Category Archives: Microsoft

Posts concerning news and beta programs from Microsoft. Also, posts dealing with Microsoft products, such as the Xbox 360.

In our corporate environment, our Windows 7 workstations can be powered off or restarted remotely in order to deploy updates, patches, or new software. For those of us running virtual machines in VMware Workstation, this means a running guest operating system would experience an abrupt power-off as the host machine is reset. At the very minimum, this causes the ‘Windows was not shut down properly’ message to appear when the guest OS is powered on, and it may cause serious problems with the integrity of the guest OS or the virtual machine files.

I wanted to improve the situation through the use of shutdown/logoff and startup/logon scripts on the host and the vmrun command line utility that ships with VMware Workstation and VMware Server, and I had three goals in mind.

  1. Any running guest OS would be allowed to shut down or suspend before the host powered off
  2. An event would be written to the Application log on the host for each guest that was shut down or suspended
  3. A complementary process would start or resume each guest that was running when the host restarted

The VBScripts are written for use on a 64-bit Windows 7 host.

The challenge of correct timing

I soon ran into a problem when trying to use Local Group Policy to deploy the shutdown/logoff script on my Windows 7 host. The order of events is such that the shutdown/logoff process is halted by the still-running vmware.exe process (the VMware Workstation UI). I’ve added some notes about this behavior to the bottom of the post, but I have not yet solved this problem.

A word about networking

If the network adapter in the guest OS is not reconnected upon resuming from suspend (in Windows, this can be resolved with ipconfig /renew), it may be that the VMware Tools scripts are not running at start up/resume. Disconnecting from the network is a normal process when the VM receives a suspend command with a soft parameter. I have found that I can ensure that the network adapter is reconnected upon resuming by changing the Power Options for the VM to use “Start Up Guest” instead of “Power On”.

The shutdown/logoff script

This is what I came up with for the shutdown/logoff script.

' This script passes the suspend command to each running VMware virtual machine, allowing it to gracefully sleep/hibernate
' It also saves the list of running VMs to a text file in %TEMP%, which may be parsed by a startup/logon script to resume the VMs
' It can be used as a shutdown/logoff script
' //ardamis.com/2012/03/08/managing-vmware-workstation-virtual-machines-with-vbscript/

Option Explicit

Dim objShell, objScriptExec, objFSO, WshShell, strRunCmd
Dim TEMP, strFileName, vmList, objFile, ForWriting, result, textLines, textLine, isFirstLine

'Initialize the objShell
Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

'Execute vmrun and create the list of running virtual machines
Set objScriptExec = objShell.Exec("""C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmrun.exe"" list")

'Write the list to a variable
vmList = objScriptExec.StdOut.ReadAll()

'Debug
'WScript.Echo vmList

'Initialize the wshShell
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WSCript.shell")

TEMP = WshShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%TEMP%")

'Enter the path to the file that will hold the names of the running VMs
strFileName = TEMP & "\vms.txt"

'Debug
'WScript.Echo strFileName

'Initialize the objFSO
Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

'Create the file
Set objFile = objFSO.CreateTextFile(strFileName)

'Write the list to the file
objFile.Write vmList

'Close the file
objFile.Close

'Split the list into lines
textLines = Split(vmList,vbCrLf)

'Loop through the lines
For Each textLine in textLines

	'Compare the first line in the file to the text "Total running VMs:"
	isFirstLine = StrComp(Mid(textLine, 1, 18), "Total running VMs:")

	'If the line has more than 0 character (is not blank) and is not the first line
	If Len(textLine) > 0 And isFirstLine <> 0 Then
	
		'Write to the application log
		WshShell.LogEvent 4, "Event: VMware is attempting to suspend the VM at " & textLine

		'Save the command as a variable
		strRunCmd = """C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmrun.exe"" -T ws suspend """ & textLine & """ soft"

		'Run the command
		result = WshShell.Run(strRunCmd, 0, True)

		'Write to the application log
		If result = 0 Then 
			WshShell.LogEvent 4, "Event: VMware successfully suspended the VM at " & textLine
		Else
			WshShell.LogEvent 1, "Event: VMware was unable to suspend the VM at " & textLine
		End If

'Debug
'WScript.Echo result
		
'Debug
'WScript.Echo textLine

	End If

Next

The vms.txt file that the script creates will contain something like the following, if it finds a running VM:

Total running VMs: 1
C:\Virtual Machines\Windows XP Professional\Windows XP Professional.vmx

I have chosen to suspend the virtual machine, rather than shut it down, because I don’t want to lose any work that may be unsaved. The official explanation of the suspend power command from VMware:

Suspends a virtual machine (.vmx file) or team (.vmtm) without shutting down, so local work can resume later. The soft option suspends the guest after running system scripts. On Windows guests, these scripts release the IP address. On Linux guests, the scripts suspend networking. The hard option suspends the guest without running the scripts. The default is to use the powerType value specified in the .vmx file, if present.
To resume virtual machine operation after suspend, use the start command. On Windows, the IP address is retrieved. On Linux, networking is restarted.
http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vix-api/vix110_vmrun_command.pdf

The startup/logon script

This is the startup/logo script that compliments the shutdown/logoff script.

