Troubleshooting for Virtual Server

Troubleshooting

What problem are you having?

Access and Administration Website problems

I have installed Virtual Server 2005, but cannot get the Administration Website to open. After I enter my security credentials, the server displays a blank screen.

Cause:  Your Internet Explorer security settings are preventing the Administration Website's Master Status page from loading.

Solution:  Add the URL of the Administration Website to your Trusted sites or Local intranet Web content zone. For more information about the correct URL, see Open the Administration Website.

When you use Terminal Services or Remote Desktop Connection to connect to an instance of Virtual Server, the Virtual Server Administration Website shortcut does not work.

Cause:  The shortcut cannot load the Administration Website over a Terminal Services connection.

Solution:  Either start Terminal Services as a console session or use Internet Explorer to open the Administration Website. For more information, see Open the Administration Website.

I have configured my domain for constrained delegation, but I cannot access the Virtual Server server from the Virtual Server Administration Website.

Cause:  A service principal name (SPN) has not been registered with the domain controller for all computers that are running the Virtual Server service. Each instance of Virtual Server should automatically register an SPN with the domain controller. However, be sure to verify that this has occurred before you begin configuring delegation.

Solution:  To verify that an SPN has been registered with the domain controller for all computers that are running the Virtual Server service, use Setspn.exe, a free utility from Microsoft. For more information about downloading Setspn.exe, see "Windows 2000 Resource Kit Tool: Setspn.exe" at the Microsoft Web site. Setspn.exe lists the SPN that is registered for a given computer. For each computer running the Virtual Server service, you can create a query by using the following syntax:

setspn /ldomain_name**\**computer_name

If an SPN has been registered with the domain controller for this computer, a list appears that includes the fully qualified domain name and the NetBIOS name of the computer.

Important

Note that constrained delegation is not supported when you are using Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional as your host operating system.

When connecting to an instance of Virtual Server using Terminal Services or Remote Desktop Connection, I receive "The page cannot be displayed."

Cause:  You must start Remote Desktop Connection as a console session.

Solution:  Start Remote Desktop Connection as a console session by using the following: **mstsc /v:**Your server address /console. Alternatively, you can change your Internet Explorer options by taking the following steps:

  1. Open Internet Explorer and on the Tools menu, click Internet Options.
  2. Click the Security tab, click Trusted sites and then click Custom Level.
  3. Scroll to the bottom of the list and select Prompt for user name and password under User Authentication.

For more information about opening the Administration Website, see Open the Administration Website.

When the Virtual Machine Remote Control (VMRC) client is behind a firewall, it cannot connect to an instance of Virtual Server.

Cause:  Ports required by the VMRC client are not open on the firewall.

Solution:  If you are using the VMRC client behind a firewall, you must open several ports. For more information, see Using the VMRC client to access virtual machines.

I cannot download or use the Virtual Machine Remote Control ActiveX control on the Remote View page.

Cause:  Internet Explorer is configured to disable downloading ActiveX® controls.

Solution:  Contact your administrator to enable downloading ActiveX controls.

When I open the Administration Website, I receive the message that "An error occurred loading an XML document."

Cause:  The MSXML libraries did not register correctly.

Solution:  Open a command prompt, type regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\msxml6.dll, and then press Enter.

Virtual machine and guest operating system problems

When the right ALT key is configured to be the Host key, navigating through menus using only the keyboard does not work.

Cause:  On some keyboards, when the Host key is the right ALT key, the HOST KEY+ALT+Menu accelerator keyboard shortcut does not work to access menus.

Solution:  You must change the Host key to be something other than ALT or CTRL. For more information, see Change the default Host key.

The message "The virtual machine could not be restored because an unexpected error occurred" appears when a virtual machine is restored on a computer other than the one on which it was saved.

Cause:  The processor in the computer on which you are restoring the virtual machine does not support certain features included in the processor in the computer on which the virtual machine was saved. If there are incompatibilities between processors, Virtual Server prevents the virtual machine from being restored to avoid damaging the virtual machine.

Solution:  Shut down the virtual machine completely prior to moving the virtual machine's configuration files to another computer.

I cannot start a virtual machine.

Possible cause Solution
  • You are using linked disks and the linked physical disk is in use. The physical disk to which the virtual disk is linked must not be in use when you start a virtual machine that uses the linked disk.
  • Before starting the virtual machine, ensure that the linked physical disk is not in use.
  • You have over-allocated CPU resources. Only the virtual machines for which you have permissions appear on the CPU Resource Allocation page, and only the resources allocated to them are included in the figures for Total Capacity Reserved and Available Capacity Remaining. This means that you can inadvertently over-allocate CPU resources to the virtual machines listed on this page and prevent other virtual machines from turning on.
  • If you do not have permissions for all of the virtual machines configured on this instance of Virtual Server, we strongly recommend that you ask your Virtual Server administrator to ensure that you have not over-allocated CPU resources. The Virtual Server administrator can do this by using the CPU Resource Allocation page to view the CPU allocation for all virtual machines.

