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And that toy is VM Explorer.

I only get chance to play with VMWare on an infrequent basis. The job dictates that we support a lot of areas and VMWare runs so well, we don’t have to mess with it very often.

However today I need to move a VM from our Live kit to our DR kit. That means I need a new toy. The first that appeared in a google search was VM Explorer.

I was seriously impressed with the ease of which you can setup VM Explorer. Basically you just bang a host and root account in and it connects. its about three clicks to backup a VM (which is happening as I type this).

Next job will be to restore the backup onto the deparate VMware environment.

I’ll update this post depending on how that went, but for now you might like to point your browser at http://www.trilead.com/ and check out VM EXplorer. There is a free download which you can evaluate on there.

Hands up if you’ve ever struggled to license your VirtualCenter server and all that it monitors? Just me then? I’m guessing not.

Its not the easiest thing to do, its not the most obvious of procedures and for the sake of posterity I’ve captured it below. Even if I’m the only person who ever references this procedure, its better than saving yet another text file off to my c: drive and forgetting I did that!!!

1. Download License and drop onto the management server

2. Open LM Tools, swap to Config Services Tab

3. Configure the path to license file by hitting the browse button and pointing it at the newly downloaded license file.

4. Hit the Save Service button.

5. Move to the Start/Stop/Read tab

6. Stop the license server. Start the License Server. ReRead the License File.

7. Now open VI Client and from the Admininstration Menu, choose Virtual Center Management Server Configuration. This is the bit I always missed, as I expected the software to know that once you asked it to read a new license file in, you pretty much wanted it to use the new license file. Silly me.

8. Uncheck “Evaluate VirtualCenter Server” and it should choose “Use License Service on this VirtualCenter Server” for you.  Ok that dialog box and you should be good to go.

I don’t know if you’ve used ThinApp or if you’ve even heard of it. If you’re not in the loop check out the VMWare blurb here.

Now for the Laymans version. ThinApp used to be called Thinstall and its pretty bloody good. It allows you to create virtual installations of applications that you’d often have to visit a desktop to install. It then bundles the virtual installation into its own .exe file and allows to you host it on a fileshare for access by all. Or as many as you choose to let into the fileshare. It even bundles the dll’s and reg entries into the virtual app so you don’t have to touch the desktop on which you’re giving access.

Take it a step further: you’re the single admin at a site of 500 users. You can barely breathe during office hours for visiting desks and fixing broken apps. even if you do this with vnc or Remote Desktop, there is a better way.

Your ThinApp created virtual application can be forced to revert to the build upon startup. So you build it as you think it needs to be, users use it, amend it, move the menus about etc, then when they start it up next time, they get a working app which was just the way you deployed it and wanted it to be. Maybe not great for MS office, but defintely worth considering for those old bespoke apps which allow you to change settings in the menus that totally break the app which you end up visiting twice a day.

Which brings me to the reason behind this post. I’ve got the trial version and I’ve packaged Firefox and IE 7 quite well really. But they’re just not good enough for the PHB. Whats the killer app that is going to justify ThinApp? Personally I don’t see it being a big thing, as its (for now at least) a very inexpensive product (you may disagree!). But I’m throwing this one out to the floor for diversity reasons, I want to know what app alone would justify ThinApp to your PHB.

Grab the trial here https://www.vmware.com/tryvmware/login.php?eval=thinapp and let me know what you think by way of a comment…