Ben, blogging: Installing VMWare Player

I installed 2 virtual systems in my Windows this month. It is simpler than I thought.

VMWare is the most reputable virtual system software. VMWare Player provides the basic functionality and it is free. So it is the best tool for us.

The whole process is quite straightforward: You let the VMWare Player know where is your virtual harddrive, and where is your virtual CD which is the OS installation CD. Then start VMWare Player, and it will run the OS installation from CD into harddrive, acts like real CD and real harddrive.

The first step, of course, is to visit VMWare to download and install VMWare Player.

Then, you need to get QEMU to create a virtual harddrive image:

qemu-img.exe create -f vmdk newsystem.vmdk 20G

It will create a file newsystem.vmdk, which can grow up to 20 Giga Bytes when you fill up the harddrive in the Virtual Operating System.
You can also download such image files from some websites. I prefer to create it myself.

Now, we create a text file to let VMWare Player know our hardware setting:

#filename: newsystem.vmx
config.version = "8"
virtualHW.version = "3"

#this is harddrive setting
ide0:0.present = "TRUE"
ide0:0.filename = "newsystem.vmdk" #The virtual harddrive image we just created.
ide0:0.redo = ""

#Memory
memsize = "2048" #2 Giga Bytes of memory. Modify it to fit your need.
MemAllowAutoScaleDown = "FALSE"

#Virtual CD
ide1:0.present = "TRUE"
ide1:0.autodetect = "TRUE"
ide1:0.startConnected = "TRUE"
ide1:0.fileName = "os.iso" # can be ubuntu-8.10-install-i386.iso or WinXP.iso or whatever OS you want to install.
ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-image"
#if you want to use the real CD, you can modify the previous 2 lines as:
#ide1:0.fileName = "auto detect" # or "D:"
#ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-raw" # or "atapi-cdrom" or "dvd-raw" for DVD drive

# Other hardwares
floppy0.present = "FALSE"
ethernet0.present = "TRUE"
ethernet0.addressType = "generated"
ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:7e:06:58"
ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0"
ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"

usb.present = "TRUE"
sound.present = "TRUE"
sound.virtualDev = "es1371"
uuid.location = "56 4d 5c cc 3d 4a 43 29-55 89 5c 28 1e 7e 06 58"
uuid.bios = "56 4d 5c cc 3d 4a 43 29-55 89 5c 28 1e 7e 06 58"

#title
displayName = "NewOS"
guestOS = "winnetenterprise" # Current OS (host) you are using. "ubuntu" if you are using gedit/vi.
nvram = "NewOS.nvram"

#others
MemTrimRate = "-1"
tools.syncTime = "TRUE"
uuid.action = "create"
checkpoint.vmState = ""

Now save and double click the newsystem.vmx to activate VMWare Player. It will detect virtual harddrive (newsystem.vmdk) and virtual CD (os.iso). Because the os.iso is bootable, the Virtual system will be boot up and installed. Isn't that easy!

BTW: I just installed a virtual system in my Ubuntu. The process is the same as installing it in Windows.

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