Radderfire's Virtual Machine Experiment

[radderfire]

Hi All

I am posting this message from a Virtual Machine copy of my XP Home Acer Aspire One netbook, which I created using VMWare Standalone Converter, which is running in VMWare Workstation on my Vista Business laptop. This is FREAKIN AWESOME, I'm so happy I have finally managed to get this to work ...

That is all.

Rgds

Radderfire

 

[radderfire]

It's a copy of my netbook that can now run on my laptop. I might do more of a guide later once I've got it all mastered, but in a nutshell, the steps are:

Install VMWare Converter Standalone on netbook.

Run the Converter, click on the Convert Machine button and go through the wizard. This creates two files which is the virtual machine.

Transfer the two files to the laptop via a network connection (I couldn't transfer them via my external USB drive because they are too large for FAT system).

Download a trial version of VMware Workstation to the laptop. Start this, and in the startup screen there's an option to Open an existing VM. Click this and browse to your two files, one is a .vmx file, open that.

Your netbook should now load as a virtual machine. I could activate XP Home using the code on the bottom of the netbook.

Voila! Marvel at modern technology.

I am however having a few more problems turning a Vista Business laptop into a VM. I might have to buy a separate copy of Vista Business, we'll see ...

Rgds

 

[radderfire]

Sounds like a great idea and pretty cool, I don't understand the actual 'point' of it.

I can see why it could be useful for testing OS's and stuff, but other than that, is there any reason for it?

For me it is a business continuity issue. At the moment, if my laptop develops a problem, it can take ages to sort things out. If I was always working with a virtual machine, and had an up to date copy of the virtual machine, I could just go back to that. It allows you to have a working copy of your present computer which you can save on another computer.

Rgds