With Windows 7 comes many new changes...

Windows 7 has many changes that affect the way you may have worked with XP and or Vista. Below is a small list of some the things I need and use on a daily basis that I had to add to W7.

1. Where is the Run command?
Right Click on the Windows 7 Start Menu and click on Properties
Check mark the Run Command and hit Apply
2. Where is the Recent items?
Follow the steps for #1 above and check mark Recent Items
3. Where are the Admin Tools?
Follow the steps for #1 above and check mark
4. How to add Telnet? This is pretty much the same way as it is with Vista with a bit of a twist.
Go to Control Panel, then select Programs, then Select turn Windows Features On or Off, then check mark Telnet Client and then select OK.

WIndows 7 as a VM on ESX 3.5

When installing Windows 7 on ESX 3.5 you do not have a choice for your VM to install Windows 7

Use 2GB minimum RAM for the Windows 7 VM
Choose Windows Vista 64 bit as the operating system choice
Once you install the operating system make sure to install the VMTools and reboot. This will install the VMTools for Vista which works fine for Windows 7.

Issues with Remote Web Workplace "RWW" and IE7

When you first access Remote Web Workplace "RWW"you will need to install an Active X component. Some browsers have an issue with RWW. The error that you may be prompted with is seen below. The issue is that after you install the component you shoudl be on your way. However that is not true.
"This portion of the Remote Web Workplace requires the MicrosoftRemote Desktop ActiveX Control. Your browser's security settings maybe preventing you from downloading ActiveX controls. Adjust thesesettings and try to connect again."

IE7 seems to install the Active X component but when you try to access RWW again you are again prompted that you need to install the component.
The fix after struggling for an hour is the follwoing:
Internet Options, Advanced Tab and click RESET, the problem goes away. This solves the problem of RWW access and IE7.

IE6 did not seem to have any issues, the component is added with no issues and you are on your way. I also have not tried IE8 or Firefox as of yet.
Another note: Safari canot be used with RWW since it requires an Active X component and that is for IE.

Also make sure that Port 4125 is open on your firewall and it is deirected to the SBS Server.

SMB and ESX on a not so low budget Part II (dos) continued...

SMB and ESX on a not so low budget Part II (dos) continued
As mentioned earlier in Part I. The scenario is an SMB customer, 10 old Dell physical servers that need to be retired and a small budget for upgrades. The challenges are to keep the costs down and still provide the same or better performance that was in place with the physical environment. Well …it has been 9 months since my customer has Phase I of their VMware environment in place. The other thing is we have an OK for some shared storage and we have a budget this time for a SAN and VMware!

New Requirements
In addition to the earlier challenges the customer would like high availability for the production environment. They are also adding a DR site and want the ability to recover the VM’s and data at the DR site. The customer has also added a couple of additional VM’s and may add more VM’s in the future. Therefore, the existing hardware has been upgraded a bit. They are also taking on a Symantec Enterprise Vault project for Email and File System archiving which requires additional storage.

Production Site Hardware and Software
Using the same 2- Dell 1950 III servers each upgraded to 24GB RAM, 6 NICS, 2 Intel Xeon 2Ghz Dual Core Procs and 2-250GB SATA drives configured as RAID1
Dedicated NIC’s for redundant iSCSI traffic
1 -EMC AX4-5I iSCSI SAN with SAS drives
Real-time Block-Level Replication of SAN data between the production and the DR sites
The 2 hosts are now running VMware VSphere ESX4 Essentials Plus bundle which includes High Availability “HA” which also lets us leverage the iSCSI SAN for storage of VM's. The bundle includes 3 hosts licenses and 1 license of VCenter.
Total 14 VM’s
2 Citrix XenApp Servers
2 Domain Controllers
1 WSUS Server
1 Application Server running a financial application hosted by the XenApp servers
1 MS SQL Database Server for Vault
2 Enterprise Vault Servers
1 Exchange OWA Server
1 Blackberry Enterprise Server
1 VCenter Server
1 Web Server
1 Websense Server on the “DMZ”
2 Gigabit Switches dedicated for redundant iSCSI traffic
The Iomega NAS StoreCenter ix2 was kept for ISO’s and other misc. data

DR Site Hardware and Software
3 Dell 2650’s for DR Hosts
ESX3i
EMC AX4-5I iSCSI SAN with SATA drives
1 Gigabit Switch

Backups
Since the customer utilizes Symantec Backup Exec for backups they purchased the VMware Infrastructure Agent for Backup Exec. The agent allows you to leverage VCB and backup live VM’s. The VM’s are replicated to the DR site and are backed up to a local NAS device at the production site.

How to download and purchase VMware VSphere ESX4 Essentials bundle
http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/datacenter_downloads/vmware_vsphere_4/4
http://www.vmware.com/vmwarestore/smb-solutions-server.html

For more information on EMC Clarion AX4
http://www.emc.com/products/detail/hardware/clariion-ax4.htm

Comparison of the top 3 Server hypervisors

For a nice article comparing the top 3 Server hypervisors
VMware's ESX 3.5, Microsoft's Hyper-V and Citrix's XenServer
Dated: 3/02/2009
http://virtualizationreview.com/Articles/2009/03/02/Lab-Experiment-Hypervisors.aspx?Page=1

How to Remote Control a PC from a Mac

How to Remote Control a PC from a Mac
Download and Install on your Mac
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/remote-desktop/default.mspx

Once installed simply put in the name or the IP of the Windows machine and click connect

How to run Windows PC inside of a Mac

How to run Windows PC inside of a Mac - No need to use Apple's BootCamp and no need to reboot
Tested with Mac OSX version 10.5.8 and XP Professional SP3

VMware Fusion for the Mac. Download and install a 30 day eval http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/desktop_downloads/vmware_fusion_for_the_mac/3_0
Make sure you install the VMware Tools after installing the OS

Also download and intsall a trial of Parallels Desktop for the Mac
http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/

I have used both of these ppay for products in the past and present. They both work excellent!

I have not tried these free products yet however, they look very interesting...
Virtual Box 3.1.10
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/24801
Q Emulator
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/20830/q-emulator

How to Remote Control a Macintosh from a Windows PC

How to Remote Control a Macintosh from a Windows PC
Tested with Mac OS X version 10.5.8 and Windows Vista SP1. This should also work with XP.
From the Mac
1. Click on Apple icon on the top left of your screen and select System Preferences
2. Select Sharing
3. Click on the check box Remote Management
4. Click on the Computer Settings button
5. Check VNC viewers may control screen with password. Enter a password and note it.
6. Type in your Mac password in the Authentication dialog box that pops up on your screen. This will allow System Preferences to set the password for VNC users.
7. Note the IP address of the Mac
From the PC
8. Download and install TightVNC on your Windows PC. Only the TightVNC Viewer is necessary. http://www.tightvnc.com/download.html
9. Now Run TightVNC from your Windows PC
10. Enter the Mac IP Address that you noted earlier and select OK
11. Enter the VNC Mac’s password that you set up earlier
12. You should now see the Mac desktop
Done!