Setting Up Windows XP on VMware Server
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Loading ...In my last virtualization article Streamlined Software Development with Virtualization I discussed about benefits of virtualization and virtual machines on software development process. In this article I present how to set up an excellent free PC virtualization software VMware server to Windows XP host computer and how to install Windows XP client system on it.
Setting up VMware Server
VMware Server is an excellent virtualization software for software development. It’s feature rich, easy to set up and completely free. VMware targets VMware Server for light duty server virtualization and targets non-free VMware Workstation for software developers. VMware Workstation should have some extra features but unless you really need these extra features there is not any need to pay for them.
VMware Server can be downloaded from product homepage. To install the product, you’ll need to gain serial numbers. The serial numbers can be requested from VMware for free by filling-up registration form. Installation of VMware is very straight forward. If you don’t have Microsoft web server IIS installed on your computer, the installer will complain of the lack of IIS. The IIS is only needed if you want to manage your virtual machines over the network and for local only installation you can safely ignore this complain and press Ok to continue.
Creating A New Virtual Machine
After you have installed VMware Server you need to create a new virtual machine. Virtual machine runs on top of host operating system. It uses a large file as file system image, shares the host computer keyboard, mouse, monitor and network connection. To create a new Windows XP virtual machine you’ll need a Windows XP installation CD and a Windows XP license.
Start VMware Server. From an appearing pop-up window select local host to indicate VMware Server that you want to manage the virtual machines on your local computer and not machines on the network. From File menu select New > Virtual Machine. A wizard will start that guides you trough the virtual machine set-up process. After few initial options the first real decision you need to make is to choose the network connection type. Bridged networking is probably the best choice. If you are in a network where each computer needs to be registered for the network, then NAT networking will be easier as you don’t need to register your virtual machine to the network.
The second important choice is selecting the disk capacity. Set the capacity as high as you think you ever may need in this virtual machine, the capacity cannot be increased later on. Uncheck Allocate all disk space now option to keep disk usage at minimum. The disk will be allocated as needed. Finally click Finish button. The virtual machine will be created.
After you have created your new virtual machine you still have to specify the resources it may consume. Click your virtual machine on the inventory unless it is already selected. On the right-hand pane of the VMware Server Window under Commands bar you should have an option link Edit virtual machine settings. Press this link to open the virtual machine settings window.
On the Hardware tab set memory to 512MB if you have 1GB or more of system memory to guarantee Windows XP to run smoothly on the virtual machine. Then click on the CD-ROM settings and turn on the Connect at power on option. This makes your CD/DVD-drive automatically visible to the virtual machine. You need your CD/DVD to be visible so that you can install operating system and software to the virtual machine.
Now we are ready with setting up VMware Server itself. Let’s continue to installing the operating system.
Installing Windows XP on Virtual Machine
Installing windows XP to virtual machine doesn’t much differ from installing Windows to any other computer. Insert the Windows XP installation CD to the CD-ROM drive of your computer. Make sure you have a valid license with a Windows XP serial available. If you have autorun enabled on your host computer, ignore the window that will pop-up.
Make sure you have selected the correct virtual machine from the inventory on VMware Server control panel. Now start your virtual machine by pressing the Start this virtual machine link on the VMware Server control panel. The Virtual Machine should now start up, then connect to your host computer CD-ROM drive and start the Windows XP installer on the CD. From now on the Windows XP installation will proceed as normally.
Installing VMware Tools
After Windows XP installation has finished, there is still one more task to do before you can start using your virtual machine as normally. The virtual machine runs on top of the host computer and the performance is not optimal. All the graphics, mouse movements and key presses are transferred between the host computer and the virtual machine. VMware Tools is a package that should be installed on the newly created virtual machine to improve the performance of the host computer - virtual machine link.
On Windows virtual machines the installation of VMware Tools is very straight forward. On linux virtual machines you will need to recompile your kernel. When virtual machine is turned on and you have logged into it with administrator privileges, select Install VMware Tools from VM menu of the VMware Server control window. This will mount a virtual CD image and if autorun is turned on, an VMware Tools installer will automatically start. If autorun is not turned on, you’ll need to start the installer manually from the CD-ROM drive of your virtual machine.
Conclusions
Congratulations, you’ve now installed VMware Server on Windows XP and installed another installation of Windows XP on the virtual machine. To install applications to virtual machine, simply insert installer CD:s to your host computer CD-ROM drive and you can directly access them from your virtual machine. You can mount CD-ROM images on your host computer to your virtual machine.
It wasn’t that difficult, was it? If you are interested in getting some deeper knowledge on any aspects of virtual machines, please let me know. I can consider writing further articles on using virtual machines on software development.
23 Comments
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May 14th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Hi Tomi,
Thanks for the great article. Virtual machines (and VMware, in particular) are something that I certainly could not live without, in my work — they’re absolutely incredible. I use VMware workstation and absolutely love the system snapshots and cloning capabilities. These features make debugging complex software installation processes very simple.
Cheers,
-Jim
May 14th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Support for multiple snapshots is probably the most important reason to move from free VMware Server to VMware Workstation. Virtualization.info has a feature comparison of these two products.
May 14th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
thanks a lot Tomi
I already uses VMware player and with this article the server can create new virtual machines also.
May 15th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
I like VMWare Server… alot actually…. However I also have Microsoft VirtualPC (also free) installed on My Desktop at work. It makes always having a clean boot easier by having an option to never commit changes to the drive… thus each boot up is a fresh copy of your configuration.
