RSS
 

Archive for the ‘IT’ Category

Renaming a VMWare Virtual Machine

04 Mar

This procedure was documented using VM Infrastructure 3.5 for altering ESXi 3.5 virtual machines. You may need to use Veeam to make the renaming adjustments. Could also be done via SSH.

CAUTION: If snapshots do exist and are needed, then you may need to alter the *.vmdk files to keep the chaining in place. If you do not need the snapshots, select “delete all” under the snapshot manager and perform this procedure after the host has consolidated them.

PRODCEDURE FOR NON-SNAPSHOT

  1. Copy to new directory for backup
  2. Remove from inventory (do not select DELETE)
  3. Alter folder name if desired
  4. Rename the following inside the folder
  5. Rename *.vmx, vmdk, vmsd, vmxf, nvram
  6. Edit *.vmx (using a text editor)
    extendedConfigFile = “(old to new).vmxf”
    scsi0:0.fileName = “(old to new).vmdk”u
  7. Edit *.vmdk
    “Extent description” RW 16777216 VMFS “(old to new)-flat.vmdk”
  8. Edit *.vmxf
    Sandbox XP.vmx
  9. Add *.vmx file to inventory
 
No Comments

Posted in IT

 

Importing Excel XLS to SQL SSIS error

02 Mar

While trying to execute an SSIS import package on a customer’s Excel file, SQL Server 2008 SP1 was returning a “truncated” error. Although, the SSIS package was set to ignore these, the execution halted and data was not written to the SQL table. 

There were a number of posts including David Klein’s and Waxtadpoles regarding SQL 2005 and the “TypeGuessRows” setting in the registry.  Their suggestion was to set the value to 0 (zero), in order to force SQL to parse all rows in the excel sheet, not the first 8 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/189897)

This was ultimately the solution, but not as stated. For us, possibly because we were running 64bit or differences in SQL 2008/Server 2008, the registry entry was not where either the Microsoft Bulletin or the two posts above stated. By searching the registry for this Dword Value we found several other instances of it at:

  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Jet\4.0\Engines\Excel
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Jet\4.0\Engines\Lotus

    •  

After making the change to “0″, our error was resolved. Thanks to both the posters above, and Philip Michael’s persistence.

UPDATED

It turns out this is indeed related to the 64bit OS. Apparently the Jet Engine runs in “Windows On Windows 64″ 32 bit run-time. Here is a little information on WoW64. And David Jennaway has some more information on SQL 64bit, Excel providers and DLLs in this article: The Registry settings for the 32 bit OLEDB provider for Excel have moved.

 
No Comments

Posted in IT

 

iPhone suddenly drains battery due to constant push polling

06 Nov

One of our users suddenly began experiencing a severe draining on his iPhone battery.  There are variety responses to this topic, the least of which was to change the iPhones mail retrevial from Push to Fetch.  Howver, other iPhone users were not experienceing this issue.  So we set out to troubleshoot what was happening.  After two days of research, below is our results and the resolutin that worked for us.

Constant polling in Push mode

The first thing we detirmined was that the phone was constantly polling the exchange OMA (Outlook Mobile Access) website of the exchange server.  This was both visible and audible if you are near a set of computer spearker that can pick up the iPhones RF.  Switching the ActiveSync mode to Fetch, did indeed resolve the battery issue, but it simply masks the problem.  If you are an Exchange Administrator or have a good relationship with one, you can verify this is an issue by checking the Excahnge OMA website logs in iis.  These are difficult to read, but for a medium sized business, you’ll see a noticable increase in the traffic to that website, as the iPhone polls iis constantly.  This might also be noticalbe in Firewall https logs.

 

Resolution

We found the problem to be caused by a corrupt “Meeting Request” in the users mailbox.  The phone was not able to open this and process automatically, thus causing an error and the ActiveSync polling to restart.  No other functionality seemed to be impared, only that ActiveSync push would constantly fire, due to an inability to sync all mail items. 

1) To eliminate it, we sorted the Users Inbox by Type in outlook. 

Inobox-By-Type

 

2) We then deleted all the meeting or calendar mail requests. 

3) Empty the deleted items as well to completely remove the corrupt invititation.

4) Deleted the iPhones Exchange Account, recreated it, and let the mail sync up.

Once you delete the account, you can recreate it using the AT&T infomration below.  No data will be lost, as this is simply a syncronized copy of the exchange server.

http://www.wireless.att.com/support/knowledgeBase.do?content=KB103217.html

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite PicLens
 
No Comments

Posted in IT