Embedded VMWare Testing

Looks like embedding ESX in an installation of VMWare workstation is not going to work (at least on my 1GB of RAM) I am going to install it on some spare tin (HP Workstation) need some more RAM for it though. It has installed alright on the 512MB, but performance is a real issue. Might buy a couple of 2GB kits to beef it up a bit – more on this later.

ESX on VMWare Workstation

Busy installing ESX on VMWare Workstation using the CLI.

First problem was that ESX could not see the Workstation NIC, I modified the VMX file to contain the follwoing lines (UNDERLINED).

floppy0.autodetect = “TRUE”
ethernet0.present = “TRUE”
ethernet0.wakeOnPcktRcv = “FALSE”

and

tools.upgrade.policy = “useGlobal”
ethernet0.virtualDev = “e1000″
monitor_control.restrict_backdoor = “TRUE”
monitor_control.vt32 = “TRUE”
floppy0.fileName = “A:”

This seems to have sorted the problem out.

Installing ESX on VMWare

ADrive – Online Storage

I’ve opened an account on ADrive .com to act as an archive for various applications. I get 50GB Free and can upload anything. For security I have encrypted everything with 7-Zip using AES256-bit encryption.

Converting UIF files to ISO

I’ve found a nice little program to change UIF files to ISO images, it’s called UIF2ISO and I downloaded it from here: http://aluigi.org/mytoolz.htm#uif2iso There is a very easy to use GUI and also the option of using the CLI.

ESX on Virtual Box

Right looks like this won’t work, installation of ESX (text and GUI mode) fails with “Kernel error: Fatal Exception”. Apparently ESX will only install on certain hardware. I am busy getting VMWare Workstation, so will give it a try on that.

Virtual Box

Installed Virtual box today, found it on google after taking some advice from a mate. Set it up to use 256MB system RAM and a 5 GB Virtual Disk. Booted Windows PE from an ISO image, very quick load time and didn’t knacker the performance of the host machine. My idea is to install VMWare ESX on it and do a bit of testing. More on this later.