VMWare how dost I love thee

[Nothinman]

VMWare server does it fine, although it's only USB1.1 IIRC. I think Workstation does 2.0 but it's not free. I've never touched VPC so I can't comment on it. And I've never worried about USB device access in Xen or qemu so I don't really know how well it works, if at all, in them either.

 

[Barfo]

what's the difference between VM player and vm server? and is server free as well?

 

[Nothinman]

Player won't let you create VMs, just run already created ones. I believe there are free tools to create them but with VMWare Server free I don't see the point. GSX Server is free, ESX Server is not.

 

[jonmcc33]

Awesome? Not really. Useful? Very. The day it becomes awesome is the day it can directly use the hardware instead of emulating virtual crap. If I can use Windows XP but install Vista in a VM and then game in DX10 mode is when it will become AWESOME.

 

[Nothinman]

That day won't come without a complete redesign of hardware and OSes. Technically you could get away with having a domU with direct access to devices but you'd need two of everything in the machine which is pretty prohibitive.

 

[SinNisTeR]

I wish there was a way to run ESX on a wider variety of hardware.. (If anyone knows how, then I'm all ears). Then people can virtualize their desktops and have a quick backup/migration setup. If my machine goes down, just boot it up on a laptop or desktop, on whatever hardware.. Oh, and of course it would need support for 3D hardware.

 

[Nothinman]

ESX is just the VMWare hypervisor and management tools, if you want to run your desktop in VMWare you can do that with Server but it'll have a little bit more overhead. If you have hardware with the VT extensions you could use Xen and with Xen you can give a domU direct access to a PCI device so you could potentially get 3D support if you had 2 video cards in the machine.

 

[Barfo]

Ok so I just set VMware server with a guest winXP for testing, how do I install a video adapter in the virtual machine as it's currently not detected and therefore the gui feels sluggish?

 

[Nothinman]

Install the VMWare tools and it'll install the VMWare VGA and NIC drivers for you.

 

[Barfo]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Install the VMWare tools and it'll install the VMWare VGA and NIC drivers for you.

Thanks, that's sorted up, how can I move files between the host and guest OSes? giving the guest OS access to the hard drive seems like a bad idea.

 

[Nothinman]

Treat them as you would real, separate Windows machines. I believe the workstation directed products like VPC and VMWare Workstation let you drag/drop files directly into the VM, but that's a minor convenience.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: barfo

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Install the VMWare tools and it'll install the VMWare VGA and NIC drivers for you.

Thanks, that's sorted up, how can I move files between the host and guest OSes? giving the guest OS access to the hard drive seems like a bad idea.

Shared folders. Gives the guest acces to just a sub dir off the host.

 

[Nothinman]

Shared folders. Gives the guest acces to just a sub dir off the host.

I believe VPC and VMWare Workstation (and maybe Player) have them but not VMWare Server.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Shared folders. Gives the guest acces to just a sub dir off the host.

I believe VPC and VMWare Workstation (and maybe Player) have them but not VMWare Server.

DOH! Was presuming workstation (oops!)

 

[Nothinman]

I always assume the opposite since Server is free. =)

 

[Barfo]

pity, this was one of the things I was most looking forward to, I'll get the workstation trial and see if I like enough t buy.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: barfo
pity, this was one of the things I was most looking forward to, I'll get the workstation trial and see if I like enough t buy.

Why not just use Window's built in file sharing and, like Nothinman said, share files like you would two physically seperate machines?