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Disable autoboot/power-on on M-series Apple Macbook
by lunarg on May 6th 2025, at 15:09
From 2016 onwards, Apple started to introduce auto power-on feature for Macbook models where the device would automatically turn on when opening the lid or when plugging it into (USB-C) power when the lid was open. While convenient for some, it can also be experienced as annoying to others. For instance, if you want to clean your screen, it would be annoying to have it automatically turn on.

While it was already possible and documented for Intel-based Macbooks, Apple only recently published the correct commands to turn the feature of for M-series (Apple Silicon) Macbooks. Unfortunately, there is no UI setting anywhere to configure this, and the only way is through CLI by changing parameters  ...
 
VMware Fusion 13.6 keeps asking if a virtual machine was copied or moved
by lunarg on April 18th 2025, at 12:54
Since VMware Fusion 13.6, there is an issue where each time you start an existing powered-off or suspended virtual machine, you are prompted whether the virtual machine was copied or moved, even though it isn't.

This is due to an issue with the virtual machine library files (files that tell which virtual machines are in the library). Each virtual machine has a unique identifier (called UUID). This UUID is stored in the virtual machine library and must be unique. VMware Fusion allows the use of both personal and shared virtual machines (shared with other users) and to this end, two inventory files are kept:

A personal file, located in ~/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/vmInventory
  ...
 
Sync vLCM updates fails with error 'integrity.fault.HostPatchInvalidVendorCode'
by lunarg on March 10th 2025, at 14:46

When trying to sync updates in vCenter LifeCycle Manager, it may fail and throw the following error:

Error: ‘integrity.fault.HostPatchInvalidVendorCode’

It is usually followed by a variety of error messages, such as: invalid vendor code XXX in patch metadata.

If there are no customizations in your vCenter, you can easily fix this by resetting the vLCM update database, as per KB2147284. Run the following commands from a shell in vCenter:

service-control --stop vmware-updatemgr
/usr/lib/vmware-updatemgr/bin/updatemgr-utility.py reset-db
rm -rf /storage/updatemgr/patch-store/*
service-control --start vmware-updatemgr
 
Direct links to macOS installers
edited by lunarg on February 6th 2025, at 15:48

Here's a list of direct download links to the latest macOS installers. They are all links to Apple's servers, either direct links to the App Store, or, in case of older versions, links to Apple's CDN.

Direct links to App Store:

Older versions are only available as DMG files from Apple's CDN:

 
How to reset the sa account on Microsoft SQL Server
by lunarg on December 11th 2024, at 09:36
Provided you still have administrative access to the server itself, and the server is running in mixed mode (i.e. you can actually use local SQL logins), you can perform the steps below to reset the password. Note that this will result in some downtime as the SQL Server service will have to be restarted in single user mode.

First, determine the service name (can be done via services.msc): if it is the default instance, it's usually called MSSQLSERVER. If an instance name was specified, it is usually MSSQLSERVER$instance-name. E.g. if the instance is called MYSWEETAPP, the service name would be MSSQLSERVER$MYSWEETAPP.

Open an administrative (elevated) command prompt or Powershell:

First, s  ...
 
Editing (default) room calendar permissions in Exchange
by lunarg on December 4th 2024, at 15:18
It is possible that room mailboxes have their default permissions set to show only availability, but sometimes you may want to allow users to see what has been booked (title of the meeting). You can either set this through Outlook but this is tedious as you'll need full mailbox access for this to work. However, admins can also set this via Powershell (for M365, load the Exchange Online module).

To view the current permissions:

Get-MailboxFolderPermission my-meeting-room:\calendar

To set the permissions to show limited details by default:

Set-MailboxFolderPermission -AccessRights LimitedDetails -Identity my-meeting-room:\calendar -User default

Optionally, if you wish to know who booked t  ...
 
Initialize and partition a new disk via diskpart
by lunarg on December 3rd 2024, at 10:14

On Windows Server Core installations, you don't have Disk Management available. But you can quickly initialize and partition a new disk via diskpart. Here's a quick reference to the necessary commands in order.

  1. select disk 1
  2. attributes disk clear readonly
  3. online disk
  4. select disk 1
  5. clean
  6. convert gpt
  7. create partition primary
  8. format quick fs=ntfs label="disk label" unit=64k
  9. assign letter="E"
 
Create an ISO from a folder in linux using mkisofs
by lunarg on October 8th 2024, at 16:43

The equivalent of creating a disk image from a folder like in macOS can be achieved in linux as well. You'll need the genisoimage package, which will install the mkisofs command. After that, you can easily create ISO files from a folder's contents. The additional flags, such as -J make the ISO Windows-compatibel.

mkisofs -J -l -R -V "Label CD" -iso-level 4 -o output.iso input_directory
 
 
 
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