' This script reads a list of VMware virtual machines from a text file and passes the start command to each VM, allowing it to resume from sleep/hibernate/shutdown
' It can be used as a startup/logon script
' //ardamis.com/2012/03/08/managing-vmware-workstation-virtual-machines-with-vbscript/

Option Explicit

Dim objFSO, WshShell, strRunCmd
Dim TEMP, strFileName, objTextStream, vmList, ForReading, result, textLines, textLine, isFirstLine

'Initialize the wshShell
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WSCript.shell")

TEMP = WshShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%TEMP%")

'Enter the path to the text file that will hold the names of the running VMs
strFileName = TEMP & "\vms.txt"

WshShell.LogEvent 4, "Event: VMware is attempting to find a list of VMs to restart in " & strFileName

'Initialize the objFSO
Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

'Check to see if the text file exists
If objFSO.FileExists(strFileName) Then

	'Open the text file
	Set objTextStream = objFSO.OpenTextFile(strFileName, 1)
	
	'Read the contents into a variable
	vmList = objTextStream.ReadAll()

'Debug
'WScript.Echo vmList

	'Close the text file
	objTextStream.Close

	'Split the list into lines
	textLines = Split(vmList,vbCrLf)

	'Loop through the lines
	For Each textLine in textLines

		'Compare the first line in the file to the text "Total running VMs: 0"
		isFirstLine = StrComp(Mid(textLine, 1, 20), "Total running VMs: 0")
		
		'Check to see if the first line of the text file reports 0 running VMs
		If isFirstLine = 0 Then
		
			'Write to the application log
			WshShell.LogEvent 4, "Event: VMware found no running VMs were enumerated in " & strFileName

		End If

		'Compare the first line in the file to the text "Total running VMs:"
		isFirstLine = StrComp(Mid(textLine, 1, 18), "Total running VMs:")
		
		'If the line has more than 0 character (is not blank) and is not the first line
		If Len(textLine) > 0 And isFirstLine <> 0 Then
		
			'Write to the application log
			WshShell.LogEvent 4, "Event: VMware is attempting to start the VM at " & textLine

			'Save the command as a variable
			strRunCmd = """C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmrun.exe"" -T ws start """ & textLine

			'Run the command
			result = WshShell.Run(strRunCmd, 0, True)

			'Write to the application log
			If result = 0 Then 
				WshShell.LogEvent 4, "Event: VMware successfully started the VM at " & textLine
			Else
				WshShell.LogEvent 1, "Event: VMware was unable to start the VM at " & textLine
			End If

'Debug
'WScript.Echo result
			
'Debug
'WScript.Echo textLine

		End If

	Next

Else
	WshShell.LogEvent 4, "Event: VMware did not find a list of VMs to restart at " & strFileName
End If

This script starts/resumes the virtual machine and launches the Workstation user interface.

Timing of the shutdown/logoff events

Using Group Policy shutdown/logoff scripts seemed a natural way to power off and resume the virtual machines, but there is a timing problem that prevents this from working as desired. Instead of running any logoff scripts immediately when the user chooses to log off, Windows first tries to close any open applications by ending running processes. When it encounters vmware.exe, which is the VMware Workstation GUI, it pauses the log off process and asks the user whether the log off should force the applications to close, or if the log off should be cancelled.

On Windows 7, the screen will dim and the programs that are preventing Windows from logging off the user or shutting down are listed.

Windows 7 - 1 program still needs to close

Windows 7 - VMware Workstation prevents shutdown or logoff

1 program still needs to close:

(Waiting for) [VM name] – VMware Workstation
1 virtual machine is in use.

To close the program that is preventing Windows from logging off, click Cancel, and then close the program.
[Force log off] [Cancel]

As pointed out on the vmware.com community forums, this only happens when the Workstation UI process is running at the time.

We don’t support running Workstation a service. I assume you’re using some third-party tool for that?

Anyway, that error only appears if the Workstation UI is running when you try to log off. If you kill the UI process (vmware.exe) and let the VM run in the background, you shouldn’t get that. Alternatively you could try running VMware Player instead of VMware Workstation a service.
http://communities.vmware.com/message/1189261

Quitting the Workstation process and allowing the scripts to close out the actual VMs seemed like an acceptable compromise. It still required some user interaction on the host to prepare the guest to be powered off, but I figured that there may be ways to end the Workstation UI programatically prior to the logoff.

I decided to consult the Workstation 7.1 manual:

You can set a virtual machine that is powered on to continue running in the background when you close a virtual machine or team tab, or when you exit Workstation. You can still interact with it through VNC or another service.
From the VMware Workstation menu bar, choose Edit > Preferences. On the Workspace tab, select Keep VMs running after Workstation closes and click OK.
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/ws71_manual.pdf

I found that if the VMware Workstation application is already closed, the shutdown/logoff proceeds smoothly and the scripts fire. But there is another problem. By the time the logoff script runs, the vmware-vmx.exe process (the actual virtual machine) has already been quit, so the vmrun list command finds no running VMs and you end up with a vms.txt file that contains this:

Total running VMs: 0

At this point, running VMware Player like a service logged on as the Local System account, which presumably will allow the VMs to continue running even while users on the host log out, becomes the best solution, as it theoretically avoids the problem of a) requiring the user to close the UI and b) the vmware-vmx.exe process being ended as the user logs off. VMware Player is included with Workstation, but we’re not quite out of the woods yet. According to another VMware employee:

VMware Player is not built to run as a service. However, there are different discussions and possible solutions using srvany.exe.
If you google for site:vmware.com srvany player you will find some interesting posts for this issue.
http://communities.vmware.com/message/1595588

I followed through on this suggestion, and while it didn’t solve my problem, I’m including some detail here in the hopes that it will further someone else’s exploration.

