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VMWare Rolls Out Vista Virtualization
MsManhattan writes "VMWare Inc. today is slated to introduce a new version of its workstation virtualization software that supports Windows Vista. The upgrade, VMWare Workstation 6, enables users to run Vista as a host or a guest operating system. Additionally, it allows users to store a virtual machine setup on a portable device — like as a USB drive — and transfer the set-up to another computer. Virtualization, an old concept that has gained new momentum, can help organizations optimize their infrastructures but it can also create expensive management headaches. Just the same, the analyst group Gartner predicts that three million virtual machines will be in use by 2009, up from today's 500,000."
I hope VMWare's fixed its Vista performance problems in this new version: running Vista as a virtual OS even under the commercial versions of VMWare was slower than dirt in the last cut.
Everyone uses virtualization now.
Half the servers are virtualized.
Where I work some laptops are fitted with virtualized DOS/Win98 environments for very old software (to control old EPROM burners etc). Much easier to roll out a working VM environment and just copy it around than fiddling with constantly changing hardware.
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
...but didn't Vista's TOS specifically ban using Vista under a virtual machine?
Looks like 64 bit support is getting better, although Feisty Fawn isn't supported as a host OS yet. From the release notes:
New Support for 32-Bit and 64-Bit Operating Systems
This release provides experimental support for the following operating systems:
* 32-bit and 64-bit Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.5 (Beta, formerly called 4.0 Update 5) as host and guest operating systems
* 32-bit and 64-bit SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 SP4 (Beta) as host and guest operating systems
* 32-bit and 64-bit Ubuntu Linux 7.04 as a guest operating system
This release provides full support for the following operating systems:
* 32-bit and 64-bit Windows Vista as host and guest operating systems
* 32-bit and 64-bit Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0 as host and guest operating systems
* 32-bit and 64-bit Ubuntu Linux 6.10 as host and guest operating systems
* 32-bit and 64-bit Mandriva Linux 2007 as host and guest operating systems
* 32-bit and 64-bit Solaris 10 Update 3 as guest operating system
* 32-bit Novell Netware 6.5 SP5 as guest operating system
"Be the change you wish to see in the world" - M. K. Gandhi
All you need to do to emulate the Vista experience is a sharp stick and your own eye.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
This is welcome news. Let me tell you, virtualization has saved my ass many times, and growing (especially when it's windows).
Example: A system fails to come back up after update and gives me my favorite hal.dll error. Since the hardware abstraction layer is different for nearly every machine, simply grabbing the hal.dll from another machine is not possible.
Now there are several strategies to tackle this problem, for this instance however, because this was a virtual machine living with several other guest OSes which are all running on identical virtual hardware I simply ran a compare between the system32 drives of the borked windows and a working one - found several HUNDRED missing files (how did that happen, who knows), mounted the borked vmdk as the g: drive and copied the good files over to it.
unmounted and rebooted to fully operational status.
Read my Very Short "Stories"
Reduce, reuse, cycle
I recently put together a new computer for my cousin and as payment he gave me his old 120GB IDE drive (he went SATA and upgraded to 320GB so didn't need it / want it anymore) and I threw Ubuntu on it. I've wanted to go back to Linux for a while now but wasn't planning to in the immediate since my hard drives were pretty full and I have a few bills to pay before I can justify buying new hardware.
Anyway I'm a web developer so I need to test sites in IE, plus there's a few apps that don't feel like running with wine so I set up VMWare and installed XP. Unfortunately I made the mistake of using a slipstreamed cd that I made from my cousin's retail copy of XP home instead of my OEM Pro cd and so it keeps asking me to activate it.
The problem is, even if I start up with a clean image every time it still reads the current time/date and substracts the time/date that it was installed. So yes, you still need to activate it. I'm going to have to wipe it and install from my OEM cd.
I thought all that was preventing you from running Vista under VMWare was Microsoft's licensing, i.e. you had to buy the uber-expensive ultra-mega-pro-corp-enterprise-unlimited version, and not the crappy home version dell gives you.
I know Vista Home can run VMWare Server as a host (tried it) and Parallels on the Mac can run the MSDN version as a guest (seen it).
So what's the news? Is it really just that Workstation 6 has come out of beta?
#include <sig.h>
Yeah, I'm working on a network in a box at the moment, Xen based though. Should be able to scale it from a single user on a single physical machine to thousands of users on tens of machines with almost zero downtime. Very nifty technology.
