Dennis Faas

Infopackets Reader Calli P. writes: " Dear Dennis, We are running one of our virtual machines on Virtualbox, but the performance is extremely lackluster and is very slow to respond, especially over a remote desktop session. I have read reports ... online that suggest VMware Workstation has nearly double the performance of Virtualbox and would like to migrate. After reading a few articles online, I tried exporting the Virtualbox VM to .OVA format (open virtualization format) in hopes of importing the single .OVA file into VMware Workstation, however, I get an error on VMware Workstation that says ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader William B. writes: " Dear Dennis, I am running a server virtual machine inside of Virtualbox and it's been quite slow. I've read that VMware Workstation has twice the performance (roughly). Out of curiosity, I tried to export my ... current virtual machine in Virtualbox using the Open Virtualization Format (.OVF or .OVA) but I get an error every time I try to export: ' Could not create the exported medium Server-disk001.vmdk (VERR_IO_CRC) .' I am not sure what to do and would like to export this virtual machine off of Virtualbox so I can give VMware Workstation a try. " My ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Jack L. writes: " Dear Dennis, For the last 4-5 months when I try to do a Windows 10 update to download and install ' 2024-01 Security Update for Windows 10 Version 22H2 for x64 based Systems ' ( KB5034441 ) the update downloads, ... but when it starts to install (before I restart the computer) it constantly gives the following error code ( 0x80070643 ). Are you able to remedy this problem? " My response: I asked Jack if he would like to use my remote desktop service , and he agreed. Below I will discuss my findings. How to Fix: 2024-01 Security Update for Windows 10 Fails to ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Drew W. writes: " Dear Dennis, I was randomly added by a female on Snapchat and she asked me what I looked like. We hit it off, and then she asked for some inappropriate photos of myself. A few minutes later, she showed me ... pictures of my Instagram follower and said if I didn't pay, they would be sent to my followers. I have already sent $400 and was provided video proof of my photos being deleted. However, she is now demanding another $100 to 'delete for good', whatever that means. I already received SMS text messages from 4 other phone numbers demanding higher amounts. ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Calli P. writes: " Dear Dennis, I we just upgraded our server machine which includes all brand new hardware. The new server hardware will act as a Hypervisor, and are currently using Virtualbox to run our 'server' virtual machine. ... After copying over the server virtual machine to the new hardware, however, Virtualbox won't boot the virtual machine, stating ' Nonexistent host networking interface , name Intel I210 Gigabit Network Connection (VERR_INTERNAL_ERROR)', with an E_FAIL error 0x80004005 . I am not sure what to do and I need help! " My response: I asked Calli if she ... (view more)

(Note that the solution below applies to any Windows 11 machine that needs to stay up and running without a reboot after updates, and not just one running VMware Workstation). Infopackets Reader Calli P. writes: " Dear Dennis, We recently upgraded ... our server machine to an AMD Ryzen 9 with 16 cores and 32 threads. The old machine was very outdated (only 4 core). The role of the new server is the same as the old - to be a Hypervisor - which runs VMware workstation. Inside of VMware Workstation is a virtual machine which we regard as the Server virtual machine, which runs our ESC software for ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Calli P. writes: " Dear Dennis, We own a heating and cooling business and have a server that uses a Windows 10 virtual machine on VMware workstation. The virtual machine runs a program called ESC Connections Server that allows us ... to book appointments (among other things) from our workstations and also remotely on our phones. The ESC Server and virtual machine are both mission critical. That said, I understand that Windows 10 will only be supported until October, 2025 and would like to upgrade it to Windows 11. The problem is that our virtual machine was built using the MBR ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Fred J. writes: " Dear Dennis, Like you, I use an on-premise version of ConnectWise ScreenConnect to provide technical support to my clients. A recent security vulnerability ( CVE-2024-1709 ) this past February forced me to ... upgrade ScreenConnect to their latest branch (currently version 23.9) in order to patch the system. Prior to that, I was using an old Linux version of ScreenConnect from 2016. A few weeks after the upgrade, however, the 'Administrator' user I use to log into my on-prem ScreenConnect is locked out because bots keep hitting my login page in order to guess ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Steve T. writes: " Dear Dennis, I use Chrome as my web browser and when I right click on a web page, I often use the option to 'View page source' so that I can copy its contents and edit the HTML using another program. The problem ... is that in 2023, Google released an update to Chrome that changed the right click menu. Now, I am forced to scroll through the menu in order to get to the 'View page source' option. This is painful and time consuming since I do it many times a day. Last year I came across a few articles that suggested going to 'chrome://flags/' via the web address ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Gina P. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently checked my Windows 11 Update and Security (i.e. Windows Update), and I see a bunch of failed updates for Hewlett-Packard - USB - 2/10/2017 12:00:00 AM - 44.1.2402.1741 . I've rebooted my ... machine three times today, and I see 6 corresponding failures for Hewlett-Packard - USB - 2/10/2017 12:00:00 AM - 44.1.2402.1741. From what I gather, appears that the HP USB update is attempting to install twice each time I turn on the machine or reboot. It also appears to have been failing to install for well over a year. I've searched google on ... (view more)