VMWare & Seimens S7

I recently rebuilt my laptop (just the standard rebuild because it's getting slow and cluttered) and this time I am trying vmware and creating separate virtual drives for some of the more resource hungry apps. My lapt op has 3 G Ram and is currectly running Win XP pro with lates security updates etc (work IT require that automatic updates is turned on). I have noticed that sometimes when I am attempting to open explorer (has happend at other times but mostly with explorer) that everything stops/hangs for maybe a minute. Also it seems to me that there is a slight delay inthe virtual machine .
Is this normal ?
Is there a recommended setting that would best suit S7 ?
Currently I have set up my virtual machine as follows..
memory - 2656 MB (vmware recommended)
hard disk 8 GB (can't seem to change this one)
floopy , sound card and Display - Autodetect
network adapter - NAT
processors - 2 (laptop cpu is core 2 duo)

I have 4GB of ram and I allocated 2GB to the WinXP Pro VM.
I don't know how your system will work well when the VMWare has 2656Mb and the Host has 350 MB.

Are you talkig about openning IE on the host?

I would add more memory. I am thinking about adding more memory to my computer because the hard disk thrashes when starting and stopping a VM and starting two VMs kills response due do excess page in and page outs.

I have no idea about eventual IE, NAT, LAN, WAN issues.

But I agree that you should try to reduce the memory allocated to the VM. 2656 MB on a PC with 3 GB is an odd setting.
If you are running just STEP7 on the VM PC, then you also do not need so much memory. 1GB will be fine. If you run STEP7 and WinCC Flexible at the same time, then try with 1.5GB.

Peter Nachtwey said:

adding more memory to my computer because the hard disk thrashes when starting and stopping a VM and starting two VMs kills response due do excess page in and page outs.

Click to expand...

As long as you are running a 64 bit OS, that works. If you are running a 32 bit OS, then you are stuck with a maximum of 4 (well, 3.something) GB addressable RAM available, even under VMWare.

I am guessing you typed an extra "6" in the memory setting and that you are actually using 256MB of RAM for your virtual machine.

I frequently run 512MB for my vms. More is better here. With your computer having 3GB of RAM you could safely go up to the 2GB number Peter mentions but for XP that is probably overkill unless you are doing some serious computing. 512 or 1024 should be fine but 256 will be dreadfully slow.

Now if the RAM setting you mentioned is actually correct, then you are allocating WAY too much memory for the vm and you are starving the host WinXP o/s. It is having to swap memory using the hard drive and that will drastically slow down your system. However I don't recall VMWare ever recommending that much RAM for a vm. So I am guessing that 256MB is the real number.

As for the 8GB hard drive size, that is chosen when you create the vm. It is difficult, but not impossible to change this after the fact. However, you can add additional virtual hard drives and size them to whatever you need. But again, once you create it, it is difficult to change later.

OG

The HD size is specified when you first create the VM

I think Opera is right, you need to allocate more ram to the VM

Thanks will try it wih 1 Gig of ram fisrt and see how that goes.

the 1 gig Ram did the trick.

Operaghost said:

As for the 8GB hard drive size, that is chosen when you create the vm. It is difficult, but not impossible to change this after the fact. However, you can add additional virtual hard drives and size them to whatever you need. But again, once you create it, it is difficult to change later.

OG

Click to expand...

I downloaded a "Converter" app from vmware's web site it makes changing hard drive size simple.

To help disk thrashing try a 500mb external usb drive. We use the little Western Digital Passports that fit in a shirt pocket and are usb-powered, no external power required. Put your VM's on the external drive.

The above post about being limited to just over 3gb with a 32-bit operating system is correct. Any more than that is unusable because it cannot be addressed unless you have a 64-bit operating system.

To the best of my knowledge the converter is the only way to resize the hard drive.

I mentioned "difficult" but you are right, it is easy enough, though it can be time consuming.

OG

I don't use VMware. I can not get MPI communication to work. VMware does not support PCMCIA cards. I have a CP5512. Most of my project are with PCS7(Ethernet), but for some projects i need MPI or profibus communication. Anybody a good workaround or solution for this problem?

COMMUNICATION PROCESSOR CP 5711 MPI USB-ADAPTER (USB V2.0)WITH USB-CABEL AND
MPI-CABLE FOR CONNECTING A PG OR NOTEBOOK TO MPI

6GK1571-1AM00


Works with VMware...