How to resize your VM image disk

When your VMware image size is not large enough, yet you don't want to create a new image with OS installation from scratch, one can perform the resizing of the VM image. One of the easiest ways to do so is with the VMware converter.

Steps:

1. Download VMware converter.

2. Shutdown the virtual machine.

3. Start the VMware converter software tool.

4. Click on "Convert machine" button.

5. In the source type field, choose the option "VMware Workstation or other VMware virtual machine". And click next.

6. In the Destination System panel, choose also the option "VMware Workstation or other VMware virtual machine" for the destination type field.

7. For the VMware product, select the version of the VMware product on which your image is based on.

8. Specify the virtual machine name and location accordingly to your environment. And click next.

9. Edit the "Data to copy" part, and choose "Select volumes to copy" for the data copy type. Then choose "" in the destination size drop-down field. Specify the size in GB, e.g. 60.

10. Click next and finish to start the conversion job. Wait for the conversion is complete. The new VM image now should have the specified disk size to go with it!

Question of the Day: Know your in-use IIS & SQL server versions?

Ever wonder what versions are in use for IIS and MS SQL server? For server-side development, this can be a common questions that get asked often.

• For IIS, visit the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\InetStp\VersionString

• For MS SQL server:

(1) Connect to the SQL server via the Management Studio tool


(2) Run the query - 


Select @@version


The result is then shown ~
==================================================
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (SP1) - 10.0.2531.0 (X64) Mar 29 2009 
10:11:52 Copyright (c) 1988-2008 Microsoft Corporation Express 
Edition (64-bit) on Windows NT 6.1 (Build 7600: )
==================================================


BTW, thank goodness it's Friday!

How to change the default windows log-on user

For windows server 2008, I once had a problem where the default windows log-on page still showed the deleted user. To change the log-on user, simply go to the registry:


HKLM\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurretnVersion\winlogon


and change the value of DefaultUsername to the user that you would like to show up on the windows log-on page!