Several months ago I started building a guide to using VMware documentation that was first a single blog post, launched into a blog series, and then morphed into a presentation at the Boston VMUG UserCon in September 2019. I realized while preparing that there was a better way to organize the content and a number of things I missed. This post is to launch the updated series for the benefit of the community.

We’re Going on Tour!

If you want to know where to find VMware documentation and take advantage of some little known functionality secrets, buckle up and take a tour with me!

Maybe you’re the type of person who prefers not to take a tour without first seeing the map of all tour stops. Please reference the mind map shown here for a rough idea where the series is headed. Many thanks to Paul McSharry for recommending MindMeister for this purpose. Click here to view the interactive version of this mind map.

As for what we will cover in the series, here’s a brief description of each part:

Part 1 – The Extensive Guide to Using VMware Documentation Like a Pro In this post we take a brief tour of all the places (both that you may expect and some you may not) to find VMware documentation and what can be found in each. If you’re looking for the slide deck from the Boston VMUG UserCon (contains more screenshots not included in the blog post), you can find it on my GitHub. Full credit to Richard Kenyan for making the suggestion to post the slides on GitHub.



Part 2 – Tips and Tricks for Building Customized VMware Docs How exactly can VMware documentation be customized? Did you know it could at all? Imagine building your own custom collection of VMware documentation that can easily be shared with others. This post will teach you how.



Part 3 – KBs and Beyond – Exploring the VMware Knowledge Base Site What can you find on VMware’s KB site? I guarantee it is way more than you ever dreamed. If you haven’t used the site much, it is time to get educated. This post will show you how to refine searches of the KB site (and other areas) to get helpful results.



Part 4 – Building Custom Search Engines for VMware Content in Google Chrome This post will help you build a custom search engine for VMware content using Google Chrome. Depending on what you search for most often, you may want to make several custom search engines.



Part 5 – Building Custom Search Engines for VMware Content in Mozilla Firefox This post is similar to the last one but will show the steps for Firefox.



Even though this series has several parts, we’re only just scratching the surface. Watch for updates to this post as I plan to continue to add stops on the tour for the benefit of all. If there’s something specific you feel should be added, please let me know.