VMware

There has been a lot of good information here lately about running automation software in VMware environments. I have decided I want to install Windows 7 Ultimate on my laptop and want to use VMware environments for my Rockwell & Allen Bradley Software products.

I've looked at the VMware site and I'm not sure which one of their products to use. Will some of you using the products weigh in with your recommendations?

Thank you!

Going for a single install on a laptop/desktop?

VMware Workstation works perfectly for this.

You want VM Ware Workstation 7. List Price is about 189.00 last i checked.

7.1 is out in fact.

Thank you gentlemen!

VM "Player" is free and can create machines now...

True, but Workstation gives you the clone and multiple snapshots that makes dealing w/ 4 different VMs a lot nicer

Player will work fine, small cost for workstation kind of worth it though imo.

The free VMware Player is a great option for getting starting and learning about VMs.

Once you have done that, you will appreciate VMware Workstation and it's snapshot and cloning features. As Dravik says, it is worth it.

But by all means try the Player first. Any machine you create or use there can later be used with Workstation.

OG

+1 for VMWare Workstation - it's an awesome app.

If you have Windows 7 Pro or Ultimate, why not just use the free Microsoft Virtual PC and XP mode instead of paying for VMWare Workstation and having to purchase a copy of Windows XP?

If you use XP-More (available for free from Codeplex) you can duplicate your XP Mode VM's. And if I am reading the MS XP Mode EULA right, as long as you only run one VM at a time, you're on the up and up as far as licenses go (for free). So I keep one XP Mode VM for Siemens, one for Allen Bradley, and one for each version of GE Fanuc PLCcode. You just need a big disk since MS doesn't support clones and each one is around 8 or 9 gigabytes of disk space.

nwboson said:

If you have Windows 7 Pro or Ultimate, why not just use the free Microsoft Virtual PC and XP mode instead of paying for VMWare Workstation and having to purchase a copy of Windows XP?

If you use XP-More (available for free from Codeplex) you can duplicate your XP Mode VM's. And if I am reading the MS XP Mode EULA right, as long as you only run one VM at a time, you're on the up and up as far as licenses go (for free). So I keep one XP Mode VM for Siemens, one for Allen Bradley, and one for each version of GE Fanuc PLCcode. You just need a big disk since MS doesn't support clones and each one is around 8 or 9 gigabytes of disk space.

Click to expand...

IMO "XP Mode" using Virtual PC is just not as refined as VMWare. Virtual PC and FactoryTalk do not play well together, unless you disable integration features. If you disable those features, your drag and drop is gone, making it a hassle to move files from your host to your VM. Also integration features can causes issues with RSLinx. VMWare is a platform that Rockwell "supports", Virtual PC is not. VMWare cloning/duplicating VMs seems to be much easier than using Virtual PC.

Overall I'll use VMWare over Virtual PC every day of the week.

I've been using VMWare since their first beta release in 1999. It has been a fabuluous product from day one and has continued to stay that way. I still own it, use it, love it.

When I bought my first Windows 7 PC I decided to give XP mode a try. And I've been really happy with it supporting AB RSlogix 500, Siemens S7, and the GE Fanuc products that go way back. Ironically, it was precisely a VMWare integration feature bug when using GE Cimplicity that I really started to like Microsoft's XP Mode: XP mode would work, VMWare wouldn't in that case. It appears this is one of those 'your mileage may vary' cases.

So I think this amounts to a 'Ford vs. Chevy' discussion. I own both brands of cars and both brands of VMs. And if somebody offered me a free Dodge, I'd take it any day, just like my free XP mode. Hey, they're all American: Ford, Dodge, Chevy, Microsoft, VMWare (EMC) - so what's not to like? (My apologies to our overseas friends for my United States bigoted analogy)

Like Paully said, the only reason I don't use Virtual PC is because I couldn't get Factory Talk View Studio to work with it. I really liked it though. Someone recently posted a work-around for it, but I never bothered trying it out because I don't feel like installing everything again.

I tried VirtualBox at one point too. It was alright.

I have used VMFusion on my MacBook and it seems to be working fine

Alan

I dont know how automation folks can operate without vmware anymore. so far I love it.