VMware Paravirtual Driver - Windows 2012 Installation

One day you may find yourself installing a Windows 2012 Server and wanting to use the VMware Paravirtual driver for the vSCSI controller for the disks.  The VMware KB article on this covers this topic very well.

1. Create a new VM
2. Remove the Hard disk 1 and click OK

3. Add a Hard disk and then click Change Type for SCSI Controller Type

4. Choose VMware Paravirtual and click OK and then OK again

5. During the Windows Installation Setup, you'll need to load the VMware Paravirtual SCSI driver.  Attach the floppy image to the VM using the "Connect to floppy image on a datastore..." option.

There will be a folder named "vmimages" then "floppies" and select the "pvscsi-Windows2008.flp" file and click OK.

6. Click on Load driver and then click on Browse

7. Select the "amd64" folder under the Floppy Disk Drive

8. Click Next

9. The disk is now present and you can continue with the Windows 2012 Setup

System Center Operations Manager 2012 R2 - System Center Management Health Service Unloaded System Rule(s) - Windows Server 2003/2008 (non R2) missing PowerShell 2.0

I know its been awhile since the last post, so here it goes...

Issue:

This week we are dealing with a specific error that caused multiple agents to throw the alert monitor, System Center Management Health Service Unloaded System Rule(s) with the following description.

The System Center Management Health Service ????????-????-????-????-???????????? running on host <computername> and serving management group with id {????????-????-????-????-????????????} is not healthy. Some system rules failed to load.

This caused the agents to go into a "grey" state.  Review the Operations Manager log on an affected agent computer and look for errors with event id 4513 with the following description.

The callback method DeliverDataToModule failed with exception "Could not load file or assembly 'System.Management.Automation, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=????????????????' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified." in the module Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.Modules.PowerShell.PowerShellProbeActionModule.

Workflow: Microsoft.IntelligencePacks.Types.HealthServiceProxyConfiguration 

The common factor among the affected computer agents was all Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 (non R2) which were missing Powreshell 2.0.

Solution and workaround:

The solution is to override the Advisor Proxy Setting Rule or install Powershell 2.0.

It was not until after I had called Microsoft Support which were quick to find the cause and provide a solution to this issue, that I found this issue being discussed on the TechNet Forum - Grey Agents after New Management Pack with id:"Microsoft.IntelligencePacks.Types", version:"7.0.9781.0" received. - and the Microsoft Azure forum - Windows Server 2003 'grey' due to missing Powershell system rule Microsoft.IntelligencePacks.Types.HealthServiceProxyConfiguration.