HOWTO: Install Windows XP/2000 in VMWare Player

[siorai]

Well I got my problems sorted out. I think it stemmed from the Windows discs that I was using were both slipstreamed with the Service Packs into them. I borrowed a proper disc from work, followed the instructions on how to boot from the cd and booyaa! It worked! Now I can finally ditch that Windows install and quit dual booting.

Thank you to everyone in the thread for all the info.

[siorai]

Oh yeah, one question though. Is it possible to increase the size fo the virtual drive Windows is installed on, or do I have to simply reinstall, creating the virtual drive larger first?

[mdbarton]

I'm considering giving this a go. Has anyone used VMWare to run MS Outlook and ActiveSync with a PocketPC? Evolution is rubbish (sorry, but it is just not there yet) and SynCE just does not work properly....

Would an alternative be to boot Win XP, install VMWAre workstation evaluation copy, create a WinXP image, then run it in VMare player under Ubuntu?

Now have it working (activesync and pocketpc) - and I created the WinXP image using a VMWare workstation evaluation copy on windows. I have one or too niggles to sort out - if I get stuck will post them here.

Thanks for an excellent howto!

[vtechstu]

Hi,

When I run vmplayer <filename> in the terminal, this is printed right before vmware opens:

/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmplayer: /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpng12.so.0/libpng12.so.0: no version information available (required by /usr/lib/libcairo.so.2)
*** attempt to put segment in horiz list twice

It then opens. Do I need to worry about this?

Also, vmplayer began the install of windows, it loaded everything, and I pressed Enter, then it froze. Now everytime I go start up vmware for windows, i just get a black screen with an unmoving cursor in the top left, with white lines from where the VM Logo used to be.

Could anyone please help? Thanks.

EDIT: Fixed the second issue. I went back and recreated the vmdk file and it worked. I think something had gotten written to it.

[ilmw]

Oh yeah, one question though. Is it possible to increase the size fo the virtual drive Windows is installed on, or do I have to simply reinstall, creating the virtual drive larger first?

See the example:

vmware-vdiskmanager -x 36Gb myDisk.vmdk

This will increase the virtual disk size to 36G. It takes awhile though.

This works with vmware workstation. I don't know whether it works with vmware player or not.

It was said that this only increase the disk size, but won't change the the partition. So you need to use another tool to do it. I only have one partition so I did increase the virtual disk size by just running this command. See this page:
click

[mdbarton]

Hi,

When I run vmplayer <filename> in the terminal, this is printed right before vmware opens:

/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmplayer: /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpng12.so.0/libpng12.so.0: no version information available (required by /usr/lib/libcairo.so.2)
*** attempt to put segment in horiz list twice

It then opens. Do I need to worry about this?

I get the same message, but vmplayer doesn't run, I just get the command prompt again. It will run if I

sudo vmplayer <filename>

Are you running vmplayer as root or normal user? Jest to see if it is exactly the same problem....

[siorai]

See the example:

vmware-vdiskmanager -x 36Gb myDisk.vmdk

This will increase the virtual disk size to 36G. It takes awhile though.

This works with vmware workstation. I don't know whether it works with vmware player or not.

It was said that this only increase the disk size, but won't change the the partition. So you need to use another tool to do it. I only have one partition so I did increase the virtual disk size by just running this command. See this page:
click

Awesome. That worked perfectly with vmware player as well. Thanks.

[vtechstu]

Yes I ran sudo vmplayer Win.vmx Message still there. Also, I can't seem to run VMplayer any other way but through terminal. Under Applications, it shows it loading, but then dissapears. How do i naturally set it so it will run as non root? I think that might be it. Thanks.

[mdbarton]

How do i naturally set it so it will run as non root?

That's the question I have as well...

[Joeak]

Thanks for the tips! Since qemu on Breezy is 0.7.0, the qemu-img command failed, but I downloaded 0.7.2 under Windows, created the vmdk files there, copied them over to Ubuntu, hacked the vmx file to not boot from floppy, pointed it to my ISO image, and I'm installing away!