I had a server running Windows 2003 on Vmware Esx 4 that was running out of disk space. It is a pretty simple process to extend the disk space but it took some hunting around to find it.
- Shut down the virtual machine.
- Edit the disk you want to expand using the Vmware client, edit the disk and increase the size.
- Boot the virtual machines into Windows, go to disk management and verify the unallocated disk space is available.
- You won’t be able to extend the volume if its the boot volume so you’ll need a partition manager to extend the disk.
- Download the GParted open source partition manager Live CD, mount the iso and boot the virtual machine from it, then extend the disk and boot into Windows.
I believe in Windows 2008 you can do all this from within Windows but haven’t had to test that yet.
dmw vmware add disk space, expand boot system, expand disk, extend disk, extend volume, vmware
You may encounter an error “Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item” or “Your current security settings do not allow this action” when trying to copy a file locally or run an executable file from a network share when using a Windows 2003 Server virtual machine. At first I thought since I was running into this issue on a newly created virtual server guest on Vmware Esx it might be related to Vmware permissions. It turns out it was a very simple solution. All I needed to do was uninstall the Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration component from Add/Remove Programs. Go to Add\Remove Programs, Add\Remove Windows Components, Uncheck Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration in the list, click next and then finish.
I only saw this error with virtual machines and not physical Windows 2003 servers. After uninstalling the component you may have to restart for the change to take effect or just restart the explorer process.
dmw Uncategorized esx, virtual machine, vmware, windows 2003
