Wu's Blog

My IT Adventure

Category: English

English version of my posts.

  • Unable to Upgrade to Windows Server 2012 R2

    I searched internet but there is no more information about this specific error message.

    When you upgrade to Windows Server 2012 R2 or 2016. You may see following error message:

    Windows won’t install unless each of these things is taken care of. Close Windows Setup, take care of each one, and then restart Windows Setup to continue.

    Upgrades to this build have been disabled.

    The reason is there is a hidden parameter in the image disabled uprading. You can only re-install by the image but cannot do upgrading. You have to ask vendor provide you a right copy, or buy Microsoft official image to do upgrading. I cannot publish the parameter due to legal reason.

    Most of hardware vendors sale Windows copy along with new hardware. This kind of Windows calls OEM version. There are several different versions of Windows:

    OEM SLP – This key comes pre-installed in Windows, when it comes from the Factory. This key is geared to work with the OEM Bios Flag found only on that Manufacturer’s computer hardware. So when Windows was installed using the OEM SLP key (at the factory) Windows looks at the motherboard and sees the proper OEM Bios Flag (for that Manufacturer and that version of Windows) and Self-Activates. (that’s why you did not need to Activate your computer after you brought it home)

    OEM COA SLP – This is the Product key that you see on the sticker on the side (or bottom) of your computer. It is a valid product key, but should only be used in limited situations. The key must be activated by Phone. Usually you don’t have to input key during Windows installation since it check your hardware to get key.

    OEM COA NSLP – Similar to OEM COA SLP license. Only different is you need to input the key during Windows installation. You must follow EULA to stay the copy on same computer forever.

    Retail – Product keys are what the customer gets when he buys a Full Packaged Product (FPP), commonly known as a “boxed copy”, of Windows from a retail merchant or purchases Windows online from the Microsoft Store.

    KMS Client and Volume MAK – They are issued by organizations for use on client computers associated in some way with the organization. Volume license keys may not be transferred with the computer if the computer changes ownership. Consult your organization or the Volume Licensing Service Center for help with volume license keys.

    Hardware vendors may don’t allow you upgrade Windows in certain licensing mode. So they may provide you a newer Windows image to request you  do re-install on the computers but not upgrading.

    Please refer following links for license key details.

    What is the difference between SLP and NSLP versions of Windows 7?

    Windows License Types Explained

    HPE OEM Microsoft Windows Server FAQ Series- Part 1: Licensing Overview

    HPE OEM Microsoft Windows Server FAQ Series- Part 2: OEM Licensing Basics

    HPE OEM Microsoft Windows Server FAQ Series- Part 3: Microsoft Certificate of Authenticity (COA)

    HPE OEM Microsoft Windows Server FAQ Series- Part 4: Windows Server 2016 Basics

    HPE OEM Microsoft Windows Server FAQ Series- Part 5: Core-Based Licensing

    HPE OEM Microsoft Windows Server FAQ Series- Part 6: Reseller Option Kit

    HPE OEM Microsoft Windows Server FAQ Series- Part 7: Client Access Licenses (CALs)

    HPE OEM Microsoft Windows Server FAQ Series- Part 8: OEM License Support

  • Network Problems of Auto Deployed ESXi Host in LAB

    I built a simple Auto Deploy environment by vSphere 6.5 on nested environment. I created virtual ESXi hosts on a physical ESXi host to do the testing. The whole configuration was smoothly, I’m impressed Auto Deploy can be implemented in few hours. One thing bothered me was networking.

    New ESXi hosts cannot get IP addresses properly somehow. It’s not a single problem. The symptoms are ESXi hosts cannot get IP address, or the Configure Management Network was grayed out on console, or ESXi hosts can get IP address but no responding to ping. Just quick post my solutions here.

    To fix all these problems you need to do following:

    1. Enable Promiscuous Mode on the vSwtich which is attached to nested ESXi hosts on physical ESXi hosts.
    2. (I did that on Web Client of vCenter 6.5 U1. You may see different procedure on earlier versions.) Edit the host profile of Auto Deploy — Networking configuration — Host port group — Highlight Management Network — The option Determine how MAC address for vmknic should be decided — Choose Use the MAC Address from which the system was PXE booted.

