Free VM To Test Unattended!

[jaclaz]

Just as a reminder, you can use Ken Kato's VDK Virtual Drive Service:

http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/

http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/vdk.html#top

and (optionally) my pseudo-GUI for it, VIRTUAL DRIVE MANAGER:

http://home.graffiti.net/jaclaz:graffiti.n...ts/VDM/vdm.html

to load/read/write VMware virtual disks without VMware installed.

Also newish releases of QEMU:

http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/

http://www.free.oszoo.org/

(optionally with the great GUI from Dave Reynolds):

http://www.davereyn.co.uk/qemu.htm

can create VMware compatible disk drives.

jaclaz

[bonedaddy]

@ X-Savior

if you are testing on a spare machine you are using the best method........

as long as that spare is free, use it, nothing compares to real time testing....

just my 2 cents worth

boneadddy B)

[InTheWayBoy]

Yeah, a spare machine is the best for ensuring things work right...sometime things work in VMWare but not on a physical machine.

However, to quickly test small edits to a UA, VM's are the quickest...ever seen how fast the text mode install loads on a VM? Quick!

When you use a program like VMWare, you aren't interfacing with your local system unless you tell it to. Under normal use, the VM looks and acts like it's own computer...all the files are saved to your local system in one or two big files. So if you were to format your VM, it won't do anything to your local system...the file I posted is a blank VM...since it has no files it's only 3KB...as you add more to your VM it will grow accordingly.

[X-Savior]

Ok, I See.

Thank you very much! I think I might try your Blank One for small edits. I like the spare machine but it takes 1.5 Hours per test. Make for slow testing of various small refinements and to see if small bugs have been corrected.

[`Felix`]

Then, we host that VM (If it's blank it's not even 3KB of disk space) for all our people to download.

Let's see what we can do with this!

Good idea. And yes you can edit alot of the options in the text file. If you need somewhere to host it let me know - happy to put it on my webserver for everyone.

[InTheWayBoy]

Does MSFN archive the attachments? Cause if not I say we just leave it here...it's only 3KB

If not, I have a few hosts, and might tap you to host it as well.

[numist]

This will teach me to check to see if there is more than one page to a thread.

Pick your own iso location:

Download InTheWayBoy's rar and extract to a folder.

Edit winxppro.vmx with a text editor.

Find the line ide1:0.fileName = "C:\msfn.iso"

If you can't figure out the rest... I can't help you.

Note that if you are using FAT32 on your host OS, you cannot use more than 2.1GB of the vm that InTheWayBoy posted because it will keep to one disk image. To rectify, find someone with workstation and make a new vm with the "Split into 2GB files" option enabled.

Edited October 26, 2005 by numist

[satanhead2003]

Well, that's the problem...someone with a full version of VMWare would have to configure that. At least, I didn't see any config options in VMPlayer.

I think, the config which iso file to load is in the vmx file, as paste below;

config.version = "8"

virtualHW.version = "4"

scsi0.present = "TRUE"

memsize = "256"

ide0:0.present = "TRUE"

ide0:0.fileName = "Windows XP Professional.vmdk"

ide1:0.present = "TRUE"

ide1:0.fileName = "C:\msfn.iso"

ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-image"

floppy0.present = "FALSE"

ethernet0.present = "TRUE"

usb.present = "TRUE"

sound.present = "TRUE"

sound.virtualDev = "es1371"

displayName = "MSFNBeta"

guestOS = "winxppro"

nvram = "winxppro.nvram"

ide0:0.redo = ""

ethernet0.addressType = "generated"

uuid.location = "56 4d 26 3e 81 63 10 b5-16 84 56 0d ee 2a fd 8b"

uuid.bios = "56 4d 26 3e 81 63 10 b5-16 84 56 0d ee 2a fd 8b"

ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:2a:fd:8b"

ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0"

This is taken directly from your attachment

[Sonic]

I'm trying VmWare Playeer, it's works ! the vmx file is fully editable ...

Now wait for a guy which program a small GUI to regenerate a correct vmx file ... it's more easy if we change lot of settings ... for example a html/php/javascript will be okay I think ...

Goodbye.

[InTheWayBoy]

This looks promising:

http://www.run-virtual.com/?page_id=55

I could setup a server to host this, and then you can pick and choose which VM you want. I haven't tested this yet, so it coule be complete crap...but hey, it looks cool! VM-On-Demand

As for the VMX GUI, I have some ideas to clone the VMWare setup mini-app...but that will only happen if I get enough time to attack it.

[InTheWayBoy]

Well, after a little investigating I am sad to say this doesn't look like a winner...seems to require a higher version of VMWare than I have. Oh well, it does give me some ideas...

[colemancb]

Someone mirror this before it (probably) goes down.

Looks a bit advanced, but someone who is messing around with this already could take a look and tell people how to use it better. You type in the answers to questions (IDE Master, Slave, Sound device, Ethernet devices, etc...) and it will generate a VMX for you.

http://www.consolevision.com/members/dcgrendel/vmxform.html

[colemancb]

Not that I'm a major NO-PIRACY advocate, but isn't this piracy? We're getting out of buying VMWare... O_o One of those fine-line issues, I guess.

[matthewk]

Any idea what's going on here? It looks like it starts everything fine; it shows some progress bars and opening logo, but I never see anything more really until this.

[InTheWayBoy]

I don't think it's piracy...more just clever usage of text files. Since the player is free and clear, the only obsticle is the validity of the VM files. Since the vmx turns out to be just text, and the vmhd seems to have been figured out it's all common knowledge at this point.