If you get the error:

Cannot open the disk "name of VM.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on. (Date/timestamp): vmui Reason: Failed to lock the file."

Please don't despare! If you go to the folder where the VM is stored, go into the folder with .lck at the end and rename the file in there to end with .txt, your VM will open at the next attempt. Easy!

This a quick and relatively effective way of gauging a webserver's performance. It's very easy and quick to use.

Assuming you have Apache installed somewhere on your Windows box, do a search for ab.exe. Find it, copy it to the root of C: (for simplicity further down the road) and open a command prompt (type 'CMD' into the run box). Once here, change directory to the root of c (type 'cd /'). You are now in a position to use ab.exe. Type the following:

ab -n X -c Y http://yourwebsite or IP address/

X is the number of requests to be made of the server and Y is how many of those requests should be made concurrently.

One of the nice things about Fedora/Red Hat is the ease with which you can change run levels. Do some work within a GUI (set up a webserver for example) and then run it headless for maximum efficiency. Fedora/RH has a total of 7 run levels, all of which are explained below:

0 - halt, aka 'off'. If you type 'init 0' at the command line, your Linux box will start to shut down.

1 - single user mode, command line only, no networking.

2 - multi user mode without networking.

3 - full multiuser mode. This is the level you want for a headless server. Networking is enabled, command line only.

4 - unused. No use to anyone whatsoever.

5 - X11. Here's your GUI mode! Mouse, icons - you can breathe again!

I have been searching the web for a scientific test of the various webservers available to be able to make an educated decision as to which would best suit my needs and requirements. All I wanted was something that would be able to scale well with the limited resources it would have available (it would be a 512MB VM). After searching and searching for a while to gather both the options available and then information on how they stacked up against each other, I never found any definite answers. There was a nice PDF file linked to from the Hiawatha website that did an excellent job in displaying how the various webservers stacked up, but I wanted something more concise. Motivated by that and the challenge of doing it, I decided to get some benchmarking done myself.

So, everything is fine and you either schedule a disc scan or a purely automated chkdsk is scheduled that really spoils your day and just keeps repeating. You never get to Windows becuase as soon as the scan is finished, the system reboots. All those people trying to help by telling you to to run regedit are getting a little frustrating because you can't get into Windows in the first place! If this sounds familiar, read on because we *might* have the fix you need.