27 May 2014
By Yendis

Static IP address assignment in Windows Azure

Microsoft, ,
Have you ever wondered how to set a Static IP address on a VM in Windows Azure especially when deploying a domain controller?  Well up to recently the only way of possibly achieving this was to  create different virtual subnets for different groups of VMs to try and control the IP address the VM would be given from Windows Azure - I must admit this was a clunky way of doing this but was the only way recommended by Microsoft Support. Now things have just got better with the introduction of Windows Azure PowerShell 0.7.3.1 (or Later) you can now do this. By using PowerShell…
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20 May 2014
By Yendis

Windows 8.1 Bitlocker Drive Encryption

Microsoft, , ,
I have recently updated my laptop from Windows 7 Pro to Windows 8.1 Pro and previously used TrueCrypt to encrypt my laptop drive but on this occasion I thought I'd give Bitlocker a try instead as this is now available with the Windows 8.1 Pro version.  Normally you would use Bitlocker with TPM (Trusted Platform Module) but I didn't have TPM installed in my laptop but I still wanted to use it.  As I discovered there is a way around this by using either a PIN or USB drive as a pre-authentication method.  I also discovered that the default encryption algorithm used is…
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22 Apr 2014
By Yendis

Windows XP client and Windows server 2012 R2

Microsoft, ,
If you are still running a combination of Windows XP and Windows 7 client machines you may come across an issue when introducing your first Windows 2012 R2 Domain Controller server into your environment that your Windows XP clients no longer run login scripts.  The problem is to do with the versions of SMB which is supported between client and server communication which can cause issues with connecting to shares via UNC or executing login scripts on the DC. The following image will give you an idea of the versions of SMB between different clients and server. As you can see Windows XP…
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20 Apr 2014
By Yendis

SCCM 2012 Client install on Xendesktop Image

Citrix, Microsoft, ,
I was having an online discussion with a friend this week about the correct way of installing the Microsoft SCCM 2012 client on a Xendesktop (MCS) golden image.  After doing some research there are conflicting actions with some blogs saying  "install it and that's it",  whilst others saying you must perform some additional work before closing  your image. I was intrigued to find the answer to this debate.  So I decided to test this in my Xendesktop lab myself so I decided to install SCCM 2012. To cut a long story short what I did notice was that if you deployed desktops after just installing the client you would start to get issues with "Bad MIF"…
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17 Apr 2014
By Yendis

Installing Xenserver 6.2 on VMware Workstation

Citrix, ,
This post will guide you through installing Citrix Xenserver 6.2 on VMware Workstation 10.  The guide will consist of 3 sections:- Create the Virtual Machine Installing Xenserver 6.2 Managing server with Xencenter 1 - Create the Virtual Machine First we create a VM clicking on the 'Home tab' and selecting 'Create a new virtual machine'  We then make sure the 'Typical' is selected (more…)
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05 Apr 2014
By Yendis

Webcams not enumerated in Xendesktop Session

Citrix, , ,
I have come across an issue recently whereby certain webcams are not enumerated correctly in a Xendesktop session. The issue appears to be with certain webcams and there lack of support for switching to the default resolution of 352 x 288. By modifying a certain key within the registry you can fixed the setting to a more common resolution ie 320 x 240. The registry key in question is the HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareCitrixHDXRealTime you will need to create the following values:- Name: DefaultWidth Type: REG_DWORD Data: 320 (decimal) Name:DefaultHeight Type: REG_DWORD Data: 240 (decimal) Once this is added you should see that…
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02 Apr 2014
By Yendis

AWARDED VMWARE VEXPERT 2014 STATUS

VMware,
It’s that time of year when VMware review individuals who have demonstrated significant contributions to the community and a willingness to share their expertise with others  and award the vExpert staus. I am honoured to have been selected again for the vExpert 2014 . You can find the full VMware blog post with all 754 of us worldwide here. I look forward to continuing to participate in the community, and expand my audience reach and perhaps make it through to the vExpert 2015 awards.
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31 Mar 2014
By Yendis

Multiple Launch Prevention in Citrix Receiver for Web

Citrix, , ,
One of the frequently asked questions for Receiver for Web is multiple launch prevention. This is supported in Receiver for Web. When you click on an application or desktop icon to launch it, a spinner is displayed and any clicks on the same icon are ignored while the spinner is spinning. Hence user cannot unintentionally launch multiple instances of the same application/desktop. Out of the box, the time period for the spinner is fixed for three seconds. In StoreFront 2.5, this can be modified by a simple customization. Just insert the following code snippet into custom.script.js in the contrib folder under…
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25 Feb 2014
By Yendis

Vote For The Best Virtualization Blogs at vSphere-Land.com

VMware
Every year Eric Siebert creates a list of all the great virtualisation blogs that are created and constantly updated.  This event allows the community to vote for the best blogs out there.  As you can imagine running one of these blogs takes time and plenty of effort to make sure the content is relevant. So now that you've arrived at my site and reading this blog post  why not vote for me using the link below. Please note:-  I am currently rebranding my website so you will need to vote for "Infotech Consulting Blog (Yendis Lambert)" Thanks for voting :-)
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25 Feb 2014
By Yendis

RVTools 3.6 released

Tools,
This tool has helped me find inconsistencies in environments and misconfigured VMs etc on more than one occasion. What’s new for RVTools 3.6? New tabpage with cluster information New tabpage with multipath information On vInfo tabpage new fields HA Isolation response and HA restart priority On vInfo tabpage new fields Cluster affinity rule information On vInfo tabpage new fields connection state and suspend time On vInfo tabpage new field The vSphere HA protection state for a virtual machine (DAS Protection) On vInfo tabpage new field quest state. On vCPU tabpage new fields Hot Add and Hot Remove information On vCPU tabpage cpu/socket/cores…
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