My XenServer lab has been updated / upgraded, XenDesktop is now 5.6, XenServer 6.0.2 and Provisioning Services is 6.1 now. I had one issue with this last one, I wasn't able to create a new golden image for my brand new XenDesktop 5.6 setup... I was able to create the new VHD through the PVS Wizard but once the VM rebooted the connection to the VHD wasn't initialized... I knew it was a network issue but I had to remember a very old issue I had with PVS 4 or early 5... First you need to uninstall XenTools and the PVS Target Device agent. Reboot and install XenTools. After you have installed the XenTools and rebooted your Windows VM you need to do the following: Type in a command prompt Then type Start DEVMGMT.MSC, click in the View menu, and then chose Show Hidden Devices. Expand the Network Adapters tree and right-click the dimmed network adapter, to uninstall it
Update 2 is already here and is double size vompare to the first one, here is some more informations : This update resolves the network connectivity issues that affected customers with both IPv4 and IPv6 network interfaces enabled who installed Update 1. This issue is described in XenServer 5.5 Update 1 Upgrade Causes Virtual Machines to Lose Network Connectivity. Additional Changes in Update 2 Addressed an issue where the system was falsely reporting lost access to the HA metadata disk. Fixed issues upgrading from XenServer 5.0 to the roll-up ISO for XenServer 5.5. In addition, the XenServer 5.5 documentation was rereleased to coincide with Update 2. While the changes in the documentation are not significant, there are some differences between XenServer 5.5 and XenServer 5.5, Update 2. You can download it here : http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX124027 You can download the updated ISO files here : http://downloadns.citrix.com.edgesuite.net/4701/XenServer-5.5.0-Update2-install-cd.iso
Citrix release today the first update for XenServer 5.5 : Changes included in this update LVHD Snapshots When LVHD snapshots are deleted, disk space is reclaimed by freeing unused snapshot data. This is provided automatically by XenServer while VMs continue to run. However, there is a known limitation in the 5.5 implementation of this feature: when all snapshots are deleted for a given VM?s disks, some disk space allocated to these snapshots may remain. To address this limitation, Update 1 includes an 'Off-line Coalesce' tool that can reclaim all disk space previously allocated to deleted snapshots while the VM is temporarily set offline. The Off-line Coalesce tool and its use are described in full in an associated KB article: CTX123400. XenCenter Improvements CA-30569, CA-32164, CA-30200 Fixed various 'Application Errors' in XenCenter. CA-32241 XenCenter saved searches are now visible under 'Apply Saved search' and 'Delete saved search' options. CA-33918 Big improvements to XenCenter performance when connecting to multiple pools. Storage CA-30577 Snapshot errors after upgrade from 5.0 to 5.5. Previously released as hotfix XS55E001 and documented in KB article CTX122142. CA-24607 When multipathing is disabled, then this information is now correctly displayed in XenCenter. CA-31159 The XenCenter New Storage Wizard now works as expected when multipath is enabled. CA-30475 Legacy LVM VDIs (created on versions of XenServer prior to 5.5) greater than 2TB in size now work after upgrade to 5.5 as expected. CA-33256 The multipath path-checker has been improved for Pillar Data arrays to make it more resilient to transient path failures. CA-30549 Importing VMs preserves sparseness where possible. CA-30049 When taking a snapshot of a legacy LVM VDI (created with a previous version of XenCenter) and then deleting this snapshot, then the deleted snapshot is now coalesced into the LVM VDI to reclaim space as expected. CA-30757 SR.scan on NetApp SRs inadvertently caused snapshots created externally to XenServer (e.g. those created using a utility like SnapMirror) to be deleted. This caused utilities such as SnapMirror to fail when used with the NetApp SR. This issue is now fixed: SR.scan will only remove snapshots created by XenServer. As a result utilities such as SnapMirror will work as expected. CA-29367 SRs with non-ASCII characters in their names now work as expected. Active Directory Improvements CA-32857 Memory leak in dom0 components used to manage Active Directory integration fixed. …
I had a new toy and I'm typing this news with it, this is my new Asus eeepc 1000 he. This is really cool, very small and quite powerfull, I have choose to deploy Windows 7 on it and I'm very surprise it works perfectly. This is very very cool with Citrix Receiver I can connect from everywhere at work, when I'm in the train, at a customer office etc etc. So just to say this new toy took me some time and now I'm late on eveything :) The XenDesktop installation and setup with PVS is almost complete, I just have to type some word and upload the video, it's very simple and will allow you to setup you own XenDesktop. I have also setup a XenServer 5.5 beta 1 and a Merchandising Server, I would have like to setup a Dazzle server but the beta is not available yet... Everything should popup very soon in here so stay tune !
