I decided to make this guide to help out many users that are unsure what a Virtual Machine (from now on referred to as "VM") is and how it can really help them.

For those that don't know, a VM is just like it says, a Virtual Machine, or a program, that emulates a whole computer, with it, you can run just about any operating system inside your current operating system (from now on referred to as "OS").

Ok, let's get started, first, you will need the following:

VMware Workstation
Any operating system install disc (i will be using an image i made of a windows XP Service Pack 3 disk) <- not required unless you want to actually USE your new VM :a022:

Alright, onto the setup of a New VM, i will assume you have installed one of the above versions of VMware Workstation (now referred to as "VMW")

1. Load up VMW and at the following window, select New Virtual Machine (Ctrl+N will work)


2. choose Custom or Typical, for this guide, we'll choose typical, as the custom goes into options that most of you will not need right now


3. choose your installation method for the OS that will be on this VM, you can choose a physical drive (or a virtual one) or a direct cd/dvd image
for this guide, i'll show you the options you are faced with on both choosing no OS and when choosing a direct disk image.


4. Here i show you first the option you will be faced with when choosing a disk image (in this case it is an XP Service Pack 3 cd) and then what you are faced with when choosing to install the OS later

^ Choosing a disk image, you must enter your cd-key ^


choosing to install the OS later, you must choose the OS type

5. Now you choose the name of the VM, this will be reflected in the files that the VM uses, and inside VMW when choosing which VM to "Power On"
also you choose the location that the VM file(s) will be stored, (with the ACE edition available from me, you can optionally put this on a portable USB disk for portable OS booting :smile: )


6. Now you choose the storage method, either a single file, or split up 2gb files, this option is given so that you can store the files on many various File Systems without problems e.g. FAT32, also, at the bottom is the ACE calculator, that will tell you the size of USB drive you will need, should you choose to make this a portable VM.


7. Here you can choose to finish with default options, or further customize your hardware options.


the hardware options you see in the right window allow you to do many things with your VM, such as the following.

Bridged NAT (access the internet through your main OS's network connection)
Drive usage (choose the physical or virtual drive the VM will have access to when booted)
Sound Card choice

these options are semi-limited and can be ignored on creation, as you have the options available to you at any time by right clicking the tab near the top on the first window (as you can see in step one, i have 3 tabs, one for vista, one for XP SP3 and one for Home (the standard page for VMW) )

from those tabs, you can do many things, setup "Snapshots" which are like drive images or restore points that you can revert to if there are any system problems after installing software or testing viruses :saevilw:

Also, one thing i didn't cover here, after installing your OS, be sure to install VMware Tools on it, this helps with performance and in case your VM drive gets fragmented, it takes only seconds to fix :)

Now that you have your very own VM, you can password protect it, set it full screen, push it to a client computer and many other possibilities, personally, i like to use it to keep a computer from being destroyed from unknowing users that might accidentally infect it with trojans or virii

enjoy

M

Thank you Mazuki

An excellent guide

Nice, thanks Maz

Great Guide Mazuki!!! I was actually asking myself how to use this yesterday!!

Nice one thanks :)

Fantastic guide Mazuki....

cool maz.

ill have 2 try it out when i get a rlly big flash drive lol.

Nice tut! I have a question....will there be any problem running a 32bit WinXP VM on my 64bit Vista computer (for example, video driver incompatibilities between the OS's, etc......)?

no you will have no trouble, since a VM emulates an entirely new computer with your current hardware, and 64-bit processors can run 32-bit applications, you could install 32-bit windows in a VM inside your Host (main) OS without trouble

i highly recommend installing the VMware tools after installing your OS in a VM though, it will help with video and input device recognition and use

i will be doing a part 2 guide to this about snapshots, locking down the VM for other people to use it (protect your main OS from unknowing users) and other great uses available :) maybe even the unity feature that came out with 6.5 if i get time to play with it

i just ordered an 8gb usb 2.0 drive, got a awesome deal and got it brand new for $9.99.

will that be enough to hold windowsxp home and a few programs or not? cuz some of my 3d programs i cant put on school computers, where i do most of my work, so i was hoping i culd set this up on that size drive and use maybe like zbrush on it.

standard XP installation takes about 1.7gb i believe, an 8gb stick will have roughly 7.4gb on it, then ACE requires nearly 1gb or so, so you will have about 4.7gb left to play with :)

yay!

*does happy dance*

we shuld have a happy dance emoticon, unless im just missng it.

thanks maz!

are the VM Tools and ACE Edition included in the windows install?, or are they additional proggies?....and where does VMW ThinApp fit into this?

VM Tools comes after the OS install, it's included with VMW, the ACE is just a way to make your VM portable, and Thinapp would be used to make the programs you want to take with you portable (without using a VM, since using a VM in ACE would make them portable anyway)

Got it. Thanks maz!

Thanks, but

Sorry for being a mere mortal and not a God of knowledge but, does this mean that when im in work I can have on my portable hard drive my own operating system which I can use as the same one at home?

Thanks again

you are correct sir!

if using the ACE edition addon

Well thank you kind Sir. I am slowly getting this stuff!

Ive done as you said and will spend time next weekend having a play!

Awesome,

Hey thanks Mazuki. this will come in handy playing with reg. tweaks. At least I can do them safely now.

thanks 4 info

Thanks alot Mazuki for this great guide

Hi Mazuki,

Having a problem with getting:
VMware Workstation
http://94.75.224.58/forums/index.php?showtopic=69354

Comes up:
Sorry, the link that brought you to this page
seems to be out of date or broken.


Do you have a working link to get this?


duzer

is always your friend, my friend.
Here's your program you need.

updated link and image in release topic :)

Good one Maz multitasking to the max mmmm possibilities there

I'm not sure if this was mentioned or not but if you're installing multiple
OS's or only one for that matter. When the machine is powered down, double click the "Memory" because I think by default it's set at "1024"........Drag the slider down to "512" especially if you are installing multiple severs or whatever. If you don't reduce the memory, you will be one frustrated mutha Trucker!!



Just a thought ;)
Correct me if I'm wrong

thanks

what can happen in this case is if you don't set it back to 1024 before you start it, you can lose memory and saved information, vmware stores memory and the state on hard disk as if the OS went into hibernation anyway, so turning it down with no intention of keeping it there isn't a good idea, however if you are running low on HD space, definitely check your snapshots and remove those that you don't need, i found i was using about 16gb worth of snapshot space or more, dropped the second OS i had installed in a pre-os snapshot and freed up a bunch of space (no need for vista still atm for my work)

Thanks Mate!!!!

I'm not really fond of VMware, I'm more of a virtualbox kind of guy.. which in your opinion is more stable? I've had no problems setting up Virtualbox, but with VMware Networking can be difficult. When I was using it I was trying to setup a Dial-up server between, my Sega Dreamcast and my computer, so I could play Phantasy Star Online without having to use the telephone line. It worked for a while, but then I just got bored of it because it was a too much of a hassle to set that all up and have to reconfigure your settings each time you wanted to play a game.