Integrating XenDesktop 5.6 with VMWare VCenter 5 Certificate Error

I ran into this issue earlier today while configuring my first XenDesktop setup using VMWare.  To resolve this issue, you can do one of three things.

Option 1: Purchase an SSL certificate for your vCenter from a third party.

Option 2: Self-sign a certificate from your enterprise certificate authority.

Option 3: Trust the existing SSL certificate  This option is by far the quickest and easiest. To do that, you can follow these steps:

1. If you are logged in as a local administrator, open Internet Explorer and navigate to https://YOURVCENTERSERVERNAME/
2. If you are not logged in as local administrator, or a user with sufficient permissions, it is very important that you SHIFT & Right-Click Internet Explorer, and run it as an Administrator, then navigate to https://YOURVCENTERSERVERNAME/
3. You will get a warning screen that the SSL Certificate is not trusted, select Continue to this web site (not recommended).
4. Click the Certificate error in the Security Status bar and select View Certificate.
5. Click Install Certificate.
6. When the Certificate Import Wizard launches, select Place All Certificates in the following store and click Browse.
7. When the Select Certificate Store window comes up, make sure you select the check box for Show physical stores.
8. Find and expand Trusted People, select Local Computer and click OK.
9. It is important to note that if you don't see the Local Computer option under trusted People, you are not logged in with a user that has sufficient rights, therefore, you must run Internet Explorer as an Administrator.
10. Click Finish to complete the certificate import process
11. Click OK when you receive the import successful window
12. Close your browser, re-open it again, and browse to your vCenter server using the FQDN. The browser should now trust your vCenter server and therefore you should not receive a certificate error. That is how you can verify if the process was successful.  Make sure you test using the FQDN or it will not work.
13. Repeat the above steps on the XenDesktop server as well.  That way both machines trust the self-signed certificate.
14. Configure the hosting infrastructure settings on the XenDesktop 5 controller to point to https://vCenterServer.domain.com/sdk

That's it.  From there you can continue with your configuration.

Outlook 2010 "Could not Complete the Operation" when Forwarding Email

This issue is a result of the contact information being "misread" or "corrupted".

In Outlook 2010 there are a couple of way to work with this.

1. When you go to forward the message and the person's name automatically appears, simply hover the mouse over it and press DELETE.  This will remove it from the cache.   Now type in the address and the message will complete properly.

2. If you want to clear out all of your cache without trying to address them one at a time, then here are the steps:

• Open Outlook 2010
• Open File
• Click Options
• Click Mail
• Select "Empty Autocomplete List"

 That will clear all of the cache items including tasks or appointments that could also be causing the issue.

Microsoft's first recommendation is to clear your Outlook profile and create another one which is sure work but is a bit overkill for such a small issue.

I'm sure the process is similar with other versions of Outlook but YMMV.

Good luck...

Uninstalling Exchange 2003 during Exchange 2010 Migration

If you are getting the following error:

'The component "Microsoft Exchange Messaging and Collaboration Services" cannot be assigned the action "Remove" because: - One or more users currently use a mailbox store on this server.'

then the odds are good you have an item in AD that is still pointing to the old Exchange 2003 server.  Here's how you get rid of it.

Just open up ADUC, do a find, create a custom query and paste in the command you see below:

 












Then select VIEW, then choose Columns.

From there you can add in the extra values needed to find out which account is still showing old Exchange 2003 data.  Just add in both attributes with Exchange on them.  Redo the Find Now and you'll be able to sort them by server name to find out the offending accounts.

During my last SBS 2003 to SBS 2011 migration it turned out to be the SBSAdmin account that I had created during the migration steps.

Once these accounts are removed or corrected you can continue your uninstall of Exchange 2003.

Good luck!

How to Load the Answer File on a SBS 2003 to SBS 2001 Physical to Virtual Migration

I just ran into this issue today during a migration.  Simply put how do I get an answer file into a new VM?  The process is simple.

1. Using another VM, add a floppy drive and select the option to create a new floppy image.
2. Boot the VM and once loaded open the floppy and format it.
3. Copy your SBS answer file to the newly created floppy.
4. Using the VMWare console remove the floppy from your running VM.
5. Once your new SBS 2011 VM gets to the point where you can choose either a new install or migration, select Migration.
6. At this point on the console click to add a floppy and then select your new floppy image from the datastore that contains the answer file.
7. From there continue your migration.

This is a quick easy step to allow your to get the migration answer file loaded without the need for any 3rd party applications or other issues.  It keeps the disc stored on the datastore with your other ISO files and is there for future use if needed.

Good luck with your migration.

**Update: Make sure you removed the virtual floppy image before your next VM restart**