Category Archives: Windows

Anything related to Microsoft Windows.

Userenvlog

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Figuring out why a pc or server is slow at logging on can be a long and difficult task.  Userenvlog logging existing in Windows XP and 2003 and there is a new process for turning this on in Windows Vista, 7, 2008.  This is a good step in the troubleshooting process to see if group policy could be slowing down the logon process. http://blogs.technet.com/b/mempson/archive/2010/01/10/userenvlog-for-windows-vista-2008-win7.aspx

VMware MSCS NPIV Support Clarified

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NPIV or N-Port Virtualization is a method of utilizing a single Fibre Channel port to serve multiple physical or virtual servers.  NPIV allows a single SAN device to service multiple WWNs without additional switching infrastructure.  NPIV is the technique used by blade system hardware to reduce the complexity of  SAN connected blades.  NPIV allows SAN connectivity without requiring Fibre Channel switches to be installed within the blade chassis.  VMware also uses NPIV within the Raw Device Mapping (RDM) infrastructure.

Due to a statement in VMware documentation, confusion has arisen over support of Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS) in a VMware environment where NPIV is utilized.  In short NPIV is supported with VMware and MSCS where a hardware device such as HP Virtual Connect or Cisco UCS provides the NPIV functionality but not where VMware is providing the NPIV (checking the box in the guest config of a VM for NPIV).

Bootable Windows 7 thumb drive install

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Ok, so most of you probably already know this but I haven’t needed to install Windows 7 from a thumb drive…until today.  A quick search of google turned up this tool from Microsoft which automates the creation of a bootable thumb drive to install Windows 7 from.  You just give it the source iso, the destination (DVD or USB thumb drive) and start… it formats the drive and copies the iso to the drive.  If all goes well I’ll be installing in 20 min.

http://store.microsoft.com/help/iso-tool

How Do I: Get Started with xPerf and xPerfview to Analyze Server Performance?

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Eat up….been working with Kenneth today on some performance items and I found some good information I thought I would pass along.

With Windows 2008 and 2008 R2 there are lots more tools for diagnosing performance issues, if you’re not on 2008 what are you doing!!!! Jk, you can use SPA v2 on those boxes.

Check out xperf and this video…also check out the article on interpreting CPU utilization.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/deployment/dd883225.aspx

http://blogs.technet.com/b/winserverperformance/archive/2009/08/06/interpreting-cpu-utilization-for-performance-analysis.aspx

VMware vSphere Client – Can’t Connect When Windows Firewall is Disabled on Windows 7

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This probably affects other programs as well however for me it was trying to use the VMware vSphere Client to connect to a VMware vCenter server. For the life of me, I couldn’t get it to connect. The vCenter services were all started, networking looked good, I could ping the vCenter server, everything that I tried didn’t work.

After calling support, we determined that the workstation we were using was running Windows 7 and that the Windows firewall service was disabled. The support dude said that by default, Windows 7 will block all traffic when the firewall is disabled. Huh..

So the fix was to perform the following steps:
1) Enable the Windows Firewall service
2) Open up a command prompt and type: netsh advf set allp state off

That command will turn off the Windows firewall without disabling the service (so that it doesn’t block traffic). It worked great for me and the vSphere Client could now connect!