My-Technet

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1013109

Symptoms

• Upgrading virtual hardware in ESX 4 may cause Windows 2008 disks to go offline.
• Upgrading virtual hardware from version 4 to version 7 may cause Windows 2008 disks to go offline.
• Creating a new virtual machine on hardware version 7 may cause Windows 2008 disks to go offline.

Note: The first disk (C: drive) is not affected. Any additional disks may be affected and show marked as Offline within Disk Management.

Resolution

The default SAN Policy on Windows Enterprise is to not automount SAN disks, resulting in the disks being shown as offline. In comparison for Windows Standard Edition, the SAN Policy is online.

This can be resolved by changing the SAN Automount Policy on the system. See the Microsoft article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973834 to change the SAN Policy to online.

The SAN policy is defined within the VDS environment of the system and is represented by the following values:

• VDS_SP_UNKNOWN = 0×0
• VDS_SP_ONLINE = 0×1
• VDS_SP_OFFLINE_SHARED = 0×2
• VDS_SP_OFFLINE = 0×3

For more information, see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb525577(VS.85).aspx.

On Windows Server 2008 Enterprise and Windows Server 2008 Datacenter, the default SAN policy is VDS_SP_OFFLINE_SHARED. On all other Windows Server 2008 editions, the default SAN policy is VDS_SP_ONLINE.

To query current SAN policy from the command line, start DISKPART and issue a SAN command:

C:\>DISKPART.EXE
DISKPART> san
SAN Policy : Offline Shared
DISKPART> exit

Alternatively, you can set the disk to Online after the hardware version upgrade.

To set the disk to Online:

1. Log in to your system as an Administrator.
2. Click Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management.
3. Right-click the disk and choose Online.

VMotion CPU Matrix

Original post on VM/ETC

Procedure

1. Log in to the Update Manager server as an administrator.

2. Stop the Update Manager service.

   1. Right-click My Computer and click Manage.
   2. In the left pane, expand Services and Applications and click Services.
   3. In the right pane, right-click the VMware Update Manager Service and click Stop.

3. Navigate to the Update Manager installation directory and locate the vci-integrity.xml file.

   1. The default location is C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\Update Manager.
4. Create a backup copy of this file in case you need to revert to the previous configuration.

5. Edit the file by changing the following fields:

   1. yournewlocation
   2. The default patch download location is: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware Update Manager\Data\
   3. The directory path must end with \
6. Save the file in UTF-8 format, replacing the existing file.
7. Copy the contents from the old patchstore directory to the new folder.
8. Restart the Update Manager service.

Browse the Datastore and open the folder that contains the VM Template. Right click the VMTemplateName.vmtx file.

Click Add to Inventory.

Name the Template and Select the Inventory Location where the template should be added.

Select a Host or Cluster to store the template.

Click Next and Finish to have the Template added back into vCenter.

http://www.techhead.co.uk/vmware-esx-tools

How to Deploy a Windows 2008 Server From a Template with vSphere

http://www.vmwareinfo.com/2008/05/sysprep-windows-2008-in-vmware.html

http://virtualizeplanet.com/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=59&Itemid=9

This handy tool will let you check existing CPUs for vMotion or FT without booting to a special CD/Application. Download Link or here.

When using VMware Converter to convert a physical server to virtual. Converter will use the BusLogic SCSI controller driver. However, Windows 2003 VMs perform better with the LSI Logic SCSI controller driver.

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