VMware anyone ? A few questions.

Hi.

I have managed to get VMware on my PC. This mainly because I want to run several versions of WinCC Flexible.

Now I am all set to get started, and the questions begin

If I install a program on a VMware virtual machine, where do the files required by the program physically get stored ?

How do I share files and folders with the "real" PC and the VMware PC ?

I have VMware running with a copy of my real PC, which is Windows XP. How do I go about setting up VMware PCs with other OS'es ?
I am interested in running DOS, Win95 and Win2000 next to WinXP.

I know. I am too lazy to read the manual. So thanks

I know. I am too lazy to read the manual. So thanks

I started to look it up for you but I to got lazy.

Did someone PM you on this or is today April 1st?

I use MS Virtual PC, but it probably works similarly to VMWare.

The entire virtual PC is stored as a single file (in my case, it is about 10GB). If I were to install WinCC Flex, all of the files would be wrapped up in this single virtual PC file. You wouldn't see the individual files from the computer where VMWare is installed. Basically, there would be two instances of Flex installed on the same physical PC, but this would be transparanet to the two PCs.

You exchange files in the same way you would if the PCs were actually two seperate computers. There is no difference at all.

That said, I can't imagine running two instances of Flex on one PC. It is such a resource hog, that I would probably want at least 4GB of ram, and allocate half to the virtual PC. Other programs work fine on my PC though.

Jesper,
I assume you're talking about VMWare Workstation. VMWare Server (which is free) works pretty much the same way, but your client machine acts more like a thin client.

1. S7 hit the file location.
2. You can "mount" a virtual filesystem from that huge image file. This will appear as another drive letter than you can use normally.
3. Creating an image typically works one of 2 ways. 1st is a migration utility that creates a snapshot from your current setup. Second, more relevant here, you go through various setup screens that look/feel just like setting up your computer for the first time. You can then install whatever OS you want.

An interesting aside about virtualization is that everything's written for virutalized hardware. So you should be able to use someone elses image, created on different hardware, and run it. I'm just getting into using virtualization, but I've had a lot of long geek talks with my sys admin who's been on it for a long time. Here are a bunch of images that you can download from the VMWare web site:

http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/

I'm not sure how the licensing works. I've seen things like MS Windows 200x server with a 30 day trial. Can you keep re-using that blank trial image? I have no idea. You wouldn't be able to use it as a long term box, but it's interesting for testing/training/playing.

JesperMP said:

Hi.

I have managed to get VMware on my PC. This mainly because I want to run several versions of WinCC Flexible.

Now I am all set to get started, and the questions begin

If I install a program on a VMware virtual machine, where do the files required by the program physically get stored ?

How do I share files and folders with the "real" PC and the VMware PC ?

I have VMware running with a copy of my real PC, which is Windows XP. How do I go about setting up VMware PCs with other OS'es ?
I am interested in running DOS, Win95 and Win2000 next to WinXP.

I know. I am too lazy to read the manual. So thanks

Click to expand...

If you're browsing the net for help, why not try VMware's website?

At home, I am running Windows Vista on a Mac thru VMware, but I haven't messed with it much. It's also not in front of me at the moment, so I can't recall the exact details.
On my setup, there is a list of devices on the left, for CPU, Memory options, etc. There should be a shared folder option where you select the folder<s> you want to share. Once your VM is running, the folder is shown as a networked folder under .host/<sharename>.

I know it's not the same, but hope it helps

JesperMP said:

I have VMware running with a copy of my real PC, which is Windows XP. How do I go about setting up VMware PCs with other OS'es ?
I am interested in running DOS, Win95 and Win2000 next to WinXP.

Click to expand...

Hello JesperMP,
You would install the OS on the Virtual machine just as you would a real PC. Not too sure about DOS though!
We use VMWare quite a lot here, but not sure exactly what the process involves when installing a new OS, because we have a 'little man' here to do that for us.
P.S. Never encountered any real problems with VM, but do watch the memory (as well as disk space if using a lot of images) usage.
Hope this helps.

I use Linux on VMware. I set up a folder on both ends that is shared, called "Linux Shared" on the PC side, and "Windows Shared" on the Linux side. This was set up with VMware options. Click "Edit This Virtual Machine", then select the "Options" tab. One of the options is Shared Folders. This doesn't allow you to share everything, but I don't think there is any limit to how many folders that you can share.

Alternatively, you may be able to share a common physical USB device as well, depending on how you set up USB.

