[Users] Agents for Windows

[Bob Doolittle]

On 12/09/2013 02:48 PM, Itamar Heim wrote:
> On 12/09/2013 09:10 PM, Bob Doolittle wrote:
>>
>> On 12/09/2013 09:42 AM, Blaster wrote:
>>> I forgot my number 5)  BIOS needs to work like a standard PC BIOS (as
>>> does ESXi) in allowing you to press F8 to get a boot menu or F12 for
>>> network boot.
>>
>> I'll disagree a tiny bit here. One *really annoying* quality of needing
>> to use F2/F8/F12 during Windows bootup in a VM (including ESX/vSphere)
>> is that sometimes it can be impossible to be quick enough on the
>> keyboard to get attention before the OS bootup has begun. By the time
>> you can get a console focus it's too late. That can be enormously
>> frustrating, and Run Once does help with that.
>>
>> VMware provides a (relatively hidden) option to mitigate this - there's
>> a radiobox in a menu somewhere that effectively says "issue an F2
>> immediately when the VM starts to boot up". This sends it straight into
>> the BIOS menu. That radiobox has saved what little remains of my hair.
>>
>> I kind of like "Run Once" for most of my needs, but I do understand
>> Blaster's point for his scenario. If we evolve away from Run Once, it
>> will be super important to provide the feature similar to VMware to
>> force the machine into BIOS after power up.
>
> you can also start the VM in paused mode, then resume when console is 
> open.

Thanks. That sounds adequate to me, although I've not tried it. Of 
course this doesn't meet Blaster's needs for pausing a VM when it 
reboots. I wasn't clear as to how VMware solves that problem either.

-Bob

> another option is to add an option to have the menu alive for a few 
> more seconds or indeed, to allow scripting a set of keystrokes
>
>>
>> Thanks,
>>     Bob
>>
>>> This run once stuff is silly.  It works fine the first time I create a
>>> VM as there’s no bootable OS on the datastore, but if I need to re-PXE
>>> boot a VM, then I have to Run Once..OK, fine, but when the PXE
>>> completes it reboots, back into network boot, then I have to kill the
>>> VM and restart it normally.  Under a PC (or ESXi) BIOS, I just hit
>>> F12, network boot, OS re-installs, then  reboots normally. Much
>>> better user experience.   I gave our Red Hat sales people feedback on
>>> this issue and was told it’s not going to change.
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
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