When trying to start a guest operating system from a virtual disk, I receive the following error: STOP 0x0000007B.

Cause:  You might have installed the virtual disk on the incorrect type of virtual controller. That is, you might have attached a SCSI virtual disk to a virtual IDE controller or vice versa. You cannot move virtual disks between the two types of virtual controllers if you plan to start a guest operating system from the virtual disk

Solution:  Attach the virtual disk from which you are trying to start the guest operating system to a different type of virtual controller. If the virtual disk is attached to a virtual SCSI controller, attach the virtual disk to a virtual IDE controller. If the virtual disk is attached to a virtual IDE controller, attach the virtual disk to a virtual SCSI controller.

I used Windows Explorer to rename a virtual machine and the new name is not listed in the Administration Website.

Cause:  Virtual Server does not detect name changes to virtual machines when you use Windows Explorer or any other file management utility to change the name.

Solution:  Use the Administration Website to add virtual machines or change the virtual machine information. For more information, see Set Up Virtual Machines in Virtual Server and Configure Virtual Machines.

A virtual machine has stopped responding and I receive the following error message: "The configuration value could not be retrieved because the key could not be found."

Cause:  One or more virtual machine configuration (.vmc) files has been corrupted. This can happen when you use both the Virtual Machine Remote Control (VMRC) client and the ActiveX® Web client control at the same time.

Solution:  Connect to each guest operating system using "https://server name:1024/virtualserver/vswebapp.exe?view=3&vm=guest name." The guest operating system that displays the same error is most likely the one with the corrupted configuration file. Be aware that there might be more than one corrupted file.

Once you identify the corrupted configuration file, rename that file and then add the original guest operating system as a new virtual machine. This will cause a new .vmc file to be created.

When moving virtual machine configuration (.vmc) files between Virtual PC and Virtual Server, the assigned virtual network connections appear as "Unconnected."

Cause:  Virtual Server allows advanced networking features which are not supported by Virtual PC.

Solution:  Reconnect the network adapters to the appropriate virtual networks.

Other errors are occurring when I move virtual machines between Virtual Server and Virtual PC 2004.

Cause:  Certain features of virtual machines are not compatible between Virtual Server and Virtual PC.

Solution:  Review the topic about using Virtual Server with Virtual PC in Best practices for Virtual Server and make the necessary corrections.

The mouse is not working on my guest operating system or the cursor appears as a small dot on my guest operating system.

Cause:  Virtual Machine Additions has not been installed on the guest operating system. If Virtual Machine Additions is not installed, the cursor might appear as a small dot or as a pointer with a dot. You will also not be able to move the cursor outside of the guest operating system unless you use the Host key.

Solution:  Install the current version of Virtual Machine Additions to provide mouse functionality. In addition to having better mouse functionality within the virtual machine, you can move the pointer freely between the virtual machine window and the host operating system. For more information, see Installing Virtual Machine Additions.

My keyboard supports multiple languages but certain characters are not working in a virtual machine.

Cause:  The guest operating system must be configured to support the language that contains the characters you want to use.

Solution:  Refer to the documentation for the guest operating system to configure support for the language you want to use.

Performance is slow on the computer running Virtual Server.

Cause:  Several factors can lead to slow performance when running Virtual Server.

Solution:  Review the techniques for optimizing performance in Monitoring and Improving Performance and make the necessary corrections.

Under very high disk usage, the guest operating system is reporting a disk time-out.

Cause:  This can occur when a physical disk experiences extreme workloads due to a particular virtual machine configuration.

Solution:  There are multiple methods to address this problem:

  • Use multiple physical computer spindles.

  • Use physical computer RAID disks.

  • Use physical computer SCSI disks instead of IDE disks. SCSI disks allow for multiple transactions on the bus.

  • If none of the previous options is feasible, you can modify a registry key in the affected guest operating system. For more information about modifying the registry, see article 818877, "Cluster Servers May Experience Connection Timeouts to Drives After You Install or Upgrade to the Windows Clustering Feature in Windows Server 2003," in the Microsoft Knowledge Base. You should change the default value of the TimeOutValue registry key described in this article from 45 to 90.

    Warning

    Incorrectly editing the registry may severely damage your system. Before making changes to the registry, you should back up any valued data on your computer.

When trying to compact a dynamically expanding disk, I receive an error stating that the host volume does not have enough space to complete the operation.

