Cant start the Guest OS - VMWare Memory Problem

If unknowingly you increases memory of your guest OS from menu VM->Settings option and not able to start the guest OS even after rebooting your host machine then simply follow the steps:
1. close your vm workstation application
2. goto directory where you have your guest OS
3. delete the files with extensions .vmem and .vmss
restart your vm workstation and start your guest OS without any error

Change machine name after installing Sharepoint

I have tried only on a standalone machine. Follow the steps to sort out the issue

1. Change alternate access mappings in Central Administration
   
   1. Central Administration > Operations > Alternate access Mappings
      
   2. Edit each mapping so that it reflects your new server name
      
      1. Ensure port numbers are the same
         
2. Use stsadm renameserver operation
   
   1. 
      

      stsadm -o renameserver -newservername  -oldservername  

3. Rename Server
   
   1. My Computer > Properties > Computer Name (tab) > Change (button)
   2. Type in new name of server
   3. Reboot server

How to increase image disk size in VM Workstation 6.5

If you want to increase the image disk size after you created it then refer to this link and look for VM Workstation section.
Follow the steps to fix it

"An unexpected error has occurred” in Sharepoint - Find more details

Are you getting frustrated with “An unexpected error has occurred” in sharepoint 2007? I found some useful tips. You can get more error messages from MOSS especially when they are not written to the application log. Do follow the steps below to get more:

1. Go into the web.config of the specific sharepoint web and set custom errors to off. Search for customErrors tag

mode=”Off”

2. Turn on tracing and the callstack by setting both to true. Search for SafeMode

CallStack=”true” DirectFileDependencies=”10″ TotalFileDependencies=”50″ AllowPageLevelTrace=”true”>

Though event viewer also stores vital informaiton but above tricks are handy when a log in not written to EV

Security Validation error in sharepoint

While creating one of the sites from the browser i came an error saying "The security validation for this page is invalid. Click Back in your Webbrowser, refresh the page, and try your operation again"
I got bit confused as i didn't know where to find and sort it out so i checked few sections in central admin site found one place. You can check for this :

• Navigate thru the following Central Administration Site->application management->web application settings->"turn security validation off"

{61738644-F196-11D0-9953-00C04FD919C1} - "The update cannot be started because the content sources cannot be accessed" error in Sharepoint

I was trying to install moss 2007 on one of the rebuilt box and came across strange error. I googled it found out that actually the error CLSID {61738644-F196-11D0-9953-00C04FD919C1} is related to what i found in registry:

• Open  Start-->Run-->regedit.exe and goto HKCR->CLSID and search for the GUID
• With the registry editor open, ensure that your cursor is on the computer at the beginning of the tree (make sure you are not in the middle of some previous edit session in the registry editor).
• Edit-->Find and paste in the GUID. It'll stop at the application entry - and you will want to note the application name on the right side pane. In this example, it was the IIS WAMREG admin service that popped up.

This security permission can be modified using the Component Services administrative tool which is present in "Administrative Tools"; Follow the steps to sort out the error

• Now, open Component Services (typically, from the server - Start-->Administrative Tools-->Component Services), expand Component Services, Computers, My Computer, DCOM Config. Scroll down and find the application (IIS WAMREG in this case)
• Right-Click-->Properties and select the Security tab. You'll have some options here - the first block Launch and Activation Permissions - ensure that the Customize radio button is selected, and click Edit. Now, add your service account - giving it launch and activate - and in some requirements - remote launch / activate permission
• Restart IIS and continue on with no error

Micrsoft VPC 2007 v.s. VMWare Workstation 6.5

I did a real usage comparison of VPC 2007 and VMWare 6.5 and im astonished by my experience.
The great thing that microsoft has done is to provide VPC free of cost but in lieu of this the end user has to compromise in many areas like:

