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Removing Azure Arc and Windows Admin Center setup from Windows Server 2025
by lunarg on June 4th 2025, at 15:03
While Microsoft is basically trying to force everyone to move to (paying) Azure for management of local servers by forcefully implementing tools like Azure Arc, many may not want to have this functionality forced on their on-premise servers. Although it has been made increasingly difficult, with Windows Server 2025, it is still possible to remove Azure Arc and other "cloud" functions.

In Windows Server 2025, Azure Arc has been changes to a "Windows capability" but it can be removed via Powershell just the same:

Remove-WindowsCapability -Online -Name AzureArcSetup~~~~

While Windows Admin Center can be useful from a management perspective, if you are using other (third p  ...
 
Bypass Windows 11 24H2 internet connection requirement
by lunarg on May 12th 2025, at 17:05
Windows 11 24H2 requires a working internet connection and Microsoft account during installation, which can no longer be bypassed by clicking the appropiate button. This could be annoying if you don't have a working internet connection or if you don't want to use a Microsoft account. Fortunately, you can still get the "bypass" functionality back if you know how.

During installation, you'll enter the Out-Of-Box-Experience or OOBE. This is the part where you select your country and keyboard layout, and eventually, where you need to log in with a Microsoft account. Instead of continuing the wizard, press Shift + F10 on your keyboard, which will open a command prompt. Type in the comm  ...
 
Stop Chrome from asking to be default browser on Mac
by lunarg on May 8th 2025, at 11:45
At regular intervals, Google Chrome will prompt to make it the default browser if it is not. This can be annoying if you are using Chrome but do not want it to be the default browser. Unfortunately, this behaviour cannot be turned off via the settings, but fortunately, it can be turned off via a manual edit of a configuration file.

Open Finder, from the menu select Go → Go to folder, and past the following path:~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default

Find and open the Preferences file with your favourite editor (such as TextEdit).

In the file, search for the text:"browser":{Replace it with:"browser":{"check_default_browser":false,Don't forget  ...
 
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  ...
 
 
 
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