quick post: windows vista + vlk editions

for all you system admins out there wondering why your copy of vista didnt ask for a key:

you need to add the key via my computer->properties -> license and add your vlk key.

as to why this was done, i dont know, but its nicely hidden. 

Extending a VMware Disk part II

so you've extended your virtual "Physical" disk and now what? you have all this empty space.

you need to extend the existing volume to the new one.

there are serveral partitioning programs out there such as Gparted that work (ensure you have version 3.1.1 as newer versions dont load vmware images. who broke this?), but mirosoft (if using a windows server) also have a solution already prebuild.

its called diskpart.exe, and it may be your new best friend.

basically, open up a command prompt and do the following

At a command prompt, type diskpart.exe.
2.	Type list volume to display the existing volumes on the computer.
3.	Type Select volume volume number where volume number is number of the volume that you want to extend.
4.	Type extend [size=n] [disk=n] [noerr] . The following describes the parameters: size=n The space, in megabytes (MB), to add to the current partition. If you do not specify a size, the disk is extended to take up all of the next contiguous unallocated space. disk=n The dynamic disk on which to extend the volume. Space equal to size=n is allocated on the disk. If no disk is specified, the volume is extended on the current disk. noerr For scripting only. When an error is thrown, this parameter specifies that Diskpart continue to process commands as if the error did not occur. Without the noerr parameter, an error causes Diskpart to quit with an error code.
5.	Type exit to quit Diskpart.exe.

this is from the kb article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/325590 , but i have used it and it DOES work.

the only time this will not work is if the volume you are trying to extend contains the pagefile.sys file. if it contains this file, it wont allow you to extend the volume.

Vmware Server - How to grow a existing disk (solution!)

hey all,

i came across a solution for a problem that is becoming more and more common. virtual disks in vmware.. how the hell do you expand a existing disk?

the solution, is quite easy.

open up command prompt and navigate to your vmware workstation or server directory. from there run the command

vmware-vdiskmanager -x 20Gb

where -x specifies a resize, and 20gb is an example size, followed by
d:\VM Folder\vmdiskfile.vmdk

so a full path will look like

"
C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmware-vdiskmanager -x 20Gb "d:\VM Folder\vmdiskfile.vmdk"


it doesnt take long either!

also note a vmware defrag might be a good idea before you do this for the obvious reasons.

Mobile Carrier change.. time for a new mobile.

hey all,

not quite sure how many people read this blog let alone gain anything from it, but regardless i will continue!

my mobile contract is up next month and its time to move on from the sony ericsson k750i and its disaster of a control scheme, and also a time to move away from optus and one of their first cap plans (it was a $79 cap, for $450 worth of calls, ex gst. no sms included, no 1300 1800 numbers included.. internet was extra.. great hey)

so i gave optus a call to find out how much it would be to change carrier etc.. it's $8 for a cancellation, but they credit you back for the next month. given the service i was provided from the accounts department, i thought i would see if i could stick to optus.

my goal was simple. a good techy phone, on a cap that will give me a realistic amount of $300 of calls... and data. now data in australia is pretty bad rate wise from what i hear, compared to the asian countries or even europe.

first of all, i knew to dodge telstra like a hot coal. i have worked for a IT company under the telstra organization and the only time their plans even came close to a smaller provider like vodaphone or 3 was when it was on a staff discount plan, and even then it was still more expensive.

i've been happy with optus and their service for the entire duration of my old plan, so i thought i would give them a go. and this is where it got interesting.

i want a pda. i've seen the nokia n95 and yes while it has some nice features, it is not a smart phone and imo the symbian O/S still has a long way to go. i'm avoid Sony Ericcson like the plague, as their joystick scheme has f**ked up my navigation on my mobile for about a year and there is no way i am becoming dependant on a bad scheme again. so i decided to go down the dopod/htc path, and two phones have struck me. optus have the HTC touch, the "competitor" to the iphone, aparently. great!