• It is really good for those who can use it free to have multiple environments on same machine provided they have good configured box in terms of memory and processor
• VPC is not good in performance; i felt it too by working with it even with good configured machine. If running with 1 GB then you have memory issues for VPC
• There is not server and client version of VPC
• VPC cant be used by network admins to manage and control various VPC images to be shared among different teams like dev, test, implemtation etc with variety of roles
• The admin console in VPC lacks in various configuration and settings
• Atleast 2 VPCs makes the host machine very slow
• Hardware detection of host is not that effective; For example if you have any software that virtually adds something to your h/w then VPC will do least; also you may have to install sound drivers and etc again in VPC
• Network configuration is not very flexible and not very effective
• No cloud computing support
• And much more. Im not against VPC as i like it too much but when for the good and positive side of effective and productive usage of a tool i felt the need of few above points. I wonder why microsoft can't make VPC more stronger and charge few more $ but to come out with a scalable and high performance tool

I wish if i could share the snapshots of VMWare Workstation but im running late for my dinner with friends and want to share this with  you all. VMWare Workstation 6.5 is just fantastic and im too impressed with this tool. This is what i explored in VMW so far

• It is not free but can be tried with a trial of 30 days but i hope that once you try it out then you wont let it go. It takes more space than VPC but its worth
• VMW is real fast like bolt
• I opened 3 images and all worked fine along with my host with 2 GB box
• Networking is really excellent in VMW
• Most of above points are taken care pretty well by this tool
• Many more features and definitely this is a better Virtual Imaging tool than VPC
• I was highly excited to see the working and performance of this tool

I can only say I've moved on from VPC to VMWare Workstation from today. I will be sharing more details and information on VMW

How to work with .ISO files in windows - MagicDisc

This post will help you to install software from .ISO images using a tool MagicDisc without burning them to any CD/DVD and also to use the tool without installing MagicISO

This tool supports both x86 and x64 along with all versions of windows including Windows 7 [i have tried it and it does work with no problem] and it is very small in size can be downloaded from http://www.magiciso.com/tutorials/miso-magicdisc-overview.htm
Installation is simple enough and you should not face any issues. After setup you will notice a CD icon in system tray; just right click the icon and select the 2nd top option "Set Number of Drives" and select 1; you can choose more than 1 also if you want

After that windows will add a virtual CD/DVD Drive and give the next available drive label then right click again and select the first option on top "Virtual CD/DVD ROM" and you would see new Drive; just select it and choose "Mount" as you see in below snapshot

A window will come from where you can select the location of the .ISO image and thats it you are done. You can access the newly added .ISO image as another drive in your machine
The last step that you should do is to unmount the drive so that it frees the system resources.


Hope this is helpful.

Auto login and Shutdown Event Tracker in Win2003

I liked this article that saved my time of entering password everytime i restart windows 2003. Easy to configure; here is the link
Also if you are sick of coming across the a window like below then you can bypass this by following steps;

• Start-run and type gpedit.msc
• Notice the snapshot with two options Disabled; this what you need to do

Virtual PC for Windows 7 RC

If you are running Windows 7 RC and wish to install XP or any other windows OS in a VPC then now you can do so. Microsoft just launched Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7.


Click here for more details.

Hardware acceleration in VPC

When i started working with VPC i found one strange problem. It was something that i could not figure initially. I was running win2003 OS and finished installing VPC Addins and after reboot i felt that the mouse was flickering and the windows was taking long time to refresh the screen.

After some drill down few areas i found a fix.

1. Right click the desktop in VPC and select properties
2. Goto settings tab and click the Advance button at the bottom in the window
3. Select the Troubleshoot tab and set the hardware acceleration to FULL
4. Click Apply and ok

Enjoy the difference.

