Use Vmware workstation 6.x image in Vmware server 1.09

Vmware workstation is a great product, you can capture the movie, which is very good for training, and you can setup multiple snapshots. I have a crack version of Vmware workstation 6.5.2 in my home computer (Forgive me, I don’t have much money in my pocket), however, you don’t want to run a crack software in your office’s computer, fortunately, Vmware server is free. I tried the Vmware server 2.0.1, to be honest, it sucks, I don’t like the web console, and the performance is really bad. The version 1.0.9 is good, it is neat and clean.

Now here is the problem: When I try to open the images that I created in my home computer using Vmware workstation 6.5.2, I get an error message: “Configuration file was created by a Vmware product with more features than this version”. Can we just modify the .vmx configuration file? I tried, but it didn’t work well, I got some error messages like: “Pipe connection has been broken.”

Ok, the answer is here, VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 4.0.1, you can download it from https://www.vmware.com/tryvmware/?p=converter, and it is free.

The functions of Vmware converter are very straight forward. You click the “Convert Machine” on the toolbar; select the source type, in my case, it is “Vmware workstation or other Vmware virtual machine”; select destination type “Vmware workstation or other Vmware virtual machine”, the product is “Vmware Server 1.x”; give a name and choose a location. You’re ready to go.

Windows 2003 server shutdown prompt

I have some Windows 2003 server virtual machines, I was tired by them keep asking me for a reason when I reboot them, I decide to disable this “shutdown event tracker”. However, you shouldn’t turn it off in production environment, since it is an important audit log.

1) Open “Group Police Object Editor”: Click “start”-> “Run...” enter “gpedit.msc”, click “ok”.

2) Expand “Computer Configuration” -> “Administrative Templates” -> “System”

3) Double click “Display Shutdown Event Tracker”, and disable it.

Now you can quickly shutdown or reboot your windows 2003 server.

Create a big size empty file

I was working with a MFT (Managed File Transfer) system recently. I need a big size file to test the transfer rate, and it would be good to create a file with specific sizes. After google it, I found a useful command in WinXp: fsutil – file system utility. The format of creating a specific size file is: fsutil file createnew .

Open a command line window: Click “start”-> “Run...” enter “cmd”, click “ok”.

I need a 3GB file, 3GB=3*1024 MB =3072*1024 KB =3145728 * 1024 BYTE=3221225472 BYTE

So the command is: fsutil file createnew test3g.txt 3221225472

Now you get a 3GB file in the current directory. The only thing I concern is, if you compress this file, it is only 200 Bytes, some transfer protocol may compress the file before the transfer, so it may affect the transfer rate. However, it is still a good practice.

Outlook 2003: Email attachment appears in the main body

After our Email server upgrade to Exchange 2007, I suddenly found my email attachment show up in the main body as an icon when I use outlook 2003. It used to appear in the attachment line under the subject line. It annoys me a little bit, yep, I agree, this format is useful in some cases, but I don't like it, I prefer the attachment is in its place and not mess up the layout. I look at the email, and find the Email format has been changed to "Rich Text", I remember it was "HTML". The setting should be in somewhere.

Yeap, I find it. Click menu "tools"->"options", click "Mail Format", in "Message format" section, select "HTML", apply it. now everything goes back.