To run an application as though it were a service, you need two executables from the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools:

  • Instsrv.exe: Service Installer
  • Srvany.exe: Applications as Services Utility

The Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools are not officially supported on Windows 7, and in fact the installer will cause the Program Compatibility Assistant to warn that “This program has known compatibility issues”, but my observations seems to support other people’s reports that they work fine.

A Windows .Net magazine article from 2004 referencing Workstation 4.0 is still a good guide to follow in setting this up. My adjustments for using Player are below:

  1. Install the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools and reboot
  2. Locate srvany.exe (the default location is C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Resource Kits\Tools\srvany.exe)
  3. Open an elevated command prompt and enter instsrv [service name] [srvany.exe location], using anything you want for the service name (ex: instsrv vmplayer “C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Resource Kits\Tools\srvany.exe”)
  4. Open an elevated instance of the Windows Services snap-in (services.msc), right-click the newly created service, choose the Log On tab, and check the box next to “Allow service to interact with desktop”
  5. Open an elevated instance of Registry Editor (regedit.exe)
  6. Locate vmplayer.exe (the default location is C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmplayer.exe)
  7. Navigate to your service’s key at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\[service name]
  8. Create a new subkey named Parameters under your service’s key
  9. Create a new String Value named Application under the Parameters key
  10. Double-click the Application value and enter the path to vmplayer.exe as the value’s data

You should now be able to start the vmplayer service (or whatever you chose to name it) from the Services snap-in.

But, we’re still not home free. This doesn’t magically allow any instance of VMware Player to persist through a user logoff (which is really what I was hoping to get).

The harsh reality set in when I came across this thread, wherein continuum (a guy with incredible insight into VMware) bursts the vm-as-a-service balloon:

there are 2 ways to run the service …
– run it with “local system account” plus “allow to interact …” checked
– run it as a user – needs the password of this user

In first case the VM starts after a user is logged in – the VM is visible and you can interact with it but you can NOT log off.
It use process vmplayer.exe plus vmware-vmx.exe.

In second case the VM is invisible and only process vmware-vmx.exe runs but no user has to be logged in
http://communities.vmware.com/message/1471897#1471897

What I need is the best of both worlds: a VMware GUI environment, be it Workstation or Player, that is able to load a VM when a user logs into the host, and at the same time is able to keep the VM running while that user logs off.

Ultimately, I’m left with the same feelings as expressed toward the end of the thread at http://communities.vmware.com/message/1402590: why should useful and highly sought-after functionality that is present in the free but no-longer-actively developed Server product be absent from the non-free and actively developed Workstation product?

The answer, if there is one, may be that VMware doesn’t want to get involved.

One of the nastier corner cases is, what happens if there is a failure suspending the VM? Do we decide the user really wanted to log off and forcibly kill the VM, or do we veto the log-off and go back to the user for input (which, if you are using a laptop, means closing the lid leaves the VM running and kills the battery)? What if the VM process crashes during this – who initiates the log-off then? What if the VM is busy doing something expensive (like disk consolidation) and cannot suspend? Getting involved in the log-off path is, realistically, just a mess of bugs.
http://communities.vmware.com/thread/233117

Final thoughts

As with pretty much anything I do, this is far from finished. I’m not ready to give up on the goal of using scripts to start and suspend VMs without any user interaction. But it seems that it’s going to be much more difficult than one might reasonably expect.

As for the scripts themselves, I’m slightly bothered by the empty command prompt window that is opened momentarily by objShell.Exec. I’m not sure that I like saving the list of running VMs to %TEMP%, where it may be deleted by other processes that clean that location at login/logout. But they are a good start, and they seem to serve their purpose.

I’ve been a fan of the simple and effective Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool for quite awhile, and have often used it to create a bootable USB flash drive for installing Windows 7.

But I recently ran into a problem with a flash drive after connecting it to my Xbox 360 and using it to move my profile. The Xbox 360 must have made some change to the MBR on the flash drive that the WUDT didn’t like, because it was unable to format the drive.

The WUDT would begin to format the drive, then report:

We were unable to copy your files. Please check your USB device and the selected ISO file and try again.

Windows 7 had no problems formatting the drive, but something was obviously missing from the process.

A quick search in Google turned up the solution. The formatting done by Windows 7 or the WUDT wasn’t cleaning the MBR and partition table.