Deleted
Why not just buy a copy of windows XP? If you're a web developer and you think it's important to test in IE, then you should pay for the required licenses to run it. It's not that expensive for XP Home. If you have a license, you should have no problem activating it. If you accidentally used the wrong cd, then install it again. All you're using the computer for is testing websites, so there shouldn't be that much data to transfer between the installations.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
To clarify: I'm using a system whose hardware is several times larger than Vista's recommended specs (and without Aero) and Vista still runs many times (10x?) slower under the commercial VMWare (v5) that it does when I wipe the box and just install Vista. Other Windows OSs on the same box are quite snappy under commercial VMWare (v5).
I'm hoping VMWare version 6 fixes this.
Why not just buy a copy of windows XP? If you're a web developer and you think it's important to test in IE, then you should pay for the required licenses to run it.
Or use ies4linux
I could *possibly be persuaded to allow Vista onto one of my machines if someone gave me $200.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
that's almost right, but to really nail dah feelin' you'd pay someone else for the eye poke with the sharp stick
You could just download Microsoft's Virtual PC XP image for IE 6 testing and convert it to a VMWare image. Then you can make an copy of it and do a Windows Update to install IE 7 and you can test both versions.
n d-ie7-running-on-a-single-machine.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/11/30/ie6-a
Not very well...
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=234079&thr
Certainly looks like it. And as for the managerial problems - well, I RTFA, and I couldn't make out any specific problems (apart from possible licensing issues, which is always a good one because you can say that about almost any technology you like). Read like a typical Gartner puff piece designed to spend a couple of hundred words not saying anything in particular, but generate a few soundbites for a mindless PHB.
...now Vista can virtually suck, too.
If you started this action, continue.
* Emulating the Vista Experience
To continue, jam a pointy stick in your eye, and then click OK.
Homer: What do I do? What do I do? In the name of God you've got to tell me! [sobbing]
Agent 2: Relax, it's just a simulator. Nothing can go wrong.
What is this, digg?
Post the actual link rather than your (or someone elses) blog in hopes of getting ad revenue.
I am one of the unintelligent few who installed a copy of vista business on my laptop at the beginning of the year. I have been using vmware workstation to run linux under windows for about a year now and as such was very interested in VmWare's progress on supporting vista as a host operating system. VmWare 5.5 would run under vista, but only after a lot of tweaking and even then the performance was less than stellar. I enrolled in the 6.0 beta testing program as soon as it was available and I have not been impressed with the product so far. What I have found is that VmWare has fixed most of the nagging issues with User Access Controls etc., but there are still a few major things lacking. The first is that the networking to host OS's seems to disconnect after each suspend without any messages about why or even how to reconnect them. The second seems to be the interaction between vista and VmWare. For whatever reason any time I do a power operation on the guest OS (suspend, restart etc.) my hard disk starts thrashing like crazy and I am unable to use the machine for 2-3 minutes. This is on a laptop with 2Gb of ram that never had these issues under WindowsXP. Additionally, these hard disk thrashing issues happen at random times while I am using the guest OS. Perhaps some of this is due to the debugging that is enabled with the beta builds of VmWare, but I'll certainly be a bit cautious about spending my several hundred dollars on upgrading to Workstation 6.0 given the performance that I have seen so far.
Have they implemented 3D harware acceleration virtualization? I don't see a lot of point in virtualizing Vista if you can't have the 3D desktop stuff.
Wow! I could swear I was really using virtual vista!
I Like virtual machines but I wish they would allow true 3d acceleration. I have an xp machine(for gaming) with a virtual ubuntu installed. However I cannot install beryl because of the limitations of the system. If there is a way and I missed it, let me know.
I didn't imply that I don't own a legit copy.
All I said was that I installed from the wrong cd by mistake.
Isn't most of the point of running Vista (as opposed to XP) that you'd have DirectX 10, Media Center, and Aero? Given the hardware requirements of Vista, I seriously doubt you'd be getting any good gaming or media experiences in a Virtual Machine.
After using Parallels for Mac, VMware has a lot of catching up to do. Coherence mode, the ability to run virtualized applications seamlessly on the Mac desktop, is a beautiful feature.
If the Linux version of VMware offers something similar, I'd be very interested.
So VMWare makes calls to the Win32 API on the host machine on behalf of the virtual machine? Nonsense.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
VMWare Workstation 5 had a problem when the host operating system changed the CPU frequency. This made the guest operating system clock go wacky and the guest itself almost unusable because letters I'd type would be repeated when the operating system thought I had held down a key for a second or two. The official workaround was to disable frequency scaling on the host operating system which is really not acceptable.
Can anyone tell me if they fixed this issue in 6?
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
I'll get my grandma right on it!
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
IE does not run on .NET.
