Hi Everyone,
I have recently been asked about Installing Longhorn Server and/or Windows Vista on VMWare Workstation. There are a few tricks to getting it to work on VMWare workstation.
First up, make sure you are running the latest version, I am running VMWare 5.5.2 Build 29772 which works well on Windows Vista RC2. The catch is during the Virtual Machine setup phase...
First up, create your virtual machine using a typical setup..
Then Ensure you choose 'Windows XP Professional' as the OS
Then Setup the rest as per usual.
Windows Vista and Longhorn Server have a slight compatibility issue with vmware, whereby until the VMware tools are installed, it gets slightly confused with the drivers and displays nothing but a blank screen. So.. before running windows setup, edit the .vmx file for your virtual machine in notepad, and add the following lines:
Svga.maxWidth = "640"
Svga.maxHeight = "480"
and change the following line:
usb.present = "TRUE"
to
usb.present = "FALSE"
your vmx file should look like the below:
The reason you should set usb.Present = "FALSE" is because the OS will hang when shutting down if you dont (vmware to Vista/Longhorn driver issue)
Once you have done this, fire up your machine, install your OS and away you go...
Once you have Installed VMWare Tools on your virtual machine, Shutdown the VM, and take the Svga.maxWidth = "640" and Svga.maxHeight = "480"
out of your vmx file. Save and Close and Happy VM'ing!!!
