David Davis

When using VMware Server & Workstation, you will, at some point, go to the directory where your VMware virtual machines are stored. Inside this directory, you will see a number of strange files and you will probably wonder what they are and what they do. Now, you can stop wondering and find out. Directory Listing…

Pointing and clicking is great but you can save a lot of time by knowing the keyboard shortcuts used by VMware. In fact, in some cases, you must know the right keys to push to do what you need to do. Let’s learn more… What can you do with Keyboard Shortcuts? So what can you…

Perhaps you need to test the result of configuration changes on a server or maybe you want to see what happens if you install a new service pack. No matter what you are doing on a computer, many times, you actions may have unintended consequences. Have you ever installed a new program you downloaded and…

VMware has released a new “solution” called Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). If you are using VMware’s products to serve up desktops to your end users, you may already be using a more basic form of VDI and not even know it. Let’s find out more about VDI… What is VDI? This is a VMware solution,…

In the past, VMware was just a single product. Now, you will find that there are a wide variety of VMware products to choose from. Because of this, it can be confusing which one to choose. This article aims at helping you sort it all out by providing a quick review of all VMware products….

In our recent article about downloading Microsoft Exchange 2007 VHD files, we learned how Microsoft has recently offered demo versions of their newest Enterprise applications (Exchange, Windows Server 2003 R2, and others), in the VHD format. The VHD format works in Microsoft Virtual Server and can be easily imported into VMWare. While this is a…

Whether you would like to use virtualization on your desktop PC or on a server farm, you must choose a virtualization product. The two most popular virtualization products are EMC’s VMware and Microsoft’s Virtual PC/Server. So how do you choose the right product for your needs? Let’s find out… Understanding Your Needs No matter what…

In our article called VMware Disk Files Explained, we talked about the different VMware files on disk. In particular, we talked about the important VMware VMX configuration file. In this article, we’ll go into more details on this critical VMX file. What are VMX Files? In our previous article, VMware Disk Files Explained, we covered…

As a system administrator with growing demand on your servers you will eventually run into a capacity bottleneck in your CPU, RAM, Disk, or network. These performance issues can be difficult to identify and troubleshoot without a quality tool. For typical Windows servers, performance management tools can often be difficult to install, configure, and obtain…

In our previous article, “What you need to know about VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB)“, we provided an overview of how VCB can help you. In this article, we will explore the command line utilities provided with VCB. There is no GUI interface for VCB so these tools are THE tools that you get with VCB….

Every network admin is going to have trouble with network links on a Cisco router, at one point or another. The best way to troubleshoot any networking issues is to use the OSI model and go layer by layer. In my article How to use the OSI Model to Troubleshoot Networks, we talked about the…

Just released is the latest enterprise virtualization platform from VMware – ESX Server 3.5. However, is there really anything useful in this release? Is it even deserving of a “point 5” release name or should it have just been ESX Server 3.0.3? Let’s find out… Where are the new features in VMware ESX Server 3.5?…