To thoroughly format the drive so that it can be used by the WUDT, open an elevated command prompt and enter the following commands, using the drive number of the USB drive reported in list disk for the value of select disk #.

diskpart
list disk
select disk #
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format quick fs=fat32
assign
exit

For the curious, here’s a more detailed explanation of the clean command:

Removes any and all partition or volume formatting from the disk with focus. On master boot record (MBR) disks, only the MBR partitioning information and hidden sector information are overwritten. On GUID partition table (GPT) disks, the GPT partitioning information, including the Protective MBR, is overwritten; there is no hidden sector information.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766465(v=ws.10).aspx

I would expect that the MBR and partition table would need to be cleaned after formatting a drive for booting Mac OS X, too.

Credit: http://4sysops.com/archives/windows-7-usbdvd-download-tool-wudt-is-unable-to-copy-files/

I recently reinstalled Windows 7 and then VM Workstation 7 on a machine that I’d been using as a VMware Workstation host running an XP virtual machine. The VM is named “XP-Office2007” and it resides on a separate physical hard drive in the machine. Since the reinstall, upon clicking the “Power on this virtual machine” link, VMware returns a cryptic “Internal error.” and fails to start the VM.

VMware Workstation - Internal error.

VMware Workstation - Internal error.

The vmware log in %temp% had the following entries:

Mar 01 09:28:46.750: vmui| CVMUIStatusVM::OnPowerVM clicked
Mar 01 09:28:46.920: vmui-1176| /vm/#6f7088f493f32788/: VMHSVMCbPower: Setting state of VM to powerOn with option hard
Mar 01 09:28:46.921: vmui-1176| VMHSGetVMX failed: Empty vmxFilePath
Mar 01 09:28:46.921: vmui-1176| VMHSLaunchVM failed: VMDB failure
Mar 01 09:28:46.957: vmui| Internal VMDB error: VMDB failure
Mar 01 09:28:46.957: vmui| Internal error.
Mar 01 09:28:46.957: vmui| VMDlg::ShowDialog: Internal error.

Of course, I immediately started Googling these errors and failure messages, but found very little. At least one page indicated that a similar sounding problem wasn’t resolved by re-installing VMware. I like to think I’m pretty decent with VMware, so I decided I’d roll up my sleeves, dig into the VM, and try to figure it out.

Trying to get lightning to strike twice, I tried my old standby fix of editing the name of the hard drive in the *.vmx file. Instead of pointing the IDE drive to the “XP-Office2007-000001.vmdk” file, I moved that file out of my VM directory and then changed the ide0:0.fileName value to point to the older *.vmdk file, named “XP-Office2007.vmdk”. The IDE lines now looked like this:

ide0:0.present = "TRUE"
ide0:0.fileName = "XP-Office2007.vmdk"
ide1:0.present = "TRUE"
ide1:0.fileName = "E:"

When the machine was powered on, it still failed, but with a different and more descriptive error:

VMware Workstation - Unable to open file

VMware Workstation - Unable to open file

VMware Workstation
Unable to open file “D:\VMware\Virtual Machines\XP-Office2007\XP-Office2007.vmdk”: One of the disks in this virtual machine is already in use by a virtual machine or by a snapshot.

The more verbose message from the vmware log in %temp% read:

Mar 01 10:31:22.814: vmui| CVMUIStatusVM::OnPowerVM clicked
Mar 01 10:31:23.016: vmui-3992| SNAPSHOT: SnapshotDiskTreeAddFromSnapshot: Trying to add snapshot XP-Office2007-Snapshot2.vmsn to disk D:\VMware\Virtual Machines\XP-Office2007\XP-Office2007.vmdk which already has snapshot currentState.
Mar 01 10:31:23.016: vmui-3992| Cannot open D:\VMware\Virtual Machines\XP-Office2007\XP-Office2007.vmdk of type disk: One of the disks in this virtual machine is already in use by a virtual machine or by a snapshot.
Mar 01 10:31:23.016: vmui-3992| Cmd /vm/#6f7088f493f32788/cmd/##94/op/checkMissingFiles/ failed: Unable to open file "D:\VMware\Virtual Machines\XP-Office2007\XP-Office2007.vmdk": One of the disks in this virtual machine is already in use by a virtual machine or by a snapshot.
Mar 01 10:31:23.016: vmui| Unable to open file "D:\VMware\Virtual Machines\XP-Office2007\XP-Office2007.vmdk": One of the disks in this virtual machine is already in use by a virtual machine or by a snapshot.
Mar 01 10:31:23.016: vmui| VMDlg::ShowDialog: Unable to open file "D:\VMware\Virtual Machines\XP-Office2007\XP-Office2007.vmdk": One of the disks in this virtual machine is already in use by a virtual machine or by a snapshot.

I copied only the *.vmx and *.vmdk files into a new folder and tried to launch the *vmx as a new VM, but got the Internal error message again. This was something of a relief, as it suggested that the problem wasn’t with the VM itself.

I tried to create a new, empty virtual machine using the New Virtual Machine Wizard, but the process didn’t complete. After setting up the basic machine, I clicked the Finish button in the wizard, but the window did not close. The *.vmx and *.vmdk files were created, however. When I closed the window with the red X and tried to power on the VM, I got the same Internal error message.

I found a VMware community article suggesting that I needed to run Windows Updates on the host. This seemed logical, as perhaps the old host had more recent updates, but I found that the current host was up to date.

