VMware Workstation 6 on Vista

Ran into a “bug” with VMware Workstation 6 when running on Vista. Or, at least I thought it was a bug. When trying change the amount of system RAM that VMware as a whole can use (Edit – Preferences – Memory), or trying to change the memory swapping preferences on the same tab, VMware happily accepts your settings as you click OK. The problem is, the settings don’t change. Make the change, click OK, go back in – no change. Couldn’t find anything out on the net or VMware’s knowledge base.

After much agonizing, a light bulb went on over my head. User Account Control. When I modify my VMware shortcut to run as administrator, and accept the UAC prompt when launching, everything works fine. I know I had “run as administrator” turned on for VMware Workstation 5.5, but I must not have set it up after upgrading to Workstation 6.

Configuring TCP/IP from the Command Line

In order to configure TCP/IP settings such as the IP address, Subnet Mask, Default Gateway, DNS and WINS addresses and many other options you can use Netsh.exe.

Netsh.exe is a command-line scripting utility that allows you to, either locally or remotely, display or modify the network configuration of a computer that is currently running. Netsh.exe also provides a scripting feature that allows you to run a group of commands in batch mode against a specified computer. Netsh.exe can also save a configuration script in a text file for archival purposes or to help you configure other servers.

Netsh.exe is available on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008

http://www.petri.co.il/configure_tcp_ip_from_cmd.htm

Exporting Groupwise & NDS Information

I have had several instances where I needed a dump of information from ConsoleOne, but didn't know how. Now someone pointed me to the GroupWise 6 Import/Export Utility for ConsoleOne.

From Novell:

The Novell GroupWise 6 Import/Export utility is an add-on to ConsoleOne that enables you to transfer GroupWise information into and out of NDS.

The GroupWise Export utility reads NDS and GroupWise object information from NDS and creates an ASCII delimited text file containing the object attributes.

The GroupWise Import utility reads an ASCII-delimited text file created by the GroupWise Export utility or by a third-party export, and creates NDS and GroupWise objects with attributes from the file. The Import utility supports most NDS classes (including extensions) and GroupWise classes.

Read more about it and get the add-in here.

Freeware Hard Drive Wipe

I am trying to phase out my older lab PCs in favor of VMs, so I went looking for a utility to completly wipe the hard drives in them. I thought I would be able to easily find a bootable ISO that would do this, since most of the computers have no floppy drives and the ones that do usually don't work anymore. Apparently there are some paid/shareware utilities out there for this, but I wanted something freeware.

So I found a bootable ISO that does nothing but boot (from www.bootdisk.com) and a freeware application to wipe the drive (from Dr. Gordon F. Hughes at UCSD). Put the two together with a little ISO manipulation with WinISO and there you go, one freeware drive wiping utility on a bootable CD.

SharePoint Woes

Before you read this and think "He's an idiot!", understand that I am not a SharePoint guru. You are still free to think I am an idiot for any other reason.

I have been attempting to move a SharePoint Services 2.0 site from one server to another. What a pain. The site is small and was set up for my daughter's girl scout troop. I wonder if they are the only ones with a SharePoint site...

Anyway, I have been a good boy and have backed up the site nightly using stsadm.exe from a script. However, I find out now that an stsdm.exe backup is only usable on the server it was made on. So, you have to restore the System State and the STS_Config database before you can restore your site. stsadm.exe is a great tool, just not useful in the scenario I found myself. I am more likely to need to restore a site to an alternate server than I am to fully restore a downed SharePoint server. I just found out about the smigrate.exe tool which is meant for moving a site from server to server, but can also serve as a backup utility.

In my case, I am trying to move a top-level site. You must have the new site/virtual server created and extended before doing the restore with smigrate.exe, which was another battle for me thanks to my earlier failed restoration attempts. Recovery entailed uninstalling SharePoint Services and MSDE and then re-installing. Probably overkill, but it worked.

Finally, after all of that, I was able to use smigrate.exe to restore the site to the new server. One small problem. The site user accounts did not come across, only the site owner I assigned when extending the new virtual server. OK, so it's a big problem. For my site I will simply be re-adding them since there are only a dozen or so, but I still need to figure out how to backup and restore them in the same process. Now it's time to update my ISA publishing rules and my backup script to use smigrate.exe.

Here's a nice KB article on the use of stsadm.exe:

KB889236: Supported scenarios for using the Stsadm.exe command-line tool to back up and to restore Windows SharePoint Services Web sites and personal sites in SharePoint Portal Server 2003

Maybe next time I'll read the Administrator's Guide for Windows SharePoint Services first.

Live and learn.

Always open with a joke...

According to a new study, 99% of women say they don't like men who wear leather pants. Which works out perfectly, since 100% of men who wear leather pants don't like women.

- Conan O'Brien