Firstly update the your repositories replacing with “breezy” with “dapper” for example. You can work out the release names and additionally even change the URL’s to a closer mirrors by referring to the official repository list. This can be done using:

vi /etc/apt/sources.list

If you’re not familiar with vi, ESC leaves editing mode and INS enters editting mode. To save and quit when not in editing mode use:

:wq

To update the sources list then upgrade your distribution use the following commands after each other:

apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade

Double check the the upgrade using:

apt-get -f install

Then reboot to make all your upgrades take effect:

shutdown -r now

Using the following command will then confirm your server’s version:

lsb_release -a

Update!

I’ve since found out the method above is not the recommended process for upgrading please refer to the preferred process using update-manager-core. Additionally the process I used above has been officially documented on the Ubuntu help site.

The vmware-vdiskmanager.exe that comes with VMware Server can defrag and shrink your virtual drives.. But to make life easier check out these automated BAT files someones written to help out with the tasks. But remember not run this on VM’s that have snapshots!!

Having trouble with permissions to a file on Windows XP? So was I even though I was logged as an Administrator.. the same account which created the file.. the permissions hadn’t been modified.. Even worse the files locked were a virtual server I had spent days configuring!

The process to fix it was actually quite simple but took awhile to find:

1. Download SubInACL from Microsoft and install it.
2. Using notepad create a file in the SubInACL.exe directory called “reset.cmd”.
3. Paste the following commands in to this file then run it.

subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=administrators=f
 
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=system=f
subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=system=f

Without reading in to these commands too much I suspect I didn’t need to use them all. But I figured that the Administrators and Systems accounts should have access to everything right? The security conscious paranoid man in me now questions, but its too late so I’m suppressing the voice!