As I was running out of ideas, I decided that maybe re-installing Workstation was worth a shot, so I first checked in SCCM Software Center and found it had a Failed status. I then looked in Windows Programs and Features and found it wasn’t listed at all.

I reinstalled Workstation from Software Center and lo and behold, the VMs powered up normally. If I’d just kept my self-confidence in check, I would probably have gotten around to verifying the install much sooner.

In Windows, the Num Lock key state (on or off) can be set in the registry. It can be set in either of two locations, depending on when you wish to set the state, or both, if you want to force the state at boot and change it after the user logs in.

The Num Lock key state after logon can be set as a registry value for the current user in the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Keyboard. To set the state of the Num Lock key before logon (the key state will be set before the Ctrl+Alt+Del screen), change the registry value in the key HKEY_USERS\.Default\Control Panel\Keyboard. For both keys, the data for the InitialKeyboardIndicators value determines the state of the NumLock key. There are three possible settings.

0 = Num Lock is turned OFF after/at logon.
1 = Disable Num Lock.
2 = Num Lock is turned ON after/at logon.

A registry merge file that sets Num Lock on for the current user after logon is below.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Keyboard]
"InitialKeyboardIndicators"="2"

It’s also (typically) possible to configure the Num Lock key state in the BIOS, although I personally don’t see the advantage of setting in the BIOS something that is configurable in Windows.

Note that users of full-sized keyboards with distinct Num keypads generally prefer to have the Num Lock key enabled and laptop users typically have Num Lock disabled. Much like the Function key is used to change the behavior of certain laptop keys, laptop keyboards without dedicated Num keypads map numbers to regular character keys. This could potentially cause some confusion, when users begin hitting the letter keys and get numbers instead.

In the VBScript example below, I’m using the Icacls.exe utility to assign modify permissions to the D:\Test folder for the user Oliver on the LOOMER domain (or local machine). The script includes as comments some good resources on the subject.

' http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919240
' http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2009.07.geekofalltrades.aspx
' http://timbolton.net/2010/06/23/icacls-changing-permissions-on-files-and-folders/

Dim strFolder, strUser, strDomain

strFolder = "D:\Test"
strUser = "Oliver"
strDomain = "LOOMER"

SetPermissions
	
Function SetPermissions()
	Dim intRunError, objShell, objFSO

	Set objShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
	Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
	If objFSO.FolderExists(strFolder) Then
		intRunError = objShell.Run("icacls " & strFolder & " /inheritance:r /grant:r " & strDomain &"\" & strUser & ":(OI)(CI)M ", 2, True)
		
		If intRunError <> 0 Then
			Wscript.Echo "Error assigning permissions for user " & strUser & " to folder " & strFolder
		End If
	Else
		Wscript.Echo "Error: folder " & strFolder & " does not exist"
	End If
End Function

This script is a work-in-progress. To be considered complete, I want it to be able to create multiple directories and assign them permissions. For extra credit, I want it to be able to accept as input a list of usernames from a text file and iterate through them, creating folders where necessary and assigning them permissions.

As part of a migration from Windows XP to Windows 7, I was asked to come up with a way to export the network printers installed on the XP machines such that they could be reinstalled on the Windows 7 machines. We did not want to capture local printers (printers installed via TCP/IP or connected via USB) or virtual printers (like the Adobe PDF virtual printer or the Microsoft XPS Document Writer). I thought that migrating the printers was less attractive because the source machines are 32-bit Windows XP but the destination machines are 64-bit Windows 7 and the drivers are therefore different.

There are a number of ways to export print queues, printer settings, and printer ports, but for my purposes, I decided that all I wanted was to determine the name of each printer (eg.: \\SERVER\Printer) on the XP machine, export that to a text file on a network share, and then run PrintUI.exe /ga on the Windows 7 machine, looping through the lines from the text file as input.

(Check out the Printer Migration wizard by launching PrintBrmUI.exe, or the command line version %WINDIR%\System32\Spool\Tools\Printbrm /?, for alternatives to printui.exe.)

As an added benefit, I’m also exporting the name of the default printer so that it can be set programatically in the new environment.

The code is a work in progress, but I hope it helps get your started.

The VBScripts

Here are the scripts I’ve pieced together.

exportPrinters.vbs

The exportPrinters.vbs script creates two text files in H:\PRINTERS, so adjust your path accordingly.

Const ForWriting = 2

Set objNetwork = CreateObject("Wscript.Network")

strName = objNetwork.UserName
strDomain = objNetwork.UserDomain
strUser = strDomain & "\" & strName

'strText = strUser & vbCrLf

strComputer = "."

Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")


' Export a list of network printers to a text file

Set colPrinters = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
    ("Select * From Win32_Printer Where Local = FALSE")

For Each objPrinter in colPrinters
    strText = strText & objPrinter.Name & vbCrLf
Next

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

strFolder = "H:\PRINTERS"

If Not objFSO.FolderExists(strFolder) Then
    objFSO.CreateFolder(strFolder)
End If

Set objFile = objFSO.CreateTextFile _
    ("H:\PRINTERS\printers.txt", ForWriting, False)

objFile.Write strText

objFile.Close


' Export the default printer separately

Set colPrinters = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
    ("Select * From Win32_Printer Where Default = TRUE")

For Each objPrinter in colPrinters
    strText = objPrinter.Name
Next

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

Set objFile = objFSO.CreateTextFile _
    ("H:\PRINTERS\default.txt", ForWriting, False)

objFile.Write strText

objFile.Close

importPrinters.vbs

Note that, if your users in Windows 7 are not administrators, you will need to run the script as an administrator (there are a few different ways) or else you’ll get a UAC prompt for each printer installation and the restarting of the print spooler.

