VirtualBox - upgrading Windows XP VMs to 2 CPU

Symptom: If you had Windows XP VM with only 1 CPU created / virtalized earlier you won't be able to see a second CPU when you add it later.

1. Make sure you have second CPU added via VM Virtual Box Manager and "Enable IO APIC" checkbox  in System settings on Motherboard tab is checked.
2. You should see 2 CPUs in Device Manager , but when you run Task Manager, you'll see only 1 CPU.
3. MS recommendation for Windows XP is to reinstall Windows (no surprise) as you can see it in this KB article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309283
4. Do not reinstall Windows, just run run the following from command prompt

rundll32 syssetup,SetupInfObjectInstallAction ACPIAPIC_MP_HAL 128 %windir%\inf\hal.inf

5. Reboot when prompted , log on back to Windows XP wait until you see "Windows has finished installing new devices. The software that supports your device requires that you restart your computer. You must restart your computer before the new setting will take effect" and press OK to reboot it again.

6. Done

Extpart.exe error "Unable to connect to C: or it does not exist"

When you try to expand C: drive using extpart.exe you get the following error:
"Unable to connect to C: or it does not exist"

Here are some workarounds you can try:

1. Close Windows Disk Management console. It's using Logical Disk Management service which extpart.exe is using.
2. Make sure there are no snapshots
3. Stop some non-essential services i.e:

• Windows Search
• File Replication service
• DFS Replication service
• Perfect disk PDEngine service

4. Reboot computer in safe mode and then run extpart.exe

event 675 with 0X19 for ESXi hosts in Windows Security Event Log

Link to the original article:

http://www.loeding.eu/index.php/faq/81-microsoft/117-kerberos-error-event-id-675-with-0x19-error-code

The error event 675 with 0X19 error code indicates:

0x19 - KDC_ERR_PREAUTH_REQUIRED: Additional pre-authentication required

In domain environment, Kerberos is the default authentication protocol. In Kerberos Authentication protocol implemented in Windows, Pre-authentication is required by default. However, sometimes, clients may not include the pre-authentication data in first communication with KDC (the AS_REQ). As aresult, KDC returns an error to inform client that Pre-Authentication is required, and then an event ID 675 with the error 0x19 is recorded on KDC.


Meanwhile, please set the flag "Do not require pre-authentication" for the
problematic account, to configure the system to not require pre-authentication. For user accounts, we can enable this flag in User Properties. For computer account, we should modify the attribute UserAccountControl via the following steps:

1. On the domain controller, click Start, click Run, type in "adsiedit.msc" (without the quotation marks) and press ENTER to launch ADSI Edit tool.
This tool is included with the Windows 2003 Support Tools. To install the Support Tools, run Suptools.msi from the Support\Tools folder on the Windows 2003 Server CD-ROM.
2. Locate the computer account under the Domain partition.
3. Right-click on the account, click Properties.
4. Then locate the attribute UserAccountControl in the Attributes list. Click Edit.
5. Modify the value to original value plus 4194304. For example, if the original value is 512, the new value should be 512+4194304=4194816. (In my case it was 4096+4194304=4198400)
6. Click OK, click Apply, and click OK.
7. Quit ADSI Edit. Then you can check if the event 675 stops for these accounts.

For more information about UserAccountControl attribute, you can refer to the following article:

How to use the UserAccountControl flags to manipulate user account properties

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305144

Event Type:    Failure Audit
Event Source:    Security
Event Category:    Account Logon
Event ID:    675
Date:        9/19/2012
Time:        11:08:21 PM
User:        NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Computer:    CLSMAIN07
Description:
Pre-authentication failed:
     User Name:    ESX02$
     User ID:        TEST\ESX02$
     Service Name:    krbtgt/TEST.LOCAL
     Pre-Authentication Type:    0x0
     Failure Code:    0x19
     Client Address:    192.168.0.13


For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.