Archive for the ‘Fusion’ Category

Today I want to start a campaign within the VMware Community…

I would like to see VMware re-instate the “VMTN Subscription”. You might ask, what the hell is that? That would be fair enough because it was withdrawn many years ago, and never re-instated by VMware.

The VMTN Subscription (I found this link on Google which is still active posted in 2005) was similar to Microsoft MSDN or TechNet – where for relatively small yearly fee you could download the core enterprise software and run it for 1year. Right now there is whole legion of home-labbers out there that have to make do and mend with evaluations that expire after 60-days. Sadly, the VMTN Subscription program was cancelled in 2007 and never re-instated.

Now as former VMware Certified Instructor and vExpert – if I wanted NFR style licenses I can get to them. Although I would have to say throughout all my time working with VMware its been also been a struggle gaining access to software and licenses – as independent guy not affiliated to partner…. That’s mainly because an evaluation download doesn’t always give me access to ALL the software I need to do my kind of work. It’s often been a frustration, and I’ve often need to call upon my personal network to get hold of bits that seemed impossible to get through legitimate means. My concern is not so much for myself as I’m generally a well-connected dude – but for the many thousands of loyal VMware supports in their homelabs. VMware has one of the best user communities on the planet. I personally believe that without the “bottom up” support of thousands of enthusiasts who teach themselves VMware in their home labs, who then go on to recommend software to the customers, clients and businesses – VMware wouldn’t be as half as successful as it is without this legion of unpaid evangelist for their cause.

So, VMware. Bring back the VMTN Subscription or make it part of the VMUG Advantage package.

If you want to register your thoughts/views/opinions for this idea – add your +1 to this forum post here.

Note: I would like to credit community forum member (and fellow vExpert) WoodyZ for this solution – he answered my VMware Communities Post here

I thought I would write this experience up as this its second or third time in my first year of using VMware Fusion. Basically, what can happen is in Unity mode the icons become “generic”

Although you can’t tell – one of the these icons is the vSphere4 client and the other is the Windows version of Firefox (Yes, I know there’s a mac version, and use that as well. I need the Windows one for a vendor specific plug-in that only works on Firefox for Windows).

It’s not really clear what causes this – but there’s some kind of icon cache that gets balls-ed up. You can delete this icon cache, and then everything will be right as rain again. Here’s how:

1. Shutdown your Fusion VMs (Don’t suspend, do a graceful shutdown)
2. Shutdown Fusion
3. In Finder, browse to \Documents\Virtual Machines\
4. Right-click your virtual machine “package” and select “Show Package” contents
   
5. Delete the “Applications” and “appListCache” folders.
6. Close all the Finder windows.
7. Power on your VM
8. Login to your VM and enter Unity mode
9. When you click at the offending icons, they will be refreshed and return to something recognizable