    If you don’t do step 1, your nested ESXi hosts may not able to get DHCP IP addresses properly, or it can get IP addresses but maps to a new MAC address lead to network packages cannot be transmitted.

    Nested ESXi hosts get a DHCP IP addresses when do PXE booting. The hosts get another new IP addresses when apply host profile as soon as management network is created. It could be two different IP addresses and the MAC address of management network could be a new one that not same to any of vmnics. It will be hard to trace back on network switch in real environment, so I think it’s better also to do step 2.

    Update 10/25/2017 — You should choose “User must explicitly choose the policy option” in step 2 above if you have multiple NICs. The reason is DHCP IP address during PXE may be captured by random NICs. If you choose what I mentioned in step 2, you will see DHCP server may learns MAC address of a none management network NICs associated with management IP address. Please refer this article for more detail.

  • Unable Remove NetApp Folders After Uninstall VSC for VMware

    You may not able to remove NetApp folders after uninstall NetApp Virtual Storage Console for VMware. The reason is customized fonts are still loaded by Windows. You need to delete all fonts values mapped to NetApp VSC folder in Windows register HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionFonts.

  • Maximum Supported Boot Devices in Virtual Machine BIOS

    Noticed a interesting limitation on VMware virtual machines. If you configure multiple SCSI controllers and distribute more than  8 virtual  disks. You may experience randomly OS boot up failure when power cycle VMs. Only last 8 disks with higher SCSI ID present in boot order settings of BIOS. You cannot choose the disks with lower SCSI ID.

    You need to following up VMware KB “Changing the boot order of a virtual machine using vmx options (2011654)” to force virtual machines boot up on proper SCSI node.

  • Automatic vSphere Capacity Report in PPT

    Reporting is important to management. To be a IT Pro, you may need to run regular reports for management. Some reports may be generated time consume. vRealize Operations Manager is an alternative to create customized reports. It’s a powerful product to organize data and create PDF or CSV files on scheduled intervals. I recommend have a look if you have planned to implement performance, capacity and alarm system for virtual environment.

    What if budget is constrained? Is there a way to create such kind of reports? The answer is “Yes”. I worked out an automatic workflow to create the reports. I will not provide step-by-step guide in this post since it’s advanced integration of multiple products, everyone may have different way to do that. You can even create everything by script if you have strong programming skill. I’m not, I only look for the easiest way to achieve the goal.

    Here is a scenario for  example: I want to run a monthly report for vSphere CPU and memory count and present to management by PowerPoint. I want to show management the historical trend of CPU and memory data. The traditional way is collect data in vCenter, organize and create charts in PowerPoint slides. So the whole workflow is: vCenter -> PowerPoint

    If you want to automate the whole process you need to introduce few things more: PowerCLI, CSV and Excel. You need to develop a PowerCLI script to grab CPU and memory data on vCenter Server, then export the data to a CSV table by PowerShell command export-csv. Then import the table to an Excel file by Office feature Query Data. It loads the CSV table dynamically, you can even specific what data can be queried by filter.

    Once the table is present in Excel, you need to create a chart accordingly. It’s trick when you paste the chart to PowerPoint Slide. You need to use Paste Special to paste the chart as Microsoft Excel Chart Object. The pasted chart can be updated automatically when you open the PowerPoint file.

    The last step is created a scheduled task to run the PowerCLI script. Make sure you read my blog Extremely slow when run PowerShell script by scheduled tasks before create the task.

    You can also configure the Excel file to automatically update table by CSV file.

  • Cannot Launch Patch Installer on Windows Server 2016

    I was trying to update one Windows Server 2016 by standalone patch file. Somehow nothing happened after I double click the installer file. That’s because Windows Server 2016 prevent execute the  file due to it’s download from internet.

    The quick fix is right click the file – Properties – Check Unblock – Click OK button.

    Further more. The file has ADS (alternate data streams) attached. The ADS marked the file as download from internet.

    You can run following two PowerShell commands to figure out object and value of the ADS.