Configuring website and network access between XP host and Win2003 with MOSS 2007 VPC

I assume that you have a XP host which has a VPC image with win2003 and moss 2007 installed but the host will not be able to access the sharepoint sites due to network related issues.
So its time to setup and enable website access between host and the VPC. I assume few things before you apply this solution:
1. You have a rotuer and you access internet
2. You have disabled DHCP option in router and have given manual IP with you subnet like 192.168.1* or 10.10.1.* to your machine and VPC
Then check my blog here that covers the steps of converting the win2003 VPC from a workgroup into a domain.
Now you need to do is to setup XP to recognize the win2003 server. I found a solution of doing so without adding my XP to the domain that you just created.
On our host machine irrespective of you using your lan or wireless card; just double click the icon in system tray or goto start->settings->network connections and right click the active adapter and select properties. The adapter properties window will appear; select TCP/IP and click properties. refer to below snapshot

The trick is under "Preferred DNS" enter the manual IP of the win2003 server running in VPC as the server now has a DNS installed. In order to allow your host to access internet as well enter the IP of your ISP under "Alternate Preferred DNS" so that internet is accessible

If you wanted to enter the alternate Preferred DNS of your ISP then you can add by clicking advance button and enter the IP as shown under

And you are done; hopefully you shall be able to access the sharepoint websites. I doubt that you will face any further issue but by chance if you get stuck then you may try below section as well.
The last thing to do in both host and VPC is to add an entry of the IP address of both in host file. Just type drivers in the start->run to and windows will open windows explorer windows; go into etc folder and double click the hosts file; select notepad and open the file; 
In XP host file add entry in a new line with 192.168.1.4 myserver and in win2003 VPC add entry in a new line with 192.168.1.3 xphost
By following above information you can have multiple development environments on a single machine and explore the benefits of VPC.


Hope it was useful

Moving MOSS 2007 from a workgroup to a domain running Win2003 VPC in XP Host

This post is for those who have XP host and a VPC running with Win2003 and others as well who have the below stated problem.
If you installed Moss 2007 on a standalone machine running Win2003 and later you plan to move it on a new domain then below steps will help you.


1. First in win2003 run DCPromo.exe from the start->run and set it up. DC promo is the most easiest, simple and automatic way of configuring AD and DNS easily
2. After the machine is added to the domain and if you try to open the sharepoint central or other sites then browser will give error. The reason is that Administrator account has been updated with domain information and moss is not updated. In order to fix up the problem just run the below commands in dos prompt to sort it out.
First, goto cd %commonprogramfiles%\Microsoft Shared\Web server extensions\12\Bin directory
Second, stsadm -o updatefarmcredentials -userlogin DomainName\UserName -password NewPassword
Here NewPassword can be the same password that you are using or you can give the new password
Lastly goto c:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files in windows explore and right click the folder->Sharing and Security->security tab; add Network Service to the group with full access
After this just run the central site and you are done.
Hope this is useful.

TweakUI in XP - Change default locations like "My Documents"

This post is to share few great things to do with tool TweakUI which is one of the collections in XP Power toys suite from microsoft. Click the link to download TweakUI for x86
1. Change Default Locations for documents
The first thing that i did was to change the default location of My Documents which is C:\Documents and Settings\bhavtosh\My Documents
Because windows saves every document [doc, txt, xls, jpg etc] in the above location and many times when i rebuilt my machine with XP; i always missed out taking the backup from the above location and i did lost important number of times
So using tweakui i found a very good way of redirecting windows to map to my custom location for all documents. Just refer to the snapshot below and rest is self explanatory

You can change lot of default places to your custom locations and next time when you open windows explorer you will new settings.
2. Reduce time for right click
Those who like "Creating a folder" using right click a lot but get bored as windows takes time in populating the context menu is because if you have software like office, winzip, winrar etc then by default windows loads all the possible types of "document/files" extensions that you may create using the stated tools. For example see the below snapshot; it shows what i have on my machine

Im habitual of using new option to create folder and nothing else but since i have so many tools and windows takingtime to load the menu; i used tweakui to help me making my right click-new option to come much faster than before. below snapshot will tell you how

There are other things to do as well but i leave it you to explore the power of this tool. 
Hope this useful.