This isn't much different than any other modern OS. They all have strict separation of user/kernel code and libaries at a given point. OS X and Windows both have clearly defined subsystems (Win32/Posix/.NET3?, Cocoa/BSD/etc.)
and let's see what you'd have if you ran VMware in Linux
- JavaScript running on some browser
- some browser running on Qt/Gtk and libc
- Qt/Gtk running on an X server
- X server and some browser running on libc
- libc running on some unixlike kernel
- some unixlike kernel running on VMware
- VMware running on libc, the kernel, and Gtk
- Gtk running on an X server
- X server running on libc
- libc running on some unixlike kernel
- some unixlike kernel running on real hardware
You are poking yourself in the eye with a sharp stick. Cancel or Allow?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Oops - I didn't realize Vista wasn't supported yet and I've been running it for a few weeks in VMWare Fusion for OSX. It runs great (MBP C2D) and is much faster than the -XP line. I've only got 512MB allocated to it too.
VMWare Fusion would be just about perfect if they added support for adding block devices from files like on linux. Hopefully in the next beta.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I've used it as a guest on 5.5.3 but the option was labeled 'experimental' Still seemed to work just fine.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
The parent post is complete tripe and anyone who feels like moderating it up would do well to get a little knowledge of how browser, virtualization and operating systems work before doing so.
For a low low price of $420, a Linux user can run Windows Vista on their Linux distribution.
If I could an OS, I would build custom Linux OS that exclusively runs VMware. Kinda like Windows 98 and Dos. The computer would boot with Linux OS like older pcs booted DOS first, then go straight to Vmware so the entire computer is virtualized. And the Linux OS is designed to only allow vmware to access the internet.
\
And I said if you installed from the wrong CD, then reinstall from the right CD. There shouldn't be much data to transfer if all you use it for is testing websites.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
"the analyst group Gartner predicts that three million virtual machines will be in use by 2009, up from today's 500,000"
Our small company alone will have rolled out more than 5000 virtual machines by that time, which would account for 1/500 of the volume increase. Not very likely. We replace the hardware of old legacy client systems running OS/2, put the OS/2 system inside a Xen VM, and add another VM running Linux which is our migration target. Very sweet.
There will be a lot more virtual machines by that time. A lot. In all likelihood as many as a hundred times more.
Wouldn't it be broken easily if Vista is virtualized? Or are virtualized hardware untrusted, thus not able to play anything that requires PMP?
I tried this a few months ago with Parallels Desktop for Mac and hit a show-stopper. After migrating the VM to Parallels activation kicks in. The Windows product key seems to have been revoked as it does not activate. Due to the invalid product key, Windows Update does not run either and you can't validate Windows to install IE7.
Luckily work has a few XP licences lying around. I installed two VMs and now have IE6 and IE7 on my Mac (very useful for testing websites). Perhaps installing Virtual PC inside a Parallels VM would have worked to save an XP license, but I really don't know if it would be worth the effort and possible performance issues.
I think Microsoft did this on purpose. Not just to stop a key from leaking into the wild but if the VM re-activated, you could use their precious browser on a non-Windows host. It's not exactly a "free Windows VM w/ IE6" but more like a way to run IE6 on your Windows machine running IE7. I can't blame them for doing that but since one often can't not test in both IE6 and IE7 without potentially losing their job, it does suck.
"The number of Unix installations has grown to ten, with more expected." (Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd ed.; june 1972)
The images seems to become invalid every few months; however, Microsoft then releases a new version of the image. I'm not sure if this was what you saw though as I don't have a Mac so I can't try this under Parallels.
Or even easier, get a free copy from Microsoft
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to phish...
It was definitely an activation issue due to the virtual hardware differences. The same download worked fine on a Windows machine with Virtual PC.
Unless Parallels emulates the same hardware as VPC, XP will see a hardware change and request reactivation. Since the key used cannot be activated, you've run into a wall.
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to phish...
You can download both IE6 and IE7 versions, no need to update anything yourself.
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to phish...
We are talking about virtualizing Vista on top of Vista/Linux, not Linux on top of Linux, so why you have libc and QT/GTK listed *above* vmware I don't know.
In any case, nothing runs "on" QT or GTK, or LibC. And the kernel isn't "some unixlike" kernel, its Linux like you specified.
Heres an accurate stack
browser
*windows crap*
vmware
xserver
kernel
hardware
Over and above that, if you are using hardware virtualization then all the lines are blurred, and you should be if you have any serious need for virtual machines, otherwise stop bitching.
I know all of that. I was replacing the GP's very flawed windows example with Linux to point out the ridiculousness.
Just installed this AM, haven't tried every 'bell and whistle' what I have tried works fine, two thumbs up. Good job.
Guy Cook Internet Marketing and Consulting Solutions since 1995.