Put VM info on the desktop with BGInfo
Duncan’s post Show VMware Tools version with BGInfo at yellow-bricks.com not only taught me something new about using BGInfo with virtual machines, but it also inspired me to expand on how useful this tool is when administrating your virtual infrastructure. The utility is not new. Most administrators already know about BGInfo and many use it on both physical and virtual servers. However, I too often find the tool is installed but not correctly configured to update the desktop data correctly. In this post I will explain how to make sure that BGInfo updates the data on the desktop every time an administrator logs on, and I will also explore how to mass deploy a customized configuration.
First, for those that may not know about BGInfo,
Bryce Cogswell summarizes it best on the Microsoft Technet page dedicated to the tool.
“How many times have you walked up to a system in your office and needed to click through several diagnostic windows to remind yourself of important aspects of its configuration, such as its name, IP address, or operating system version. If you manage multiple computers you probably need BGInfo. It automatically displays relevant information about a Windows computer on the desktop’s background, such as the computer name, IP address, service pack version, and more. You can edit any field as well as the font and background colors, and can place it in your startup folder so that it runs every boot, or even configure it to display as the background for the logon screen. Because BGInfo simply writes a new desktop bitmap and exits you don’t have to worry about it consuming system resources or interfering with other applications.”
The Vista desktop screenshot was also copied from the same Technet page (click on it for a larger view), and it illustrates a customized BGInfo config that would be useful when working with large numbers of virtual machines. To achieve this type of customization is not hard, but you have to do a little bit more than just put the .exe in your startup folder.
Creating a custom BGInfo configuration
- Download the bginfo.zip file from the same Technet page above
- Extract the bginfo.exe from the .zip to a folder of your choice (do not place in the Startup folder)
- Run bginfo.exe and create your customized config
- Save the config using the File > Save Settings menu (put the new .bgi file in the same folder your saved the bfginfo.exe)
- Create a shortcut for the bginfo.exe file
- Right click on the new shortcut and chose Properties
Change the target field to use the following command line options:- Save the shortcut in the same folder with the .exe and .bgi file
- Place a copy of the shortcut in the VM’s Startup folder.
The target field already contains the path to the bginfo.exe. Add the .bgi file name and the timer:0 option
The screenshots to the right show the different command line options and the target field modified in the shortcut properties. Click for larger images.
To deploy the custom BGInfo config to multiple VMs you have a couple of options.
- Make a gold image template with BGInfo already installed and configured, and deploy your VMs from this template.
- If you already have VMs that you need to push BGInfo to you can save the .bgi file to a network share and make sure the BGInfo shortcut uses the correct path. Push the shortcut to the Startup folder of all your VMs. I’ll leave the method to push the shortcut file up to your imagination, but there are several ways to do this.
Post a comment