VMWare VS any other platform

DamianInRochester

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Jan 2011
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Rochester NY
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When I first began using virtual machines, it was the XP mode built into Windows 7. It was a pain to backup and was not as portable. You also did not have the benefit of all the higher level features like snap shots and such.

I eventually migrated to VMWare Workstation. I was delighted to find that I could migrate my Windows XP VM to that. My first experience with VMWare was nothing but positive outside of network config issues.

Alas, I found that hard way that when I got my new windows 8 machine that I could not transport my XP mode VM and run in it. So I took my lumps, bought new Windows licenses (this time Win 7) and started a few more new VMs. Things got ugly. Crashes, hangups, slow operation, etc became the norm. This on equipment always with fast CPU, fast SSDs, tons or RAM, etc.

Eventually I migrated to a new Windows 10 machine, and went to migrate my VMs to that. Lo and behold Workstation would not run my VMs on the new computer. Some arcane license issue again. So I once again had to recreate all of my VMs and purchase new licenses. This time I went with Win 10 licenses. Things seemed fine for a while eventually the VMs start blue screening. Then they started freezing. Sometimes they would even blue screen my entire computer.

So I ended up getting a new computer. Even better specs than before. I went to migrate the VMs over to this new machine and sure enough, there were issues. At least this time it would run the VM on the new machine, only now for some reason a third party piece of software used for Rockwell's activation would not work properly and thus none of my Rockwell software will run. There was a technote note on the supposed solution for it, but it did not work.

One of the biggest reasons I went down the virtualization path was for the supposed portability. To this point, it has completely failed me at every step. I have had it with VMWare and I am looking for something simpler and more robust.

Looking for suggestions on what the rest of you feel is the best option. I need something that will handle both Rockwell and Siemens installs and not cause me trouble. Something where when I decide to move the VM, I don't have to worry whether the software will either decide for itself whether I am allowed to run it or not, or somehow change something to screw up the applications running withing the VM simply from being moved from one machine to another.
 
I don't get into the VM's a whole lot, I loaded everything on my host system (Windows 7 Pro) and just do regular backups. I do use XP Mode once in awhile for certain software and have had decent luck with Virtual Box in the past. I got tired of the license woes too. You can give it a try as it's open source. www.virtualbox.org
 
Used VMWare for years and never had the issues you describe. My main XP VM was cloned from a physical machine and I've used it on seven computers, currently in use on 3.
 
Are you doing "copy" or are you doing "move"?

Have you had Win7 guests?
Have you had Win10 guests?


Win7 & Win10 hosts,older VMware (v7.x) never had any issues.
I've also use newer VMware pro (v14), no issues.


I can run older VMs without converting to newer v14 format, not sure what it does, I assume more options,tools, etc.


Good read about "move" & "copy" VMware images below:
https://jojitsoriano.wordpress.com/...-when-movingcopying-a-windows-7-vmware-image/
 
Where Damian went wrong is using the XP simulator in WIN7. When XP wasn't supported I made a VM of just the WinXP. I have had no problems moving the WinXP VM from machine to machine over the years as I have upgraded. I even have Fusion ( VMware for Macs ) and the WinXP will move easily.

I have an old software program called Mathcad 13 that only runs on WinXP. I have 25 years of Mathcad files that are precious.
 
Gotta be something on your end. I'm another VMWare user who has copied/moved VMs for years without issue. However, licensing can be finicky with Windows so depending on the licensing you're buying perhaps Windows is flagging it for some reason.

Never had performance issues you describe either. I run Windows 10 host and Windows 7 vms, I do have a Win10 VM I run on occasion but it's not doing anything mission-critical.
 
Are you doing "copy" or are you doing "move"?

Have you had Win7 guests?
Have you had Win10 guests?


Move. You never select copy. Cause that will generate a new unique identifier and it WILL screw you over. Learned that one the hard way. Bye bye €2000 license. Software check that identifier to see if install is still on the original PC.

We've used VM for the last 10 years and have only had issues with certain versions of the Players/Workstations. Rarely with the VM's themselves.
 
This is quite interesting as I've "moved" VM's by copying the virtual hard drive, creating a VM and pointing it to the virtual hard disk without issues. This was both on VMware and VirtualBox, although VMware was ages ago.
 
So the issue this go-around is twofold.

When I initially moved this VM to a new machine, I had issues with "CodeMeter".
After going through the un-installs and re-installs of that, it still would not allow me to run any Rockwell software.

As a last resort, I reverted to an earlier snapshot and finally was able to run Logix on the new machine ....... well, for a few minutes. I left the room and came back about 20 minutes later and I had a black screen within the VM telling me it could not find the boot device. Presumably it crashed and rebooted while I was up from my chair.

Anyhow, I am punting again. Fresh install of the OS, and then a fresh install of the Rockwell software for what seems like the millionth time.


So, both of my physical machines are Win10Pro64bit,
Dell Precision Laptops, Multiple SSDs, 64GBRAM, 3.0GHz Xeon E3-1575 V5 Quad Core

The VM will be running W10Pro64bit

In the interest of trying to get a reliably running VM for use with Rockwell software, what are the recommendations on setting

Number of Cores
Amount of RAM
Bridged, NAT, or other
Any other key settings that might be affecting my stability.

I also keep the actual VMs on their own internal SSD.
 
S
When I initially moved this VM to a new machine, I had issues with "CodeMeter".

As far as I can tell, CodeMeter pretty much exists to enable extra licensing restrictions/copy protection (read: cause trouble). It isn't a huge surprise that it threw up a red flag, whether you were actually breaking the rules or not.
 

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