SCVMM admin console and ActiveX

I recently cam across a sequence of events that confused me with the SCVMM Administrators console and Self Service Portal installed on my Vista x64 laptop.

On one laptop the SCVMM Self Service Portal was working fine, on the other I was getting a gray (see below) window rather than a view of the virtual machines desktop as is normally expected.  However if I ran IE in 64-bit mode then it all worked - strange!

I went through all the usual settings in IE but couldn't see a difference between the two laptops, on one I could remove the ActiveX control but on the other with the problem, there was no control and it wouldn't prompt me to install it.    

Lloyd for the SCVMM team resolved this for me (thanks again Lloyd!), I don't think this will catch many people out but I think it's worth sharing the problem and resolution with you:

Is the VMM Administrator console also installed on this machine? When the 64 bit version of the admin console is installed, it installs and registers the 64 bit version of the VMRC ActiveX control. This control is also used in the browser. Since the 64 bit version is installed, the 32 bit browser can’t load it.

If you need a workaround, you can uninstall the administrator console, load the web page in a 32 bit browser, and reinstall the admin console.

So it appears that on my other laptop, I must have accessed the portal before installing the console and therefore got the 32bit ActiveX control.  So I need to change my build process:

1. Install OS and tools

2. Access Self Service Portal (to get 32bit ActiveX control)

3. Install SCVMM administrators console

Then I can use either IE in 32 or 64bit modes.

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