Convert Physical Windows Systems Into Virtual Machines To Be Run On A Linux Desktop

[dgs]

I have not tried this how-to (http://www.howtoforge.com/vmware_converter_windows_linux), but I thought some people here might find it interesting.

[Pastor Ron]

I am definitely going to try this out. Thanks for the tip.

Pastor Ron

[mcrofutt]

I am definitely going to try this out. Thanks for the tip.

Pastor Ron
I HAVE tried this! It's awesome. Here's a link to a discussion on the pclinuxos forums...
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php?topic=17578.0
I've not run it in Mepis, so I can't say how well it'd work there, but it worked very well on my PCLinuxOS partition.
Mark

Here's a couple shots of WinXP Pro running in vmware player inside of Simply Mepis 32 6.5 :)
http://www.divshare.com/download/327074-6a8
http://www.divshare.com/download/327073-ded

[nlyric]

I HAVE tried this! It's awesome. Here's a link to a discussion on the pclinuxos forums...
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php?topic=17578.0
I've not run it in Mepis, so I can't say how well it'd work there, but it worked very well on my PCLinuxOS partition.
Mark

Here's a couple shots of WinXP Pro running in vmware player inside of Simply Mepis 32 6.5 :)
http://www.divshare.com/download/327074-6a8
http://www.divshare.com/download/327073-ded

mcrofutt,
Are those screen shots of your actual XP install? ( running you actual hard disk install) I am looking around for verification that this works. I really have no use for it myself but know some people who would.
Thanks

[mcrofutt]

mcrofutt,
Are those screen shots of your actual XP install? ( running you actual hard disk install) I am looking around for verification that this works. I really have no use for it myself but know some people who would.
Thanks

nlyric,
They ARE actual screenshots of an actual install of WinXP Pro. I found the information about this for Windows software on th PCLinuxOS forum. A BUNCH of GREAT folks over there as well! I like to "tinker" and this was another of those types of toys for me. I'm SURE it could be very useful to some. What the software does is make a .vmx file of your Win install. I saved mine across to a networked box and then copied it to my Linux install. VIOLA instant cool!
I hope this helps!
Mark

[nlyric]

mcrofutt, Thanks
On second thought maybe I do have a use for this. Make a .vmx for my current Mepis( I assume that is an option) install--- put it on a CD . Bring it to work run it in VMplayer. maybe ---yes:rock:

[dsmturbo]

This is very interesting. Okay, I made an image of my WinXP drive, and I stuck it on a external usb hard drive (22gb). But when I run VMplayer in Mepis, I can't seem to pick any locations for a file other them home, root, documents etc.

Perhaps I need to update VMplayer, but I don't see an install for it for 64 bit. I just installed from Synaptic (V1.03 or something like that)

[ronnielsen1]

Anything out there for 98/me?

[kmathern]

ronnielsen1,

That vmware converter mentioned in one of the earlier links doesn't work for Win9x versions. (The description of it say its for NT, 2k & XP)

I've have gotten my physical install of Win98SE (on partition hda1) to run in a virtual machine using vmware-server.

In the add hardware wizard portion of vmware-server where you create/edit your virtual machines you can add a harddrive to your vm. When your adding the harddrive you are given 3 choices

a) create a new virtual disk,
b) reuse an existing virtual disk
c) use a physical disk

I chose the physical disk option.

You then specify which physical drive (in my case just one - hda) and whether the entire disk or just certain partitions (I chose the entire drive). When I boot the vm I actually get the same grub menu as I get on a real boot.

You have to let windows re-detect all the virtual hardware versus whats really on your system. This can take a long time and many reboots (virtual).

You will be asked many times during the hardware detection for the location of the different .cab files from the windows system disk.

In my case it seemed better to have the contents of my windows system disk easily accessible in a folder on one of my windows drives versus the real cd drive or a mounted iso file.

I'm probably in trouble if I want to go back and and run it in the normal manner (although it was'nt working that great anyway - i had'nt done a real boot into it since a motherboard replacement a couple of months ago)

[mariel77]

I'm probably in trouble if I want to go back and and run it in the normal manner (although it was'nt working that great anyway - i had'nt done a real boot into it since a motherboard replacement a couple of months ago)

I have two questions about this:
1. Does anyone know if I do choose the actual physical win install, what does happen when I try to boot into the physical windows install - hda1?
2. Can I just make an image of the actual physical partition and then use the image for the vmware guest OS? So that I would actually leave my windows install and just use a copy of it for the VM?

I have read through the instructions, but haven't actually tried the vmware install yet.

Edit: OK, I read through the instructions from the how-to in post #1 again and it appears that the VM only uses an image of the physical install. That the physical install and the VM OS are actually separate systems at that point. Is this correct? Can someone verify this for me?
Thanks!

[dsmturbo]

Okay, I managed to make enough room to copy my WinXP image to Mepis partition. However, it appears that VMPlayer doesn't run on a dual processor cpu, as I get an info box indicating such.
I assume the purchased version would run on dual processor (AMD X2).

[rcdeacon]

Just for the info. this DOES work. I was able to convert my physical xp install into a vmx file that runs in vmware server 1.0.3. I did however have to reactivate xp in order to get it functional but other than that the conversion process went well.