Not too often would you need this, but I just ran into a situation where it was handy to get AD off an existing, but inactive, domain controller.  I couldn’t get dcpromo to uninstall the services and demote the darn thing, because this server thought it was still active in the domain.  I had physically removed this server and manually cleared it from the active domain.  Why would you do this, well, that’s a long story, but I wanted to, let’s just say that.

Here’s how you demote a DC with dcpromo, forcefully.

“dcpromo /forceremoval”

I did this on a 2008 Server, worked great!  All these years and I hadn’t needed to do this, and didn’t even know it could be done.  Always something new to learn, huh!

I’ve moved a few virtual machines off of both ESXi and VMWare Server recently. (was testing VMWare, which I do like.) I moved them into VirtualBox while I test OpenSolaris, which I am REALLY liking… but off topic. Anyway, once I got the vmdk hard drive files copied, I created a new machine config in VirtualBox and added the vmdk to VirtualBox. (which is very cool I must say, you can use vmdk’s or vhd’s in VirtualBox.) Once the OS booted, in both XP Pro and Win2008, the performance was terrible and had no network. I realized that the VMWare Tools were probably still installed. Should have removed them first, but whatever. When to control panel and tied to uninstall, but I got some error that “No VmWare products were detected”, great! That’s nice, you can’t even uninstall after they are moved off the VMWare host services.

I added the VMWare Tools ISO to that VM and opened a command prompt. Then I found the “setup.exe” or “setup64.exe” files on the cd. Run those in the cmd window with a /c switch. (example:  ”setup64.exe /c” )  This will remove the Tools.  I installed the VirtualBox additions and then reboot.  On my Windows 2008 server it crashed on first reboot, then then I tried again and it loaded up just fine.  Network works and everything! Yay!

EDIT 7/23/09 :

I noticed on one Win2k system that the VMWare uninstall didn’t fully remove the networking drivers.  When I rebooted, the system tried to install the AMD PCNet adapter again, only it said it was “VMWare  …”   What I did to fix that…  I shutdown the Guest OS, went to settings and under Networking I selected the Intel adapter instead of the AMD.  This worked, but also required that I download the driver from Intel and install it manually on the Guest OS.  Everything worked fine though, and I had Gigabit networking!

I’d still like to know how to get rid of ALL the VMWare stuff though.  Probaby just need to find some INF’s for something in Windows.

When you run mstsc.exe, the Remote Desktop Connection client to connect to a virtual machine VRDP or other RDP connections, it’s not exactly clear how to enter the CTL+ALT+DEL keystroke to login. Do this:

CTL+ALT+END

:)

It’s possible to email an mp3 as a TXT message to yourself, but that’s not going to work for me. I suppose there are other’s out there like myself, that do not have any data on their plan. I do have text messages, but no data, so no pictures or audio can text to me phone. (because Verizon rips you off on the data pricing!) I just don’t really need that, but it would be handy.

Anyway, down to business. I figured out how to add a ringtone to my Env Touch (LG-VX11000) using the SD Card!

Make your ringtone MP3 file, then insert the SD card into your computer. Find the “my_sounds” folder. Copy ringtones into there. Next put the SD card back into your EnV Touch. Hit the center, blue icon (with the four white dots) to open the menu. Go to “Media Center” in the menu, and then “Music and Tones”. Next go to “My Sounds”, you should see the ring tones you’ve added in there. Click on one that you want, the “Options” menu should show, and select “Set As”. Then select “Ringtone”.

There you go! You now have your custom ringtone on your EnV Touch!

(This might work for the EnV 3 too! They have very similar menu’s and options.)

See how they run