vSphere – The ‘VMware VirtualCenter Service’ will not start
KB ID 0000526 Problem I tried to logon to my vCenter this afternoon (Server 2008 R2) and could not get on, I connected to the server to find it was up but the “VMware VirtualCenter Server” service was not running. So I tried to start it and got the following error, Error: Windows could not start the VMware VirtualCenter Server on Local Computer. For more information, review the System Event Log. If this is a non-Microsoft...
vSphere 5 – Install and Configure the Web Client
KB ID 0000551 Problem The ability to administer vCenter via a web browser is nothing new, vCenter has had a web console in previous versions. vCenter vSphere 4 Web Client (Web Access) The version with vSphere 5 is much more feature rich. Like the VMware vSphere client it talks directly to the vCenter vSphere API, but unlike previous web access, the component needs to be installed and configured before you can use it. What the Web...
VMware ESXi – Converting ‘Thick’ Provisioned Drives to ‘Thin’, and ‘Thin’ to ‘Thick’
KB ID 0000579 Problem Thin provisioning of hard drives is pretty cool stuff, full support for thin provisioning was brought in with vSphere version 4. Put simply a thin proviosioned drive is as big as it needs to be, and a thick provisioned drive is set to its maximum size when it’s created. The virtual machines that use these hard drives don’t know, and assume that their hard drive is a set size (even if it is thin...
VMware ESXi 5 – Applying Patches and Updates
(ESXi 5 Update 1 and Patches) KB ID 0000623 Problem When VMware released ESX 4.1, they took away the “Host update utility”, (which was a mistake!). For people without VMware Update Manager, you now have to either put in the CD/DVD and do an ‘in place upgrade’, or grow a ginger pony tail and put some socks/sandals on and do some Linux. Below I’ve got a build of ESX with no updates on it, I’m going to...
VMware VI Client – Remove Cached IP addresses and Hostnames
KB ID 0000644 Problem If you connect to a lot of ESX, ESXi and vCenter machines, the drop down list in your VI client can get a little cluttered. Solution 1. Start > Run > Regedit {enter} 2. Navigate to; HKEY_CURRENT_CURRENT_USERSoftwareVMwareVMware Infrastructure ClientPreferences Locate the ‘RecentConnections’ string value, and either delete them all, (or just the ones you no longer need). 3. Now things will be a...