Again, watch the paths. This is a home-grown script for my specific environment.

Option Explicit

'This script must be run with administor privileges
'If it is not run with administrator privileges, it will launch a UAC prompt for each printer as it loops through the list
'Here's an interesting article about running VBS as a different user:
'http://blogs.technet.com/b/heyscriptingguy/archive/2006/04/28/how-can-i-use-the-runas-command-to-run-a-script-under-alternate-user-credentials.aspx

'For example:
'runas /profile /user:[username]\[password] "cscript.exe \"F:\Printer Driver Research\Automation\printers-import.vbs"\"

Dim objNetwork, strComputer, strName, strFolder, objFSO, strTextFile, strData, strLine, arrLines, strRunCmd, WshShell
CONST ForReading = 1

'Create a Network Object
Set objNetwork = CreateObject("Wscript.Network") 

'Get the local machine name from the Network Object
strComputer = objNetwork.ComputerName 

'Get the user's username from the Network Object
strName = objNetwork.UserName

'Create a File System Object
Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

'Save the name of the text file as a variable 
'Note that the script must be run as an administrator and that invoking the script with
'Run As causes the script to run as though it's located in the same directory as "%SystemRoot%\System32\WScript.exe"
'Hence the need to pass the full path to the printers.txt file
strTextFile = "H:\PRINTERS\printers.txt"

'Open the text file - strData now contains the whole file
strData = objFSO.OpenTextFile(strTextFile,ForReading).ReadAll

'Split the text file into lines
arrLines = Split(strData,vbCrLf)

'Initialize the wshShell
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WSCript.shell")

'Step through the lines
For Each strLine in arrLines

    If Len(strLine) > 0 Then
		'Only run the process on lines that aren't blank
		
'		strRunCmd = "rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /ga /c\\" & strComputer & " /n" & strLine & ""
		strRunCmd = """printui.exe"" /ga /q /c\\" & strComputer & " /n" & strLine & ""
		
		'Echo back the command to be run
'		WScript.Echo strRunCmd

		'This launches printui.exe
'		strRunCmd = """printui.exe"""

		'Run the command, display the window, and wait for the command to complete before continuing
		Dim result
		result = WshShell.Run(strRunCmd, 1, True)
		
'		WScript.Echo result
		
		'Write to the application log that the printer was installed
		If result = 0 Then 
			WshShell.LogEvent 0, "User: " & strName & " - Event: attempted to install printer " & strLine & " with [" & strRunCmd & "] (success unknown)"
		End If
		
'		WScript.Echo "Processed printer: " & strLine
    End If

Next

'Cleanup
Set objFSO = Nothing

'Wait 10 seconds
WScript.Sleep 10000

'Restart the Print Spooler
RestartService "Print Spooler", True

Sub RestartService( myService, blnQuiet )
' This subroutine restarts a service
' Arguments:
' myService     use the service's DisplayName
' blnQuiet      if False, the state of the service is displayed
'               every second during the restart procedure
'
' Written by Rob van der Woude
' http://www.robvanderwoude.com

    ' Standard housekeeping
    Dim colServices, colServicesTest, objService
    Dim objServiceTest, objWMIService, strQuery, strTest

    ' Create a WMI object
    Set objWMIService = GetObject( "winmgmts:\\.\root\CIMV2" )

    ' Query the services for "our" service
    strQuery = "SELECT * FROM Win32_Service WHERE DisplayName='" & myService & "'"
    Set colServices = objWMIService.ExecQuery( strQuery, "WQL", 48 )

    ' Loop through the "collection" of returned services
    For Each objService In colServices
        ' See if we need to tell the user we're going to stop the service
        If Not blnQuiet Then
            WScript.Echo "Stopping " & myService
        End If

        ' Stop the service
        objService.StopService

        ' Wait until the service is stopped
        Do Until strTest = "Stopped"
            ' Create a new object for our service; this work-around is required
            ' since otherwise the service's state information isn't properly updated
            Set colServicesTest = objWMIService.ExecQuery( strQuery, "WQL", 48 )

            ' Loop through the "collection" of returned services
            For Each objServiceTest In colServicesTest
                ' Check the service's state
                strTest = objServiceTest.State
                ' See if we need to show the progress
                If Not blnQuiet Then
                    WScript.Echo "State: " & strTest
                End If
                ' Wait 1 second
                WScript.Sleep 1000
            Next

            ' Clear the temporary object
            Set colServicesTest = Nothing
        Loop

        ' See if we need to tell the user we're going to (re)start the service
        If Not blnQuiet Then
            WScript.Echo "Starting " & myService
        End If

