Tech Blog

So I had a REALLY annoying issue where my keyboard wouldnt work when I was using the console on vSphere (on both vSphere client and the vSphere web gui) on my Windows 8.1 PC (fine on others).

After some internet searches I found that the below Windows Updates are to blame and uninstalling them fixes the issues:

KB2961072
KB2971850
KB2912280
KB2973201
KB2973351
KB2993651
KB2984972
KB3000061
KB3002885
KB2962409
KB2967917
KB2975719
KB2994897
KB2984006

Good luck.

So further to my post about roaming profiles going screwy i.e.

When a roaming user logs off their profile isnt fully deleted meaning when they log on they get a second profile on the computer called Username.Domain.

This second profile results in a black background because the following registry key: HKEY\Current User\Control\Desktop\Wallpaper\ points at their orgininal profile which is half deleted.

To fix this you need to ensure the profile is deleted so I’d recommend a policy to turn off the PC’s off in the evening with a shutdown script to run Delprof2.exe.  If this still doesnt work then you can cheat a little and change the registry to point at the roaming profile:

Key: HKEY\Current User\Control\Desktop\Wallpaper\
Value: REG_SZ
Value: \\ProfileServer\Staff_profiles_Share\%username%.v2\appdata\roaming\microsoft\windows\themes\TranscodedWallpaper.jpg
Although if your sensible you would have a mandory wallpaper and wouldnt have this issue (we’re not as users like pictures of their kids).