V2V error with vConverter standalone - Unable to obtain hardware information for the selected machine.

When converting a VMWare workstation format VM (V2V) you might get this error if you're trying to read the image from a network path with a deep folder structure.

The simple resolution is to map a drive letter at the top level so the vmx and vmdk files are visible directly under the drive letter.

The converter wizard will then allow you to progress to specifying the destination system.

Windows 2012 - how to disable "run as administrator" requirement

So you've just installed Windows 2012..

The first thing you do is turn off UAC just like in Windows 2008 to stop it prompting you every time java wants to update.  Great! no more popups that you're just going to click ok to every time.

Then you remember you need to edit the hosts file, but what's this? You can't save it?  What's going on?

The answer is you need to edit it with notepad that's been "run as administrator".  But that's going to be a hassle isn't it, so how do you disable this and go back to Windows 2008 behaviour?

The answer is to edit a registry key which controls the EnableLUA setting:
HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\EnableLUA
Default value Windows 2008 = 0
Default value Windows 2012 = 1

You can do it via regedit or run the powershell below, in a powershell prompt that of course has been run as administrator:

Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System" -Name "EnableLUA" -Value "0"

The server needs to be rebooted which you can do from powershell too:

shutdown -r -t 0

Hey presto, no more prompts.

Credit to this post for the solution.

Network Policy Server Role won't install on Windows 2008

I recently had a weird issue while trying to install TMG 2010 (Microsoft Threat Management Gateway) on Windows 2008R2 where the pre-requisites wouldn't install and kept giving an 0x80072afc error

I narrowed this down to the Network Policy Server role which wouldn't install.

Googling the error "windows could not start the network policy server services" along with the error code "0x80072afc" revealed quite a few articles, mostly relating to missing permissions on the IAS folder within the system directory and/or active directory issues.

I decided to take a clone of another known-working TMG as a workaround, but on this box the Network Policy Server service wouldn't start which led me to believe it wasn't permissions related.


The fix I eventually found was much simpler.  I'd been trying to install TMG with the server in a workgroup and disconected from the network.

I plugged in the network card so the server picked up an IP from DHCP and Hey Presto! the TMG pre-req wizard then completed ok!