying!)
Solution
Add Driver Packages to Image is “Greyed out”
If while attempting to add drivers, the option to “Add Driver Packages to Image” is grayed out.
Then you may need to update your boot images from Server 2008/Vista images to 2008 R2/Windows 7 Images. (or from version 6.0.6000 to 6.1.7600).
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