VMWare Player

[PT145]

I'm using most current version of VMWare Player. Used EasyVMX to create various virtual machines. VMWare Player had no problem seeing my EasyVMX files. The unattended guide recommends testing your setup in a virtual machine instead of wasting burning CDs. I've created an ISO of the integration of my Windows XP Home Edition and SP2. Nothing else added so far. The problem I'm having is that I can't figure out how to get the ISO loaded into the VMWare Player working as a virtual machine once EasyVMX files pulled in. VMWare Player seems to look for an operating system to load only from, in my case, my DVD/CD drive, ZIP drive, and thumb drive of all things. There doesn't seem to be anyway to point it to the location of the ISO file. Also, while in the VM it won't let me enter any keystrokes. The moment I try it just goes through a cycle where it eventually tells me it couldn't find an operating system to load in any of the aforementioned drives. What am I doing wrong?

On a side note, what has happened to the EasyVMX website? I have not been able to get into it. Is it down or have they just folded?

Finally, has anyone had any experience with the Parallels Workstation (http://www.parallels.com), looks to be similiar to VMWare Workstation but only seems to cost $49.99 downloaded. Also seems to some how work with some of your physical devices. Would it be a good alternative to VMWare Workstation?

PT145

[mmarable]

I don't think that VMWare Player can be used to alter the hardware settings. Normally with VMWare Workstation/GSX/ESX you would alter the hardware settings and redirect the CDROM to your ISO file.

Why don't you try VMWare Server? It's free and fully functional just like VMWare Workstation. VMWare and Microsoft are competing heavily in the virtualization market so since Microsoft offered up VirtualServer for free, VMWare stepped up and offered VMWare Server.

On a side note, what has happened to the EasyVMX website? I have not been able to get into it. Is it down or have they just folded?

PT145

According to the infor in this thread, the owner of the site is moving and looking to be back up and running any time now.

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jsp...65&tstart=0

[PT145]

mmarable, thanks for the info. I didn't know about VMserver. Anyway, read some reviews over the weekend and bought Parallels Workstation. Gave up on VMPlayer and EasyVMX.

Also, for anyone interested, found some info posted by "jbm" which though I'll never be able to do a complete unattend will still permit me not to keep looking for the proof CD since my XP Home is an upgrade. Into my integration of Home and XP copied the directory structure of my ME disk. First had created a folder with same title as the ME disk and copied everything into it but it didn't work. Since no folders on the ME disk duplicate any on the XP Home disk folders I just put everything into the root. Created an ISO with NLite and everything worked when I pulled it into Parallels. Now I'm going to start deleting stuff out of the ME stuff I copied to see if I can slim the thing down and only leave the directories and the files it looks for.

So hence forth I will do semi-unattended installs but still better than before.

PT145