I didn't had many issue with hardware, I don't own last video card on the market etc but everything wen fine with some google search. For example my webcam : Microsoft Lifecam VX-1000, i've try the vista drivers (LifeCam 1.3 & 1.4) but it didn't work at all... Then I've found this webpage : http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/windows7/support.mspx which list all the drivers for Windows 7. The to make your LifeCam work with Windows 7 you have to download LifeCam 2.9 beta and it works great with many litlle funny options :) This links lead you straight the the drivers download and this is 32/64 bit http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=137236
[Actually it doesn't work with Windows 7 RC1 build 7100 - You need to check commentaries to find out, or in here : http://www.archy.net/2009/05/14/vmware-workstation-nat-problem-on-windows-7-rc-build-7100/Â ] Vmware workstation 6.5.1 build-126130 can be installed on Microsoft Windows 7 beta without any problem. I was able to open all my VM but I had an issue with the network nat translation. All my VM didn't had internet access through the host nat (Windows 7) I searched a bit on internet and found several person who had the same issue and here come the work around : 1. Run the Virtual Network Editor as Administrator (Use RunAS or right click and Run as Administrator on vmnetcfg.exe) 2. Goto Host Virtual Adapters and remove all VMNet instances (VMNet1 and VMNet8 typically). 3. Click Apply. 4. Add New and Assign it the new adapter to VMnet1. 5. Click Apply. 6. Select the Host Virtual Networking tab. 7. Click the > next to VMnet1 and change the address and subnet to the ICS network (192.168.0.0 / 255.255.255.0) 8. Click Apply. 9. Go to the NAT tab and select VMNet1. 10. Click Edit and change the Gateway to the ICS gateway IP (192.168.0.1) 11. Click Apply and restart the NAT service. (Counter-intuitive, I know.) 12. Go to the DHCP tab. 13. Add VMNet1 and remove all others. 14. Click Apply. 15. Select Properties of VMNet1 in DHCP Tab. 16. Enter a Start and End Address for DHCP Scope (192.168.0.50 to 192.168.0.75 as an example) 17. Adjust client lease to a few days to avoid potential DHCP client renewal timeouts. 18. Click OK / Click Apply. 19. Select Host Only Networking for every VM that needs NAT out to your host network/internet. 20. Enable ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) on the W7 Host network card that provides connectivity. Select VMNet1 as the network card that needs access. It did the trick with my VM Windows XP SP3 and I have to try with the other I have. Link : http://blog.tiensivu.com/aaron/archives/1818-How-to-get-VMWare-Workstation-6.5-Guest-VM-NAT-working-with-a-Windows-7-Build-7000-host.html Edit : I add some screenshots, this is the way it works for my Windows 7 computer (192.168.0.0/24) add for John :
Here comes some shortcuts for Windows 7 : General Win+Up Maximize Win+Down Restore / Minimize Win+Left Snap to left Win+Right Snap to right Win+Shift+Left Jump to left monitor Win+Shift+Right Jump to right monitor Win+Home Minimize / Restore all other windows Win+T Focus the first taskbar entry Pressing again will cycle through them, you can can arrow around. Win+Shift+T cycles backwards. Win+Space Peek at the desktop Win+G Bring gadgets to the top of the Z-order Win+P External display options (mirror, extend desktop, etc) Win+X Mobility Center (same as Vista, but still handy!) Win+# (# = a number key) Launches a new instance of the application in the Nth slot on the taskbar. Example: Win+1 launches first pinned app, Win+2 launches second, etc. Win + + Win + - (plus or minus key) Zoom in or out.  Explorer Alt+P Show/hide Preview Pane  Taskbar modifiers Shift + Click on icon Open a new instance Middle click on icon Open a new instance Ctrl + Shift + Click on icon Open a new instance with Admin privileges Shift + Right-click on icon Show window menu (Restore / Minimize / Move / etc) Note: Normally you can just right-click on the window thumbnail to get this menu Shift + Right-click on grouped icon Menu with Restore All / Minimize All / Close All, etc. Ctrl + Click on grouped icon Cycle between the windows (or tabs) in the group
