Kitz Forum
Computer Software => General software => Topic started by: tickmike on February 23, 2007, 12:10:23 AM
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Hello All.
Has anyone played about with 'Virtual machines' ?, If so what.
Is there any free software out there ?.
I use W2K Pro or (just trying) Ubuntu, will it work on these ?.
What can be done with it.?.
Michael.
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Ive played with VMware many many moons ago
- I think the last thing I put on it was when I was testing out XP SP2 before it was public release.
iirc they do a free evaluation copy.
Think mr_chris used to use it a fair bit, but he may use something else now.
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>>> I use W2K Pro
Virtual PC is free -
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx
but according to the blurb only works on XP Pro and vista etc
However I just did some digging around thinking there HAD to be a previous version since Vistas only just been released... and found this if its any interest to you
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=6d58729d-dfa8-40bf-afaf-20bcb7f01cd1&DisplayLang=en
PC 2004 SP1 runs on: Windows 2000 Professional SP4, Windows XP Professional or later,
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VMware Player and VMware Server are free for personal use now. VMware Server is the best option because it includes the capability to create virtual machine images, whereas for Player you need to find some other way to create them (or get ready-made ones). I use Server on my Linux machines to run a variety of alternative OSs without having to reboot, and it works very well indeed.
Download it from http://www.vmware.com/download/server/ and also grab the excellent documentation.
Eric
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Thanks for info and links .
I will sort out a spare machine to install, I would think it has to be quite a good spec Pent 3/4 not something like a Pent 1/2 ?.
Do you have to have a basic OS installed then install the virtual software ?.then maybe a second OS ?. Or do you have both OS installed first ?.
Any advice please.
Michael.
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You install the main OS first, then the virtualisation software. After that you create a virtual machine (basically a big file on your hard disk which looks like a separate machine) and install the guest OS in that. So long as you have enough hard disk space you can have any number of different guest OSs.
You don't need a particularly fast machine for VMware because it doesn't emulate the OS software, only the hardware. So all the software runs at more or less its native speed.
Eric
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Thanks Eric .
That gives me a better idea of its use, just had a very quick look at the vm ware info, unless I read it wrong I need to use server software for the basic OS ?.
As I'm still green with Linux I have MS Server 2K , so I could use that to test things out.
Michael.
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I think you must have read it wrong. VMware Player and Server can be installed on any reasonably modern Linux system, and as far as I know on any Windows system (but I've no experience of this). Guest systems can be Windows, Linux, BSD, Solaris and maybe others.
If you want to start off with a Linux system then I can recommend PCLinuxOS 2007 http://www.pclinuxos.com/news.php but at the moment it has yet to reach its final release. I'm using the test release 2 version, and it's an absolute delight of stability and ease of use. VMware Server installed in it with no complications at all.
Eric
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So far so good, Installed the vm server, Installed it on D drive-program files, Its put two empty folders one on C and the other on D drives.
Now this is on a machine with W2K pro has the base os.
How do I install another os ?
Do I some how install it in one of the above folders?.
Help.
Michael.
PS Do I need to download the vm player ?.
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You don't need to install Player. I'm not familiar with the Windows version of VMware, but presumably you've now got a menu item and/or desktop icon to run VMware? When you run it you get a reasonably friendly program from which you can create a new virtual machine. After you've done that you can stick an installation CD in the drive and power on the virtual machine, which will take you into the normal OS installation process.
Full documentation at http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/server_pubs.html
Eric
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Thanks Eric for that link.
I have been looking on that web site but in the wrong part, I'm still going in through the notes but what took my eyes was.. it was on about putting password in when you first install..I did not ! I clicked skip !.lot of the icons are 'greyed' out !!!.
Do you think I need to register to get these passwords ?. do I need them .?..
Michael.
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I've just done a quick install of this app - Registration is free and will likely unlock the greyed out options.
What you'll need to do then is first connect to the local machine when you're prompted, and then create a new Virtual machine using the options to pick hardware types etc. From here you'll basically get a boot screen where you can install any OS you have either on CD, or mount one from a CD ISO image.
Took me about 45 minutes total to get a virtual ubuntu machine playing nicely with pretty much all my hardware. Pretty handy and will mean anything you do on your VM will be sandboxed and unable to mess with your main operting system
Havelock
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I've just done a quick install of this app - Registration is free and will likely unlock the greyed out options.
What you'll need to do then is first connect to the local machine when you're prompted, and then create a new Virtual machine using the options to pick hardware types etc. From here you'll basically get a boot screen where you can install any OS you have either on CD, or mount one from a CD ISO image.
Took me about 45 minutes total to get a virtual ubuntu machine playing nicely with pretty much all my hardware. Pretty handy and will mean anything you do on your VM will be sandboxed and unable to mess with your main operting system
Havelock
Hi Havelock..
Thanks for doing that it was some help.
I now have a password.
But there was no password screen I could access to put it in, so I reinstalled/repaired still no screen, so I un-installed rebooted and re- installed put password in rebooted opened up 'VM ware server console' still grey out a lot of it.
On opening the VM ware server console' I get a 'select the vmware host you want to connect to' box up, so I set the radio button to 'local' click 'ok' then I get error "There was a problem connecting: 511 vmware-serverd service is not running." Is that because I have not yet installed a second OS ?. Did you get that ?.
