ESXi: Restart Management Agents

Running ESXi 5.0.0 with command line access the following commands will restart the management agents - logged in as root;

/etc/init.d/hostd restart/etc/init.d/vpxa restart

This was required when the host stopped reporting it's CPU and Memory usage in vSphere Client. 

Compatibility View In IE11

After adding some additional sites to the "Use Policy List of Internet Explorer 7 sites" policy in Group Policy we found that these sites were not running in compatibility view for the user despite RSOP reporting that the policy was in place, and the user's registry reporting the same.

(Registry key can be found at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\BrowserEmulation\PolicyList)

There is a known limitation in IE11 whereby it doesn't run sites presented from this policy. Instead if you want to enable compatibility mode via GPO you need to turn on Enterprise Mode.

The TechNet document below gives the steps to deploying from GPO, as well as creating a registry entry to test with a single user.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/internet-explorer/ie11-deploy-guide/turn-on-enterprise-mode-and-use-a-site-list

If you turn Enterprise Mode on and still cannot select it from the "Tools" menu in IE11, chances are you are missing update 3087038 (KB3089548). If this is not installed you will not be able to turn on Enterprise Mode in the browser.

More information on this update can be found at

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3089548

The update itself can be downloaded from

https://technet.microsoft.com/library/security/MS15-094

Once this is installed you should be able to use Enterprise Mode to view sites that require compatibility.

To create the XML file containing sites to be displayed using Enterprise Mode download the Enterprise Mode Site List Manager tool from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=42501

DNS: Converting An Automatically Created Record To Static

I had a requirement to convert a large number of automatically created DNS "A" records into static entries to avoid issues with DNS scavenging. Rather than manually creating a static record then removing the existing one, this can be accomplished with a few clicks.

1. In "DNS Manager" select "View" > "Advanced"

2. Browse into the appropriate "Forward Lookup Zone" and select the "A" record you wish to convert to static.

3. Double click the record (or right click and select "Properties") and uncheck the "Delete this record when it becomes stale" tick box.

4. Click OK.

When you refresh the page you'll now see the time stamp has been removed from the record and is instead set to "Static"