As I’m having some trouble with VMware at work, in that I can’t get the darn thing to install an operating system from an ISo image file, I thought I’d do some research at home.

I downloaded VMware Workstation from their site and got stuck at the activation code page as I didn’t have one. I keep checking my email but I’m not receiving anything from them apart from a confirmation of the username and password. Did a search of Google and someone else had the same problem 3 times. Someone did respond to him that they no longer send activation codes via email but it’s actually on one of their web pages.

I’ll have another go at that later. In the meantime I’ve been using Microsoft’s Virtual PC 2007 a bit more. I was thinking of having a play around with Sharepoint Server and that needed Windows Server so I installed a VM for Windows Server 2003 which installed OK. I immediately ran the Windows Update function and that couldn’t get a connection. I noticed that IE 6 when installed with Windows Server 2003 has the security settings set high so you can’t go anywhere without adding the URL as a trusted site. I added some sites to that list and of course it still didn’t work. Had a look at the hardware settings and there was no wireless adapter but there was the ethernet port so I plugged in a cable and was able to go visit the Windows Update site. That needed 43 updates. I then thought I’d see how the PC coped with another virtual machine running Vista Ultimate and also getting updates to itself. Lastly I created a new VM for Windows 2000 and at the same time as the updates for both VM’s were being downloaded I installed that operating system.

And it all worked, though a bit slow.

I tried using Microsoft’s Virtual PC software the other day. I started with Virtual PC 2004 but that didn’t work with Vista (Does anything? Ed). Downloaded Virtual PC 2007 and installed that OK on Vista and managed to create some VM’s OK. Well I say OK but it does take some fiddling to get the VM’s to boot.

The creation of the VM is straightforward but it does need and operating system installed. If you have created the VM correctly then the VM will have access to a CD/DVD drive, then you can stick in a Vista O/S disc and reboot and off its goes. What is slightly worrying is that the VM’s hard disk, which is just an allocated area of the host O/S’s hard drive, usually the C: drive, is also called the C: drive, and the first thing Vista wants to do is format the logical C: drive. Man, was I worried when I OK’d that format process. Anyway it worked OK and Vista installed itself. So I had a Vista VM working on the host Vista O/S

Then I tried an XP VM, which also worked OK. I have numerous XP and Vista setup disks and some worked and installed themselves and others did squat. Where I had trouble I’d get an ISO O/S disk and write that as a setup disk and that tended to work. I also have a whole page of activation codes and some worked and others didn’t, though they all should have.

For my third VM I thought I’d try XP Media Center and the first disk installed OK but then the installer wanted me to insert disk 2, which I did but I think the files it was looking for were buried a few folders down and I couldn’t browse to them. That VM is half way built and until such time as I extract the necessary folder’s files and write them to a fresh CD/DVD and in the route directory and let that process finish, that’s that.

The other day at work I had to install VMWare Workstation, which appears to work in a similar way. This software is getting popular and though it is relatively straightforward creating VM’s and installing operating systems on them the devil is in the detail, like does the host operating systems printer work via the VM, does it connect to the net, how fast is it to use etc etc. Endless fun tinkering with this stuff.