Netagear ReadyNAS, NFS datastore, VMware VSphere ESXi and VCenter

How to create an NFS volume to be used as a datastore for VMware environment with a NetGear Ready NAS

Login to the Netgear Ready NAS as the admin
Under Settings – Enable NFS
Create a Share - and name it
Then select the Settings of the Share
Select Network Access select NFS- check off read/write
                Note: You can also limit the host by IP that can have access to this share
File Access - check off read/write
Make sure that you note the volume name. You will need this when you are entering the folder name in the NFS mount process. Note the volume name may differ depending on the version of your Netgear ReadyNAS firmware version, etc. in this example it is Data

Open VCenter VSphere client or VSphere Web Client to create a new datastore for your VMware environment. Make sure that include the volume name and the folder share name when you are entering the folder name in the VMware NFS datastore mount process. The key point is to use the proper syntax for the folder name when you are putting in the information for the folder name In my example I used /Data/VMs

Note: Caps and correct spelling really, really count and of course the correct syntax as you see above J

For Server you can enter an IP address or the FQDN

Type in a name for the VMware datastore name

How to change SID on a Windows Server 2016

Open Powershell as Administrator and type Whoami /all

Get the SID information and record it somewhere

Run C:\windows\system32\sysprep\Sysprep.exe

This will bring up the System Preparation Tool (sysprep)

Select Enter System Out of Box Experience (OOBE) and Select Generalize 

Reboot the Server

Open Powershell as Administrator and type Whoami /all

Verify that the SID changed from the one that you recorded earlier

Change the Static IP or DHCP /release if applicable
DHCP /renew if applicable

Change the computer name if applicable and Reboot

WIndows Server 2016 VMTools installaiton with VSphere 5.5 host

How to get the VMTools properly installed on W2K16 Server running onVSphere.5.5
First of all yes I know that VSphere 5.5. is not officially supported anymore. However, for lab purposes I often have to do what I have to do :-) to do my testing. I am also aware that this may be old news but as I run into new scenarios I like to post a simple fix if I can.
When you install the new Windows 2016 VM you will have to choose Windows 2012 (64bit) as your operating system. Note: You do not have a choice to select 2016 as the server OS>
VCenter will show that the VMTools are not running on your Windows 2016 server however, you have already installed them -What to do?
No worries it is a simple thing-
Uninstall VMTools and Reboot the Windows 2016 Server
Install the VMTools as Administrator another words right-click on the VMTools setup64.exe and select Administrator and then reboot the Windows 2016 server. VCenter will now display that the VMTools are running on the Windows 2016 server- Success!.

VMRC console has disconnected attempting to reconnect

I received this error below today while attempting to open the Console of a VM with VMware VSphere 5.5 Client.

The VMRC console has disconnected attempting to reconnect

I have seen this issue before so I decided to post the resolution this time.
Close all of the VMware vSphere Clients that you have running on your machine. Then open Task Manager and make sure all processes with the vmware-vmrc.exe and vpxclient.exe are not running. If they close all of those processes. Note: you may have several of these tasks running. In my case I was using the VCenter server as my client and it had several clients open in the background that was causing my issue.

One more thing if all fails above you may also need to reboot the machine you are using as a client.

Windows Server 2016 the Domain Administrator no permissions however, the Local Admin does

I tried to personalize the W2K16 Server desktop by adding desktop icons and I get something like the the error messages below. Sorry no screen shot :-)
C:\Windows\system32\rundll32.exe
Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item.
Note: This does not happen if you login as the local admin. However, if you login as the Domain Admin which is of course a local admin you still get the permissions error.The server was already joined to the domain.

This issue is by design of Windows Server 2016. I knew it was related to server W2K16 so I tracked it down with the help of this article:
https://www.windows-security.org/95e7dc697029b38b45ac53f7efef3935/user-account-control-admin-approval-mode-for-the-built-in


How to fix this issue:
On the Windows 2016 Server open the GPMC, Computer Configuration, Windows Settings, Security Settings, Local Policies,  Security Options, then enable User Account Control: Admin Approval Mode for the Built-in Administrator account
Reboot the server and all is well...

ADprep Conflict Promoting a Windows 2012 R2 DC Server to a Windows 2008 R2 Domain

It has been quite a while since I last posted anything. So this one was such pain to track down I decided to post it and hopefully it helps somebody save some time and lots of aggravation!

I ran into this prerequisites check error below while promoting a Windows 2012 R2 DC Server to a Windows 2008 R2 Domain

The issue is related to WMI on the existing 2008 R2 DC where the WMI class objects are invalid.

Note: If you run adprep /forest prep from a command line you will also see this error Microsoft WMI Invalid Class Error [0x80041010

Note: I also tried running adprep /forestprep from a command line on the Windows 2008 R2 DC itself and it still failed 
 

After many frustrating hours of researching and trying all types of things I ran across this post which led me in the correct direction https://www.virtuallyboring.com/microsoft-wmi-invalid-class-error-0x80041010/

Note: I run everything from an elevated Windows Command line just in case

Run the Winmgmt.msc and select properties which will display if there are any issues with the WMI classes

 

If the WMI has an invalid class as seen above then download the Microsoft WMIDiag tool https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=7684

Extract it and Right click on the WMIDiag VBScript and select Open with Command Prompt

The script can run for a while and will eventually produce a text file. The text file will most likely identify a number of issues with .MOF extensions.

To resolve these issues

cd c:\Windows\Syetm32\wbem

An then run this command below:   

dir /b *.mof *.mfl | findstr /v /i uninstall > moflist.txt & for /F %s in (moflist.txt) do mofcomp %s

Run the Winmgmt.msc and select properties which will display if there are any issues with the WMI classes and you should now see something like this below

You can now go back and re-run the DC promotion process on the Windows 2012 R2 server

Continue with the DC promotion process and Reboot when required, etc.