May 16th, 2007 at 1:08 am
Just an FYI… VMware does not capitalize the “w” in their name
May 16th, 2007 at 6:35 am
Jim, thanks for noting that out.
May 16th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Jim:
Thanks for pointing that out… it proves you read my comment.
Just FYI… VMware(tm) is also a trademark and is not listed as such.
May 16th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Matt: There is no law that says you have to acknowledge trademarks with a “(TM)” sign. It is just a tool that lets a TM owner communicate to others that something is a trademark, since TM owners must take measures to protect them (or they won’t be enforceable in court).
May 16th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
Jim:
from VMware.com:
“Trademarks
VMware, the VMware “boxes” logo and design, Virtual SMP and VMotion are registered trademarks or trademarks (the “Marks”) of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. You are not permitted to use the Marks without the prior written consent of VMware.”
May 16th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
I think we are done with the trademark discussion…
May 16th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
Tomi:
Sorry, it is just too hard to be wrong… it’s the C coder in me… lol
May 16th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
Well, there is this thing called freedom of speech. Company and product names can be used in press without written consent no matter what the company lawers have written to their web pages.
June 8th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Regarding freedom of speech and the use of trademarks, you should check out the GNU policy on the use of trademark notices in their software and documentation. OK, I’m done
June 23rd, 2007 at 5:27 pm
Tomi,
Found your article interesting and clear. I followed the steps you detailed without a hitch. Instead of XP though I installed Ubuntu. I found performance when running Ubuntu on top of VMWare is pretty bad. Di you run into the same problem with XP? The computer I used has 1GB RAM, P4, 1.8GHz so as you can see is not cheap old computer but performance still lag. If this is how VMWare works then I think is not a feasible solution. You might be better off with dual or triple-boot. My two cents.
Regards,
Otman
PS., Keep up the good work!
June 24th, 2007 at 7:15 am
Otman, did you install VMWare Tools on Ubuntu. VMWare performance is bad without VMWare Tools installed. On linux the installation process is more complicated than on Windows as VMWare Tools integrate to Linux kernel. I’ve had Fedora Core 6 installed on top of VMWare and it works well. The performance is of course degraded from that of native installation but still it saves me time as I can keep up working with my Windows. If VMWare Server/Workstation performance is not enough for you, you may try Xen or XenSource or VMWare ESX Server. These can provide near native VM performance. However especially ESX is not suitable for workstation usage.
June 25th, 2007 at 1:26 am
Tomi,
Thanks for your reply!
You were right it was a bit challenging, but I was able to install the VMware Tools. I really surprised myself since I never dabbled with Linux/Unix (old VMS/VAX mainframe) before since my college days more than ten years ago. I guess you can date me know lol. I see some performance improvement which is enough for my toying with the thing. If I were to do some heavy LV development I’d probably go with your suggestions.
Happy wiring!
Otman
August 21st, 2007 at 4:38 am
[…] target="_blank">Expressionflow</a> <a href="http://expressionflow.com/2007/05/14/setting-up-windows-xp-on-vmware-server/" target="_blank">Setting up Windows XP on VMWare Server</a> In my last <a […]
September 23rd, 2007 at 5:57 pm
Hi Tomi,
Nice article. I have been experimenting myself with running WinXP (and LabVIEW) in a VM using VMware server 6 running on a linux host (PCLinuxOS 2007)
I have installed the necessary vmware tools, turned off all unnecessary visual effects in XP and my winxp guest is quite responsive running on my dual core laptop.
My problem is LabVIEW. I installed the 8.5 evaluation, and it quite slow in the weirdest places. Like if I double click on a control to go to the block diagram it takes a few seconds while it draws a pointless effect of decreasing size rectangles around the terminal on the block diagram. Also, clicking on the controls to go to sub menus seems to take a few seconds which is very frustrating.
I have tried changing various options like enabling/disabling menu animation etc but it doesn’t seem to help.
Have you experienced any similar problems? I thinks its specific to LV as the rest of the WinXP guest runs perfectly.
cheers
nrp
September 24th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Hi nrp, my host computer is running Windows XP and not Linux like yours. I just tested the features you mentioned with VMWare server and LabVIEW 8.2.1 and I do not encounter similar issues. So I guess the problem is not with LabVIEW itself but rather with Linux version of VMWare Server that you are using. I guess the graphics routines are not optimized enough and hence the response problems. I guess you should try another virtual machine, after all VMWare Server is not targeted for graphically intensive usage. Perhaps you can try VMWare Workstation or one of XenSource products.
September 26th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Thanks Tomi, I did not realise you had a windows host OS.
Maybe I will have to try another VM server as you suggested. I cannot use Xen as I want the linux host to be PCLinuxOS and Xen needs to do a fresh install of its own OS.
What I find odd is that the 2D graphics within the windows guest are functioning as I would expect. They seem to be accelerated by the VMware driver just fine. Also moving things around in LV is fine, its just some stupid effects/animations which I wish I could turn off.
November 20th, 2007 at 10:25 am
Thanks for the article. you made vmware install and Xp install very easy.
Cheers
-NIRMALA
January 26th, 2008 at 5:47 am
what is vmware
March 9th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Thanks for nice description demystefying VMware!
I have a topic related to performance:
Can you or someone tell something on how a deployed LabView application will perform in general? (Win 2003 server with VMware and XP and LabView app on top)
- How are time “critical” prosesses handled?
- Will a sample frequence of 10 - 20 sampl/sec work?
- Will chartgraphics run smothly at the same speed?
- What about DSC?
- …..
Regards
SW