    PS C:> Get-Item test file.msu -Stream *
PSPath : Microsoft.PowerShell.CoreFileSystem::C:Userswzheng110917aDow
 $DATA
PSParentPath : Microsoft.PowerShell.CoreFileSystem::C:Userswzheng110917aDow
PSChildName : 20171011_KB4038801_Updates.msu::$DATA
PSDrive : C
PSProvider : Microsoft.PowerShell.CoreFileSystem
PSIsContainer : False
FileName : C:Userswzheng110917aDownloads20171011_KB4038801_Updates.msu
Stream : :$DATA
Length : 1241376269

PSPath : Microsoft.PowerShell.CoreFileSystem::C:Userswzheng110917aDow
 one.Identifier
PSParentPath : Microsoft.PowerShell.CoreFileSystem::C:Userswzheng110917aDow
PSChildName : 20171011_KB4038801_Updates.msu:Zone.Identifier
PSDrive : C
PSProvider : Microsoft.PowerShell.CoreFileSystem
PSIsContainer : False
FileName : C:Userswzheng110917aDownloads20171011_KB4038801_Updates.msu
Stream : Zone.Identifier
Length : 26

     

    PS C:> Get-Content testfile.msu -Stream Zone.Identifier
[ZoneTransfer]
ZoneId=3

    You can  see the ZoneId is 3. Following is a table to show which type of file it is.

    0     My Computer 
1     Local Intranet Zone 
2     Trusted sites Zone 
3     Internet Zone 
4     Restricted Sites Zone

    For more reference please read Microsoft blog “Alternate Data Streams in NTFS“.

    You can use Unblock-File if you want to unblock multiple files.

     

  • Memory Errors on Modern Servers

    I used to see memory degrading on  Cisco  UCS blades. But less see on HPE blades. I thought it maybe quality control problem of Cisco manufacture. Today I read two articles in Cisco website, it explains why we see memory degrading and how it works. I attached the articles below.

    Managing Correctable Memory Errors on Cisco UCS Servers

    UCS Enhanced Memory Error Management

    The conduction in the whitepaper is not only specific for Cisco UCS, but also for any modern servers. Following is summary of why memory errors rates is going high nowadays.

    • Larger memory systems contain more bits
    • Higher capacity DRAM chips require smaller bit cells which result in fewer stored charges per bit
    • Lower operating voltages can lead to reduced noise margin
    • Higher operating speeds can lead to reduced timing margin

  • Oracle Utilizes 50% of Physical Processors on HPE Server

    DBA team told me Oracle was running slow on a HPE server. I observed the CPU utilization was about 50% of overall capacity. Whenever Oracle database bumps up the system experienced slowness.

    Further  digged into the issue, I see Oracle workload only ran on single physical processor, but the server has two processors. And the  Windows 2012 R2 resource manager show the system used Processor Group, the two physical processors were grouped out. This technology is described in Microsoft MSDN article.

    To fix the issue you have to change value of “NUMA Group Size Optimization” to “Flat” in BIOS. Please refer to HPE article for detail  steps.

    Detail of HPE server behavior  is documented here. Please note, the article says it impacts to ProLiant Gen9 and Intel E5-26xx v3 processors. But it actually also impacts to Intel E5-26xx v4 and Synergy blades.

  • Login To The Query Service Failed When Search Virtual Machine

    You may see following problem if you login vCenter  Server 6.0 by vSphere Client:

    Login to the query service failed.

    The server could not interpret the communication from the client. (The remote server returned an error: (500) Internal Server Error.)

    That’s because “Use Windows session credentials” checkbox is selected. Deselect it and give it a try.

    Refer KB Searching the Inventory with the vSphere Client fails (2143566)

  • Virtual Machine Cannot Get DHCP IP Address

    Just a quick post. When virtual machine cannot get DHCP IP address the first thing you want to check is firewall. Whatever Windows firewall or physical firewall. You should make sure UDP port 67 and 68 are not blocked. Otherwise you  will see the virtual machine gets 169.x.x.x IP address only.

    The two  ports is required for DHCP client to query IP addresses. The methodology is introduced in RFC document.

    DHCP uses UDP as its transport protocol. DHCP messages from a client
    to a server are sent to the ‘DHCP server’ port (67), and DHCP
    messages from a server to a client are sent to the ‘DHCP client’ port
    (68). A server with multiple network address (e.g., a multi-homed
    host) MAY use any of its network addresses in outgoing DHCP messages.

    I also got some ideas in this post.