After deploying new Windows 10/11 images with the latest updates, Microsoft has included Search highlights. You can see if you have search highlights enabled when having a little drawing in the search bar. When clicking on the search bar it extends with graphics and more crap. So what are search …
Continue ReadingMost of the time I use Packer against a VMware vSphere and Microsoft Azure environment. But sometimes it’s useful to use VMware Workstation for local testing purposes. For building Windows 10 images with Packer and using VMware Workstation there is not much information available. In this blog post, …
Continue ReadingFor a new Windows 10 image build, I used the latest supported VMware Tools In this case that was VMware Tools 12.0.0. VMware Tools is deployed using an unattended installation such as: e:\setup64.exe /S /v "/qb REBOOT=R ADDLOCAL=All …
Continue ReadingFor Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) there is an Optimization Tool available called Virtual Desktop Optimization Tool (VDOT). With this tool/script you optimize the following categories within an Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD): Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app cleanup Optional Features cleanup Local …
Continue ReadingIn some managed VMware Horizon environments, I wanted to know the highest concurrent users per month. This information can be found in the Horizon Administrator Console under Settings -> Product Licensing and Usage -> Usage. Using the VMware Horizon Administrator console is a manual task. I …
Continue ReadingIn an earlier blogpost called “Use Packer to install Windows 11 and enable vTPM and VBS ” I highlighted a workaround for adding a virtual TPM (vTPM) device to a VM in a VMware vSphere environment. A vTPM device is needed for running Windows 11 (without using registry hacks to bypass the TPM device …
Continue ReadingWith vSphere 7 VMware is moving away from supporting SD cards and USB as boot media. ESXi Boot configuration with only SD card or USB drive, without any persistent device, is deprecated with vSphere 7 Update 3. In future vSphere releases, it will be an unsupported configuration! Move from SD cards …
Continue ReadingI have a Visual Studio Enterprise subscription in Azure. I use this subscription for testing new Azure stuff. From my on-premises environment, I want to create a Site-To-Site (S2S) VPN connection to Microsoft Azure. I have a physical Ubiquiti Edge Router in my on-premises network. When searching the …
Continue ReadingI use Packer for building images for VMware VDI environments. With the latest version (when writing this blog Packer version 1.7.7 is the latest version) it is not possible to configure a TPM in the Hashicorp Configuration Languag (HCL) config file. TPM 2.0 is required to install Windows 11. A vTPM …
Continue ReadingYesterday I wrote a blog called “Install Windows 11 as VM on VMware vSphere / Workstation without TPM 2.0 chipset“. In this blog article, I explained how to install Windows 11 without having a TPM 2.0 chipset by using a registry hack. Paul Braren from tinkertry.com created a cool video (link) about …
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