Thursday, June 30, 2011

Cannot open VCD error with Virtual Clone Drive on Windows 7 x64

Right click Computer and choose Properties. Click Device Manager. Under Storage Controllers right click Virtual Clone Drive. Choose Uninstall. On the Uninstall dialog box check the box for 'Delete the driver software for this device'. Click Ok.

Now reinstall Virtual Clone Drive. When prompted about the driver choose to trust it and click the Install button. After VCD installs it should work now.

Windows 7 Internet Explorer 8 will not open

On a freshly built machine (Windows 7 x64 Enterprise) Internet Explorer would not open. If I brought up task manager, I could see the iexplore.exe process start and run briefly, but close without ever opening an IE Window.

Resetting the Internet Explorer settings fixed this issue:

Open the Control Panel, in the upper right change the view to small icons.
Click Internet Options.
On the Advanced tab, click the Reset button, click Reset in the Reset Internet Explorer Settings dialog box, and then click Close.

Retry IE and see if it works now.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

How to view more than 64 snapshots (shadow copies) on Windows 7 / Windows 2008

Windows can store a max of 512 Volume Shadow Copy Snapshots. But you may have noticed when you go to view the list of snapshots in Windows 7 or Server 2008, no more than 64 are displayed.

To gain access to the additional snapshots, above the 64 limit you will need a Windows XP machine (and have set the server to store more than 64).  I use a Windows XP virtual machine for this purpose.  If you get on a server 2008R2 or higher server, and view previous versions, you will not see them all if you have increased the number above 64.  In that case, boot up a XP machine, like a VM,  Next, you can make a UNC connection to the share or folder of interest.  From there go to properties>previous versions.  If you have the server set to the max 512, using this method, you will have access to all 512 previous versions.  Because our servers are configured to store the max number of VSS snapshots, I have to use this method to gain access to the larger number.  

I am not sure if there is another way to gain access to the additional snapshots.  All I know is this is how we have to do it at work and it works.

On the server perform the following regedit to enable viewing more than 64 snapshots:

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters
Create a value with the name Smb2 and type DWORD.
Set the value to 0
Reboot the server

Try viewing snapshots and you should now be able to see more than 64 provided you have configured your server to store more.

Incidentally, if you want your server to provide more snapshot perform the following regedit:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VSS\Settings
Create a value with the name MaxShadowCopies and type DWORD. Set the value to the number of snapshots you want to keep. The max is 512
Reboot the server

New beginner's guide to PowerShell on my GitHub page

 I created a beginner's guide to PowerShell here: https://github.com/aamjohns/Powershell_Guide/blob/main/README.md I hope it helps someo...