As my Brain is worn out can you take me through the steps from when you installed the vmware server (is it version 1.0.1 build 29996 ?) to installing the second os please.
Michael .
ps The base os is W2K pro.
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It's probably your main OS which is causing the problem, connecting to localhost should allow you to create new machines, it could be 2k3 isn't allowing vmware to run the startup service (vmware-serverd) it needs to run properly but as I don't use it I couldn't say for certain...
Other than that it sound like you got the install correct and its just 2k3 not playing nicely
Havelock
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It's probably your main OS which is causing the problem, connecting to localhost should allow you to create new machines, it could be 2k3 isn't allowing vmware to run the startup service (vmware-serverd) it needs to run properly but as I don't use it I couldn't say for certain...
Other than that it sound like you got the install correct and its just 2k3 not playing nicely
Havelock
Just found the vm-ware forums and its a problem lots of people are having when you use a base windows 2000 system,
What is your base os ?.
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XP Pro at the moment mate..though If Ubuntu and Knoppix both keep playing nice i'm seriously considering switching to Linux...
Roseway - Have you any idea how well Windoze games play in VM's in Linux? I seem to remember trying a couple of years ago with WINE but was fairly disappointed with the results and never bothered switching.
Rgds
Havelock
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Hi.
Re > If Ubuntu and Knoppix both keep playing nice i'm seriously considering switching to Linux...<
well I'm in the same mind its also Free and loads of free software.
Re. 'wine' its pre installed in ubuntu have a try. ;)
Not sure how but I have got VMware server to start up and I have just about installed ubuntu on this test machine. :)
Michael.
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Roseway - Have you any idea how well Windoze games play in VM's in Linux? I seem to remember trying a couple of years ago with WINE but was fairly disappointed with the results and never bothered switching.
I'm afraid I'm not a gamer, so I don't know. I'm thinking that USB joysticks might be a problem. There are much better solutions for games than Wine, such as Cedega www.transgaming.com/ (but it costs money) and a few others. The truth is that results are a bit patchy - some games run very well with no difficulty getting them going, and others are a pig to get working. There are lots of Linux games sites where you can get any amount of information.
Eric
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Update ... I now have ubuntu installed as a guest on a windows 2000 pro base and it works. ;)
But I still have this start up problem as in my above posts, On the vmware forums there is a script that someone has made to be installed on the windows host at start up to stop the problem.
Does any one know how to run a script at start up ?. on windows 2000 pro (does not have group policy ! ).
Michael
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It most certainly does have a group policy! Start / run gpedit.msc and you can drill down through Computer Configuration / Windows Settings / Scripts (Startup / Shutdown). You can add the script there.
This will run the script before the logon box appears, just after "Applying Computer Settings".
If you want to do it the more traditional way, i.e. run the script as you log on, you can open the start menu, programs, and then right-click on the "Startup" program group, then select Open from the context menu that appears. In there you can create a shortcut to the script. Then it will be executed when explorer starts and your desktop icons appear.
Hope this helps :)
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It most certainly does have a group policy! Start / run gpedit.msc and you can drill down through Computer Configuration / Windows Settings / Scripts (Startup / Shutdown). You can add the script there.
This will run the script before the logon box appears, just after "Applying Computer Settings".
If you want to do it the more traditional way, i.e. run the script as you log on, you can open the start menu, programs, and then right-click on the "Startup" program group, then select Open from the context menu that appears. In there you can create a shortcut to the script. Then it will be executed when explorer starts and your desktop icons appear.
Hope this helps :)
Hi Chris.
I was thinking of the W2K server that sends out the group policies, and has a MMC to set it up and W2K workstations did not have that.
This is from VMware forum.
> You may try to change VMware Authorization Service and VMware Registration Service to a manual start.
> Create a cmd script below and schedule it "At system startup":
> :loop
> ping.exe -n 3 localhost
> net start|find "VMware"
> if errorlevel 1 goto loop
> ping.exe -n 5 localhost
> net start "vmware authorization service" & net start "vmware registration service"
So do I just put this in a Text file.
Michael.
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That's right, but you can do what I said and edit the local policy on your workstation.
You put that lot in a text file and save with a .cmd or a .bat extension... then you can schedule to run on startup in either way as I detailed above. Doing through the local group policy editor is probably cleaner, since it won't display on your screen when you start the computer up.
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Well I got the script to run ,But It did not work, there's still a known problem with this software on windows 2000 pro.
I can get the VM ware service to run by manually starting it from 'Services'.
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If you can get it running from a service, you could try creating a .bat file with the command:
net start "service name"
and leaving the file in your startup folder (or putting it in your local policy startup script)
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If you can get it running from a service, you could try creating a .bat file with the command:
net start "service name"
and leaving the file in your startup folder (or putting it in your local policy startup script)
Hi Havelock.
I had a go at that but got the Event system log error of " After starting, the service hung in a start pending state."
In the Application log "WMI was unable to process the Remote Access performance library due to a time violation in the open function"
But I can start it in 'services' manually.
Now if I include my start up script and the start up script from the VMware forum, it seems to work, but that has added 3 minutes on my boot up (not good ! ).
Michael