Cause:  The process of compacting a virtual hard disk creates a temporary file which becomes the compacted disk. The original file is then deleted. Because this additional file is created prior to the deletion of the original file, the compacting process might require more disk space than is available.

Solution:  You must make additional hard disk space available prior to compacting the disk.

When connected to a virtual machine using either Terminal Services or Remote Desktop and the console switch, CDs and DVDs are not displayed in a captured CD or DVD drive in the guest operating system.

Cause:  If you log on to a virtual machine that is running a Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003 operating system with the console switch, you will not receive "Run Automatically" events because you are running in the context of the console.

Solution:  Either release the captured CD or DVD drive on the host operating system and then capture it again or do not use the console switch.

When I try to start a virtual machine from a Remote Installation Services (RIS) floppy disk, I receive the message "No response from the server."

Cause:  The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server on the network does not support Pre-Boot Execution Environment (PXE) DHCP. The virtual DHCP server included in Virtual Server does not support PXE DHCP.

Solution:  Use a DHCP server that supports PXE DHCP, such as those that are available in Microsoft Windows 2000 Server operating systems and Windows Server 2003 operating systems.

Virtual Machine Additions problems

I cannot install Virtual Machine Additions.

Cause:  You must have full administrative control on the guest operating system to run the Virtual Machine Additions Setup program.

Solution:  If the operating system on which you want to install Virtual Machine Additions requires you to log on, you need to log on as administrator or a member of the Administrators group. For more information, see Install Virtual Machine Additions.

After I install Virtual Machine Additions on a Microsoft Windows NT® 4.0 guest operating system, the video does not display correctly, and I cannot log on.

Cause:  Not enough memory was allocated to the virtual machine.

Solution:  You should allocate 64 MB of RAM to the virtual machine running Windows NT Server 4.0. We recommend allocating at least 48 MB of RAM. For more information, see Create a virtual machine.

Networking problems

Networking on the guest operating system does not work properly with the Microsoft Loopback Adapter on the host operating system.

Cause:  The IP address of the virtual machine's network adapter is not on the same subnet as the IP address of the physical computer's network adapter.

Solution:  Ensure that you have created a virtual network and assigned it to the Microsoft Loopback Adapter. Also ensure that the IP addresses for both the virtual machine and the physical computer are on the same subnet. For more information, see Adding and removing virtual network adapters.

One or more virtual machines do not recognize the other virtual machines on the network.

Cause:  Multiple virtual machines are using the same media access control (MAC) address.

Solution:  Ensure that the MAC addresses assigned to the network adapters on each virtual machine are unique. For more information, see Adding and removing virtual network adapters.

Two or more guest operating systems have the same media access control (MAC) address.

Cause:  This will only occur if you are using static MAC addresses. If you create an image of a host operating system that includes Virtual Server and virtual machine configuration (.vmc) files and then copy that image to a second computer, each .vmc file included in the image contains a MAC address. Similarly, if you copy a virtual machine by copying the virtual hard disk (.vhd) and .vmc files to either a new host operating system or to another folder on the same host operating system, the .vmc file contains the MAC address. The MAC address is not reset automatically when you place the image or the copy on the second computer. As a result, the virtual machines that you copy onto the second computer will have the same MAC addresses as the virtual machines on the computer that was used to create the image.

Solution:  We recommend that you use dynamic MAC addresses rather than static addresses. If you prefer to continue to use a static MAC address, edit the .vmc file to remove the MAC address. Find the following line:

<ethernet_card_address type="bytes">0003FFxxxxxx</ethernet_card_address>

Remove the number so the line appears as follows:

<ethernet_card_address type="bytes"></ethernet_card_address>

After you remove the number, Virtual Server will create a new MAC address the next time you start the virtual machine.

Virtual Networks are not created automatically for physical network adapters that are added to the host computer after Virtual Server is installed.

Cause:  Virtual networks are created and associated with a physical network adapter only during Virtual Server Setup. For example, if Virtual Server is installed on a host computer with one physical network adapter, a virtual network is created and associated with that physical network adapter. However, if an additional physical network adapter is added to the host computer after Virtual Server is installed, a virtual network is not automatically created and assigned to the new physical adapter.

Solution:  If you add a physical network adapter to the host computer after Virtual Server is installed, verify that the Virtual Machine Network Services Driver is enabled on the new physical network adapters. After you have verified this, you can create new virtual networks and assign them to the new physical network adapters. For more information, see "Enable a network component" in Help and Support Center for Windows Server 2003 operating systems.

Note

Virtual Server uses Windows event logging to record information about important events. You can view the event log by using Event Viewer. We recommend that you review the event log when troubleshooting Virtual Server errors. For more information, see Help and Support Center for Windows Server 2003 operating systems.