        ' Start the service
        objService.StartService

        ' Wait until the service is running again
        Do Until strTest = "Running"
            ' Create a new object for our service; this work-around is required
            ' since otherwise the service's state information isn't properly updated
            Set colServicesTest = objWMIService.ExecQuery( strQuery, "WQL", 48 )

            ' Loop through the "collection" of returned services
            For Each objServiceTest In colServicesTest
                ' Check the service's state
                strTest = objServiceTest.State
                ' See if we need to show the progress
                If Not blnQuiet Then
                    WScript.Echo "State: " & strTest
                End If
                ' Wait 1 second
                WScript.Sleep 1000
            Next

            ' Clear the temporary object
            Set colServicesTest = Nothing
        Loop
    Next
End Sub

setDefaultPrinter.vbs

Finally, we want to set the default printer. The printer will have to already exist (obviously). If you’ve just fired off the printui.exe /ga command to install the printer, it won’t be available until the print spooler is restarted. So wait a minute or two before running the script.

Option Explicit

Dim objNetwork, strComputer, objFSO, strTextFile, strData, strLine, arrLines, strRunCmd, wshShell
CONST ForReading = 1

'Create a Network Object
Set objNetwork = CreateObject("Wscript.Network") 

'Get the local machine name from the Network Object
strComputer = objNetwork.ComputerName 

'Save the name of the text file as a variable 
strTextFile = "H:\PRINTERS\default.txt"

'Create a File System Object
Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

'Open the text file - strData now contains the whole file
strData = objFSO.OpenTextFile(strTextFile,ForReading).ReadAll

'Split the text file into lines
arrLines = Split(strData,vbCrLf)

'Initialize the wshShell
Set wshShell = WScript.CreateObject ("WSCript.shell")

'Step through the lines
For Each strLine in arrLines

    If Len(strLine) > 0 Then
		'Only run the process on lines that aren't blank
		
'		strRunCmd = "rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /y /c\\" & strComputer & " /n" & strLine & ""
		strRunCmd = """printui.exe"" /y /c \" & strComputer & " /n """ & strLine & """"
'		wscript.echo strRunCmd
		wshShell.Run strRunCmd
		
'		wscript.echo "Processed printer: " & strLine
    End If

Next

'Cleanup
Set objFSO = Nothing

As the migration proceeds, I’ll come back and tweak the scripts. Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions.

Thanks go to Rob van der Woude for his terrific Command Line Printer Control page, as well as many others.

I’m trying to find a way to save some Xbox 360 achievements that I’ve earned while my console was offline. Typically, just connecting to Xbox Live will sync up your gamertag and the offline achievements will be added to you profile. This works because, usually, the gamertag is associated with a single Xbox 360, which goes offline and then back online. My situation is different, and it seems like I’m going to lose my offline achievements.

The set up

I have a single gold account and two Xbox 360 consoles. One of these consoles is always online and is used exclusively for watching Netflix (because the drive tray is broken). The other console works fine for games, but is physically located where wired Ethernet isn’t available, and I haven’t purchased a wireless adapter. In order to get the same gamertag on both consoles, I used the recover gamertag feature to bring it down to the online console. This means that the Netflix gamertag is regularly connecting to Xbox Live while my gaming is done on the same gamertag, but offline.

Microsoft doesn’t seem to want to support this sort of arrangement, as it appears that gamertags are associated with individual Xbox consoles and that only the last-to-be-connected gamertag is seen as legit.

The problems

The first problem I’m facing is how to get all of these achievements that were earned offline sync’d up with my Live profile. One might reasonably think that simply connecting the offline Xbox to Xbox Live and logging in would do this, but Live sees the account as invalid (presumably because the account associated with the other box has connected more recently). Upon connecting to Xbox Live, I’m prompted to recover my gamertag, which I know from experience will erase my offline achievements (I’ll get the gamertag as it exists on the online console – which will also render the gamertag on the online console invalid).

I also tried to use a USB flash drive to move my gamer profile from the offline box to the online box. The move itself was successful, but when I tried to connect to Live, it again found the account to be invalid and invited me to recover my gamertag. I was able to move the gamer profile back to the USB drive, remove the drive, and then recover the online gamertag in order to keep using Netflix, but I was back to square one.

I haven’t yet tried moving the offline console’s hard drive with the gamertag to the online console. As of right now, this is the only thing I can think to try.

The second problem I’m facing is that the offline Xbox doesn’t yet have the new dashboard and some of my games have updates available that are supposed to fix some bugs. I’ve read that it should be possible to get these updates by creating a silver account and logging into Xbox Live under that account. That would be somewhat helpful, but unnecessary if I can solve the first problem.

I have a Windows XP guest running in VMWare Workstation 7 on a Windows 7 Ultimate host machine. This is working pretty well. The XP guest is nice and responsive. I have only one gripe. I’d like all of the buttons on my Logitech MX510 (the best mouse ever) to be mappable in the guest.

Starting from square one, I decided to try installing the current version of SetPoint in the guest OS. The installation went fine, but the usual functionality of the SetPoint settings utility was absent.

SetPoint Settings in an XP virtual machine

SetPoint Settings in an XP virtual machine

As shown in the screenshot, the SetPoint Settings utility displays only the Tools tab. It is missing the My Mouse tab (and if a keyboard were installed, I presume it would be missing the Keyboard tab, too).