...


and then i looked harder. only available for their business plans.

strike.one.

not to worry.. lets go with it anyway and see how much it is a month.. $50 extra ontop of whatever plan, even though i could go on ebay and buy one for $550 outright unlocked. fuck that.

ok lets look at the optus plans i said to myself. same deal as before, except sms etc is all included now (thank god). their flagfall seems the same as it was, i think it was like 35c per call and then 30c after. not too bad, so i took it into concideration.

now if you've been reading this from the start you know i wanted data. 3G data from optus is $12 base for 5 meg... $2 a meg.

ok.. time to look elsewhere.

so i've tried 3. ok.. $49 cap, $300 worth of everything excluding data. sounds good. cheaper flagfall of 25c and 20c after that. so its already cheaper..

i had a gander at the phones, and it is a smaller more exclusive list. the htc p3600i is the best htc they have, no touch, which is a shame, but the p3600i still gets some good reviews from cnet asia etc, so i'll go with it.

now this is where it gets interesting. for $12 on top of those things, i get 100mb (!) of data.

so a smaller provider, is actually providing a much cheaper service. it gets me a little skeptical but reading up on their websites, 3 seem to have a pretty good range in victoria and a pretty decent speed, which was upto telstra's 3g network as of this month (but i know for a fact telstra today announced the new 6mb down/1.3 mb up 3g speed for telstra users)


so in summary, it seems i am going to be going to 3 from optus, just because of the data plan. i dont really understand how a smaller carrier can have such a cheaper rate than a multi-country company.

my plan ends next month, once i have the phone i'll do a review of it and also WM6. hopefully it is better than the abomination that names itself WM5.

i have had nothing but trouble with WM5 as a system administrator. hopefully wm6 is a lot better..

and my next question is.. should i wait for an iPhone, being a mac user at home?

well, the mac user side of my brain says i should for compatability and usability reason.

the techy side of my brain, which has exposure to windows, linux and mac.. says no. why?

3rd party apps have been blocked by apple. for me, who would love to ssh into his web server and administer it on a day off instead of having to come into the office, this is the breaking point.

if the iPhone wasnt as locked down as it has been, i would definately have waited.

maybe gen2, hey?

Windows Sharepoint WSS Log error!

So aparently Hotfix "http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3BEN-US%3B841216" from microsoft tells us that a upgrade from sharepoint 2 to sharepoint 3 will lead to this error.

but there is something else you also need to concider when getting these errors:

Exception from HRESULT: 0x80040E14
Operation aborted (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80004004 (E_ABORT)

Before even getting into Command line like microsoft recommend, have you tried checking disk space and whether the allocated space to your transcation logs in mssql have been cleared? if not, i would suggest doing it, as this is much easer than the fix microsoft recommends.

to do this, open up Mssql's admin console, goto the database, right click, shrink and choose files. choose the log file, ensure you have enough space to shrink it, and click ok.

so what happens if you dont have enough space? well first, check you have up-to-date backups. from there. if you do, go into the properties of the database and change the type of logs from "Full" to "basic". Now go back and shrink the log file again. this will reduce the file greatly. if you depend on mssql log files to backup your data as opposed to 3rd party products like backup exec or livestate system recovery, you should go back to the log file options and set it back to full.

while there is a lot of text explaining what to do, essentially all you are doing is turning the logs into a format that allows for removal of data, clearing up the space and setting it back.

Hope that helps, there wasnt anywhere enough info about it on the internet that wasnt bloated!

Virtual Server 2005 R2 - Directories ?

One question i have trouble finding answers to are "what directories does virtual server actually use?", and after much looking i seem to have found the answer!


Virtual server uses the default installation directory (obviously!) but also does a few other... 'interesting' things that arent exactly conventional.

For example, when you create a guest operating system, it creates a save state file which will always be the same size as your ram specified in the same directory as your configuraton file (.vmc) which can cause problems if your tight for hard disk space.

Another thing is it seems to save the actual host network files(.vnc) under rootdrive:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Shared Virtual Networks

rootdrive:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Virtual Server is also another directory where crash logs, options, licensing etc is all kept.

There are too many files to just go over, and to be honest i am not aware what they all do, but they essentially are all under all users\app data\microsoft\ .

there is no way to change this part, either. yes there are custom places for your virtual machines to go, but no way of keeping this all together.

in summary, this structure is fine, but if something occurs where you need to start over, its nice to know where these files are so we can delete them.

Technical Stuff

Hi all and welcome to my first Blog (well.. technical blog)

i wanted to create my own hosted blog, and i will do that eventually, but for now this site will suffice

i primarily use a mac at home, but have experience with linux and also quite a bit with windows. i work as a systems administrator for a company that remotely (via RDP ) deals with client networks.

i come across some weird stuff, and thought this would be a good place to keep it all. if it helps you out, great, if it doesnt, then feel free to contact me and correct me.

anyway, enjoy the read.