Tag: vCenter

14th June 2018

Cannot Remove Content Library in VCSA 6.5 Update 1

Problem

At a customer I came across the following problem, the customer was not able to remove a Content Library from vCenter Server. They just created a Content Library and after that, they wanted to remove the item. When they tried to remove the content library it failed. We started troubleshooting the log files and tried to remove the Content Library in different ways with the vSphere Web Client, PowerShell and REST API but all ended with the same error. The error messages are listed below.

To add some more background information: the customer was running the environment with an external platform services controller and a vCenter Server (VCSA). The version that was being used was VCSA 6.5 Update 1e.

Content Library – Error messages

Cannot Remove Content Libary – 01

Cannot Remove Content Libary – 02

Cannot Remove Content Libary – 03

Solution

We ended up calling VMware Global Support Services (GSS) to resolve the issues. They were very helpful and fixed it within a couple of minutes. The knowledge base article listed below is only available for internal VMware personal.

The internal knowledge base article related to the issue:
– https://ikb.vmware.com/s/article/50121825 – Unable to delete the stale entry for the content library from the web client

12th June 2018

Opening vSphere Web Client (Flash) on Windows Server 2016

Recently somebody asked me a question about VMware vCenter running on a Windows Server. The Windows Server was running VMware vCenter 6.5 and in case of a datacenter related problem, they wanted to get access to the vSphere Web Client (Flash) on the system locally.

It sounds easy right…? Just open the browser on the Windows Server and navigate to the vSphere Web Client page but that didn’t appear to be the case, because the system is missing the browser plugins required to open the vSphere Web Client.

So let’s dive into the problem.

Microsoft Browsers:
They are running Windows Server 2016 and you might expect it to have two browsers: Internet Explorer 11 and Microsoft Edge. That does not seem to be the case. Windows Server 2016 is only shipped with Internet Explorer 11. Why? Windows Server 2016 is marked as an LTSB (Long Time Service Branch) so this means no Microsoft Edge and it is also not available for manual installation.

Microsoft: “The Long-Term Servicing Branch (LTSB) versions of Windows, including Windows Server 2016, don’t include Microsoft Edge or many other Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps. These apps and their services are frequently updated with new functionality, and can’t be supported on systems running the LTSB operating systems.”

Third-party browsers:
The company who was asking had a security policy that does not allow an installation of third-party browsers like Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome. Alright, so this is not an option. Don’t have to look at that further.

Adobe Flash:
So let’s try Internet Explorer 11. It appears to be missing Adobe Flash and you can not download and install it from Adobe Website.

At this point, I was stuck and there did not seem to be a simple solution.

Screenshots

vSphere Web Client missing Adobe Flash

Adobe Flash not available for installation on Windows Server 2016

Solution

After searching for a solution for about an hour. I came across a Microsoft Blog article listed below. This article is talking about installing Adobe Flash on Windows Server 2016. It appears that all the software is already on the system but just needs to be installed.

Procedure:
– Step 01: Close all browsers
– Step 02: Start a PowerShell session with elevated rights.
– Step 03: Run the following command:
dism /online /add-package /packagepath:"C:WindowsservicingPackagesAdobe-Flash-For-Windows-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~10.0.14393.0.mum"
– Step 04: Wait for the installation to complete.
– Step 05: Open a browser and navigate to the vSphere Web Client.
– Step 06: Everything should be working now.

Note: In the Microsoft Blog article they are talking about a reboot required in my case it was not required. Just a browser restart was enough.

Screenshots

Installing Adobe Flash on Windows Server 2016

vSphere Web Client with Adobe Flash

It sounded like an easy problem at first but it took some more time than I expected. The problem is solved with a simple one-liner and the customer is happy. I personally think that there might be other solution to the problem. If you know them please add a comment below.

Source(s):
– Blog.technet.microsoft.com – How to add the Adobe Flash Player / Shockwave Plugin for IE on Windows Server 2016
– Docs.microsoft.com – Microsoft Edge requirements and language support

10th February 2018

The VM Remote Console changed to VMware Workstation instead of VMRC

Lately I discovered an annoying feature in combination with VMware vCenter and VMware Workstation. When installing VMware Workstation on your management computer it becomes the default Remote Console viewer. To be honest, I like the VMware Remote Console (VMRC) very much. The application has all the features and is quick and light. This compared to starting VMware Workstation to open a Remote Console.

What is VMware Remote Console: “The VMware Remote Console (VMRC) is a standalone console application for Windows. VMware Remote Console provides console access and client device connection to VMs on a remote host. You will need to download this installer before you can launch the external VMRC application directly from a VMware vSphere or vRealize Automation web client.”

In October 2017, I already fixed my problem on my management computer… but after a recent VMware Workstation update it changed the Remote Console back to VMware Workstation. Currently there is no option in the GUI to change the default Remote Console. Ok, but how do we get VMRC back?

When I was comparing the Windows Registry, I found out that the following registry keys were different between machines. To speed up to process I created some PowerShell one-liners to fix the problem.

### View settings in registry
Get-Item HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Classes\vmrc\DefaultIcon
Get-Item HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Classes\vmrc\shell\open\command

### Change settings to VMRC
Set-Item HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Classes\vmrc\DefaultIcon -Value '"C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Remote Console\vmrc.exe",0'
Set-Item HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Classes\vmrc\shell\open\command -Value '"C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Remote Console\vmrc.exe" "%1"'

When you change the registry key, no Operating System or browser restart is required. The change is instant. I hope the blog post helps some vSphere Administrators that also prefer VMRC above VMware Workstation for viewing Remote Consoles.

@VMware: I would like to have an option to control the behaviour without changing registry keys by hand… 🙂 Thanks!