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Help me understand Virtual Machine [VMWare]

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xtabber:
A VMware virtual disk is just a set of files contained in a directory.  Some tools even allow you to mount a VMware VM to your host system as a virtual drive.  I suggest using the option to limit file sizes to 2GB because it makes it much easier to manage and copy or move large VMs than as a single huge file.

Player doesn't have the snapshot feature of Workstation, but you can close a VM and make a backup image of the VM directory, then restore it later to return to the initial state.  The easiest way to do that is just make a Zip archive of the VM directory.  I do that anyway to make backups of some of the VMs I use regularly.

You can create as many virtual machines as you want on a single host system, although you can only open one at a time with Player -- Workstation allows you to network multiple VMs.

If you use VMs more than occasionally, Workstation is well worth the price, IMHO. That said, Player is probably adequate for most people's purposes.

tomos:
Thanks for the comments  :up: .. the lack of snapshot feature would definitely make it less useful for me.
-Jibz (August 17, 2012, 12:46 PM)
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Don't be so quick there. You can simply copy the files at a given point, and then you have a "snapshot". Yeah, might be a bit of a pain, but it still works.-Renegade (August 17, 2012, 01:00 PM)
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that's good to know,
I was going to ask whether to save the virtual disk as a single file or to split it into multiple files - for splitting files, they say may reduce performance with very large disks. I dont know if they mean large physical discs or large virtual discs (and WTF is "large" these days... :-\)

But I think I'll take xtabber's recommendation anyway:

I suggest using the option to limit file sizes to 2GB because it makes it much easier to manage and copy or move large VMs than as a single huge file.
-xtabber (August 17, 2012, 01:53 PM)
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it's great to get so much advice :-* :D :P

tomos:
Well, after a couple of false starts (it wouldnt accept the key using [XP"0" + SP3 slipstreamed via nlite] so I had to install the XP"0", then SP2, then SP3...) I have XP installed. I've done a backup before installing more updates etc etc. - I was able to copy the files even though the virtual OS was running.

It's a bit weird going back to XP :D

If I connect printer or scanner etc, I get this message (note: in a win7 frame):



I dont need them yet (I actually have my scanner, printer, external HD on a seperate extension lead that is normally switched off until I need one of them) but it looks like that's an either/or choice (I mean it will only work for one OS at a time) - and I'm wondering: how this works, especially if you need to swap over and back between the real and virtual machines.

mouser:
Btw since it hasn't been said in this thread yet -- a virtual machine is an absolutely essential tool these days; it lets you test software safely and without polluting your real machine.

Renegade:
Btw since it hasn't been said in this thread yet -- a virtual machine is an absolutely essential tool these days; it lets you test software safely and without polluting your real machine.
-mouser (August 18, 2012, 11:52 AM)
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+1

I didn't think that needed to be said. :)

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