After some Googling around, it appears to be a due to the way VMware approximates the physical mouse. VMware seems to treat USB mice connected to the host as PS/2 devices in the guest. SetPoint, then, doesn’t detect any Logitech hardware that it can configure.

The question of how to obtain SetPoint functionality in virtual machines is one that has been asked many, many times before, without a satisfactory answer. More on that in a little bit.

The best work around

Thankfully, it seems that, at least in the case of a Windows host and a Windows guest, installing SetPoint inside the virtual machine is not necessary. Installing it on the host seems to make all of the functionality available in the guest. This is the solution that I’m implementing now, and it is what I would recommend, provided you have rights to install software on the host.

Paths to follow if you want to pursue installing SetPoint inside a VMware virtual machine

I applaud your courage. There are a few settings that can be tweaked that may get you closer to a working installation.

Possible setting number one

From the post at http://coreygilmore.com/blog/2008/04/30/better-multi-button-mouse-support-with-vmware-fusion-and-workstation/

Add the following line to the virtual machine’s .vmx file:

mouse.vusb.enable = "TRUE"

From what I can tell, this setting allows me to use the Forward and Back buttons on the mouse, but does not make the mouse detectable by SetPoint. The remaining mouse buttons do nothing.

Possible setting number two

From the post at http://superuser.com/questions/35830/back-forward-mouse-buttons-do-not-work-in-vmware-workstation-6-5-guest-os/304583#304583

The solution given (which did not work for me) is to:

First add the following line to the virtual machine’s .vmx file:

usb.generic.allowHID = "TRUE"

An explanation of what this does, by a VMware associate, can be found in the thread at http://communities.vmware.com/thread/110919?start=15&tstart=0

If you’re feeling really adventurous and/or desperate, you can take out the mouse.vusb.enable line and add this option instead:

usb.generic.allowHID = “TRUE”

Then, you’ll notice that your main mouse and keyboard (if they are USB) are available to pass through into the guest via the USB devices menu.

The dangerous part here is that once you pass through the mouse, it is actually disconnected from the host, so you won’t be able to ungrab from the guest just by mousing out of the Fusion window. You can still ungrab with the keyboard (ctrl-cmd I believe is the shortcut?). If you actually pass through your keyboard and your mouse, you’ll be stuck in the guest and you’ll have to shut it down (or worse, reboot your physical machine).

This sounded like a great idea, and I was willing to set up a second, PS/2 mouse to control just the host, if necessary. Without connecting a second mouse, I tried passing the Logitech mouse as a USB device to the VM, just as I would an external hard drive, but VMware prevented this, with a warning message:

[Machine Name] – VMware Workstation
Cannot connect “Logitech USB-PS/2 Optical Mouse” to this virtual machine. The host requires this device for input.
[OK]

The second step would have been to go into Device Manager, click Actions, and then choose “Scan for hardware changes”.

I didn’t get to the second step, as I was too lazy to track down a PS/2 mouse to keep attached to the host, and I still wanted to find a software solution. I suspect, though, that this would be were to begin, were I to need to get SetPoint running in the guest OS.

Summary

While I wasn’t able to figure out how to install SetPoint on a guest OS, the workaround of installing SetPoint on the host OS seems to accomplish my goal.

I just picked up an old Dell Precision 690 workstation, which I intend to develop into a file server, a Windows IIS server, and an Ubuntu LAMP server. This monster was built in 2006, but it still has some neat specs and tons of capacity (7 PCI slots, 4 hard drive bays, etc…), should I want to expand further.

Dell Precision 690

Dell Precision 690 Workstation

The main specs

CPU: Dual Core Intel Xeon 5060 3.2GHz, 4M Cache, 1066 MHz FSB
RAM: 2GB DDR2 PC2-5300, CL=5, Fully Buffered, ECC, DDR2-667
HD: SAS Fujitsu MAX3073RC 73GB, 15000 RPM, 16MB Cache
Video: Nvidia Quadro NVS 285 PCI-Express, 128MB

This is not a normal tower

Right away, the size of this thing suggests it isn’t a normal tower. It’s about up to my knee and weights 70 lbs. It feels like it’s made with heavier gauge steel than the typical chassis, but that may be me projecting.

I immediately shopped around for more RAM, obviously. 2GB seems a little thin, even by 2006 standards, when considering the way everything else is high-end. The mainboard has 8 slots and supports up to 32GB, but I figure 6GB is a safe place to start.

The workstation has three enormous fans, like, big-as-your-hand big. Running it with the chassis open causes some sort of thermal protection system to kick in and it spins the fans up to the point that they were blowing stuff on the floor half-way across the room.

The CPU has a big, passive heat sink with six copper pipes and sits between two of those fans. I’m tempted to buy a second CPU, but I’ll hold off.

I’m still on the fence about the SCSI drive. It should be super fast, but I’m a little spoiled by the SSD in my machine at work, so it’s hard to get excited about a mechanical drive, even one running at 15k RPM.

The Nvidia Quadro card is also fanless, and has a bizarre DMS-59 connector. An adapter converts the DMS-59 connector into two DVI outputs.