When you install VMware it asks you where you want the virtual drizes stored, they are directories. Sharing is very straight forward unless you need a partition with a particular format or file type.

surferb said:

Jesper,
An interesting aside about virtualization is that everything's written for virutalized hardware. So you should be able to use someone elses image, created on different hardware, and run it.

Click to expand...

Nathan, I've been thinking about that since memory sticks have jumped up in size. Twelve GB sticks are pretty common now. Can you think of a reason that I couldn't keep my image on a memory stick (8-10GB would suffice), and work from that exclusively? That way, it would be a piece of cake to work on a project on one PC, pull the stick, plug it into another PC, and be ready to launch again in seconds. This would save me from needing to copy the image back and forth all the time.

I plan on trying it in a few weeks, but wondered of you might have already tried it.

I can't see how working off a memory stick would be that fast. I like the idea of working off the computers hardware and copying the Virtual PC to the memory stick. I haven't figured out if the keys need to be kept separately on the memory stick or if they are moved with the Virtual PC. Actually, I have a little USB hard disk that would work well for this. It is powered off the USB port and holds 250 GB of memory.

Mark Buskell said:

I started to look it up for you but I to got lazy.
Did someone PM you on this or is today April 1st?

Click to expand...

I did start to look in the online help, but as I didnt find the answer after 30 seconds of intensive research (*cough*), I figured it would be OK to ask here.

Tazikel said:

If you're browsing the net for help, why not try VMware's website?

Click to expand...

People here speak my language.

surferb, thanks for the link to the images site. Will probably save me a lot of setup work.

What I did was create one virtual machine, load it with Windows 2000 (no freaking activation issues, and stable) and then I clone that machine for each new PLC software I wish to test. I keep a backup of the files for the base virtual machine on DVD, so whenever it gets screwed up by a pile of updates or PLC softwares installed, I just overwrite the HD files with the DVD files and I'm back to good.

This helps out too, since AB loves to steal COM1 and not share. And as far as the virtual machines know, my com port is real, not a USB to serial adapter. They just get set to use the PC's COM1, and the PC worries about how to talk to it. No problems with USB serial adapter...

For the person who mentioned Microsoft Virtual PC... it's free, it's good, but when dealing with devices which require special USB drivers (like PLC cables or Mitsu servos, VFDs, PLCs, HMIs) you cannot use USB drivers on Virtual PC. So it falls a bit short...

Pete's right - working from a memory stick would probably be slow, particularly if it (the "top" OS) is doing any paging (virtual memory) to that disk.

VMWare Server (free) is probably the answer to your problem. You wouldn't even need to run that memory stick around, except possibly to launch the superlightweight client. You could keep all your images on the VMWare server and run any of them from any computer on your network. That is more hardware intensive on the server side than client side, but for industrial software (anything non-games/CAD/multimedia) you should be fine.

My home office box just died, so I'm evaluating a bunch of cool technologies to get myself set up the right way. I'll comment back how VMWare Workstation and Server goes. The real interesting thing is Windows Home Server. It looks to be AWESOME! I just ordered a pre-built HP EX470/475. I'm really excited about that. More to follow...

S7Guy said:

Nathan, I've been thinking about that since memory sticks have jumped up in size. Twelve GB sticks are pretty common now. Can you think of a reason that I couldn't keep my image on a memory stick (8-10GB would suffice), and work from that exclusively? That way, it would be a piece of cake to work on a project on one PC, pull the stick, plug it into another PC, and be ready to launch again in seconds. This would save me from needing to copy the image back and forth all the time.

I plan on trying it in a few weeks, but wondered of you might have already tried it.

Click to expand...

So now I have encountered the first "real" problem.

The VMware image with Windows XP was setup by my IT admin, and he appearantly copied an old image and adjusted it to fit my profile.
Looks like it is made with VMware v.4 whereas my VMware is v.6, which then blocks me from cloning it.
If I try to use the Upgrade or Change version wizard I get this:


In hoping that I shall not have to install Windows XP from the bottom, do someone know how I can copy and modify the existing Windows XP image. Can I simply copy the files in the folder that contains the VMware image ?

Jesper

You need time to 'play' around with VM ware .... We started and then had to stop due to a shortage of time... I would say , get a windows install CD/DVD and create an image from scratch.Then make a copy in windows and then open up the copy with WM ware . Install the software you want ( winCC flex etc) and again make a copy and carry on with the latest copy.And 4Gig and big HD is a must.We installed WinCC V6.2 and it worked ok ?Playing around with the settings we even could connect it to a PLC.

Eric