Botched VMware Install or Uninstall

I have had multiple occasions when upgrading VMware Player, Server, etc. where the process goes wrong and leaves me unable to cleanly uninstall or re-install.

It happened again today. This time I was installing VMware Workstation 6.5.1 and it wanted to uninstall Vmware Player first. Well this failed and now I couldn't install either app.

A little digging and I found a knowledge base article: Cleaning Up After Incomplete Uninstallation on a Windows Host

Following the repair steps accomplished nothing but then I noticed this little gem at the bottom: VMware_Install_Cleaner.zip This did the trick and I could then install Workstation. :) Note that for Vista you need to right-click and run as administrator if using UAC.

SpamTitan

SpamTitan is "the most comprehensive solution to email threats on the market today". I have implemented this solution to provide "protection from Viruses, Spam, Malware, Phishing and unwanted content" and it works very well. I used the VMware virtual machine image and converted it to run on ESX server.

• The interface is very impressive and setup was quite straight forward - no reading of the manual required.
• Uses two anti-virus engines: Kaspersky and ClamAV
• Uses OCR to detect image-spam
• Multi-layer anti-spam approach - scoring from several algorithms is compiled to provide a single spam score.
  
• The product checks for valid recipients (including aliases) against my Exchange server.
• Logging and reporting are excellent.
• There have been some false positives and initially it didn't block as much spam as I had hoped but as the Beyesian analysis has improved so have the detection rates.
• I have been monitoring the quarantine and whitelisting the domains from which we often see mail.
  
• I am not yet sending outgoing mail through my SpamTitan but this should improve the filters as well.
• After an upgrade, the ClamAV definitions were no longer being updated. I contacted support and they connected from remote (via a tunnel I opened) and fixed the problem. An excellent support experience.

I was surprised to find that in the two weeks or so that I have been filtering my SMTP traffic that we are averaging only approximately 20% legitimate mail.

VMTSPatchManager

VMTSPatchManager -- "The 'Windows Update' for ESX 3.x"

"VMTS Patch Manager addresses a critical need for VMware customers, allowing automatic (or manual) patching of ESX Servers platforms."

Free and looks very slick. Runs on Windows platform using BITS service.

RTFM Education » RTFM Guides

RTFM Education » RTFM Guides

Excellent VMware guides. Includes "Guide to ESX 3 Service Console"

Veeam – tools for VMware virtual machines management

Veeam – tools for VMware virtual machines management

"Best-of-Breed Solutions for VM Infrastructure Management"

Veeam offers a Windows implementation of the Unix scp secure copy tool - used to copy files from one host to another. This is a VERY useful (for a Windows guy like me!) tool. I can now browse the ESX machine's folders from my workstation using a GUI, edit the files, etc. Very handy (and free).

B2V Guide to VMware ESX Server

An awesome command line (CLI) reference for VMware ESX Server - "compiled by B2V consultants & trainers and is based upon their personal experiences with the VMware ESX Server 3 product and is updated frequently."

For Version 2.x
For Version 3.x