Description
This article is the result of having a lot of troubles in installing Longhorn on VM Ware. This article focuses on the Do's and Dont's when installing Longhorn on VM Ware. This article also gives a step by step installation procedure for doing the same.
Introduction
The not so recently released versions of longhorn have excited many developers. Although I am not one of the very early guys to dirty my hands with longhorn, I am sure I am not the last. In my quest to get to know more about longhorn I one of the first step was to get an installation of longhorn on my machine. I write this article as I have faced a considerable amount of trouble trying to get longhorn installed.
One of prime worry before I went ahead and installed longhorn was to have a separate machine where I could have longhorn and play with it. I did not want to install longhorn on the system that I use for my work as longhorn being a new OS in the beta stages would not be very reliable. I could not risk losing any data on my system. I am sure there are many who share my feelings on this.
So, the perfect solution that I could think of was to install longhorn on a Virtual machine. For people who are not familiar with a virtual machine, a virtual machine is a software which would emulate any operating system. In other words, I could install longhorn on my laptop and yet be ensured that none of my data or operating system would be affected by longhorn.
There are currently two virtual machine software (that I know of) a. VMWare (http://www.vmware.com) and b. Virtual PC from Microsoft. (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/). I have tried installing on these both products.
In my opinion vmware performs much better compared to the virtual PC. I find virtual pc as extremely slow and hence very irritating. But I had more problems getting it installed on VM ware. In hind sight I think it was worth the effort.
The configuration on my laptop is 1GB ram, 6o GB HDD, 3.2 GHz with hyper threading etc. I installed the WINHEC longhorn release (build 4074). I started with trying to install longhorn using VM ware workstation 4.0. I could successfully install the operating system but then I could not install the various drivers. After, trying for several times I came to know from the website that VM ware has released a new update for longhorn. With the knowledge of this I was sure my troubled path was coming to an end, only to realize that it has just began. Well, to cut the long story short I will summarize the steps I took to get a successful install.
Assumptions:
1. You have installed VM ware workstation 4.5.2 on your machine.
2. Your machine has at least 512 MB ram.
3. You have the longhorn operating system DVD image. (iso file.)
4. At least 6 GB of free space on the hard disk.
5. You are trying to install the virtual machine on a windows based operating system.
Steps:
1. Open a new Virtual machine wizard in VM ware workstation.
2. Choose the guest operating system as "Windows XP Workstation". key to the install process is not to select the "Longhorn (Experimental)" option from the dropdown. Well, I know your first reaction would be to use this, but trust me doing so will force you to try installing longhorn once again. Well, VM ware is aware of this problem and are working to get an patch for it.
3. Choose any filename and provide a valid path.
4. When asked for memory settings choose at least 300 MB. (More the better)
5. Use any of the provided networking option. The default "Bridged Networking" is good enough.
6. When asked to provide the disk allocation space, choose 6 GB or more.
7. In the virtual machine settings for the CD-ROM choose to use a image file and provide the path of the longhorn DVD image file.
8. After all there steps your vm ware console would like as below.
9. Open the .vmx file in a text editor, such as notepad.
10. I would look like as shown below.
config.version = "7"
virtualHW.version = "3"
scsi0.present = "TRUE"
memsize = "752"
ide0:0.present = "TRUE"
ide0:0.fileName = "LH-Fresh.vmdk"
ide1:0.present = "TRUE"
ide1:0.fileName = "C:\Dump\Share\4074.1.1.LHSDK_idw.iso"
ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-image"
floppy0.present = "FALSE"
Ethernet0.present = "TRUE"
sound.present = "TRUE"
sound.fileName = "-1"
displayName = "LH - WINHEC"
guestOS = "winXPPro"
priority.grabbed = "normal"
priority.ungrabbed = "normal"
powerType.powerOff = "default"
powerType.powerOn = "default"
powerType.suspend = "default"
powerType.reset = "default"
sound.virtualDev = "es1371"
Ethernet0.addressType = "generated"
uuid.location = "56 4d 81 e8 3f 8b 67 99-e4 07 76 4c 0a e1 21 ac"
uuid.bios = "56 4d 81 e8 3f 8b 67 99-e4 07 76 4c 0a e1 21 ac"
tools.remindInstall = "TRUE"
ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:e1:21:ac"
ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0"
ide1:0.startConnected = "TRUE"
tools.syncTime = "FALSE"
10. If your machine does not have a SCSI drive then make sure u change the
scsi0.present = "TRUE"
parameter to "FALSE".
11. Then add the following lines in to the .vmx file.
disable_acceleration = "FALSE"
xinfo.noDGA = "TRUE"
These lines by default are not part of this config file. You can remove these lines after a successful installation on longhorn.
12. Save the file and open it using vm ware application. Click on the Start this virtual machine.
13. You would notice that now the longhorn installation would kick off. When asked provide the key for the product.
14. The installation may seem to hang when trying to detect hardware, do not cancel the installation just let it take its time.
15. After a restart you will get the first glimpse of the operating system, which would be very hazy as it would be in a very low resolution.
16. Now shut down the virtual machine.
17. Open the .vmx file in a text editor and add the following line.
Ethernet0.virtualDev = "vmxnet"
The above line is added as the default driver for the Ethernet card has a problem, hence you are mentioning an alternative driver.
18. After saving the file open the file in vm ware. and edit the CD-ROM properties to point to an iso image that is part of the vm ware installation. You would find in "C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Workstation" if the default path was used.
19. Use the file windows.iso for the CD-ROM image.
20. Start the virtual machine. Once started, open explorer and browse to the CD-ROM and install VMware tools. This installable has all the required drivers such as mouse, display and network.
21. Following is the warning as given in the release notes of vm ware workstation.
Longhorn uses a new method to install drivers. As a result, warning messages appear at several stages during installation of VMware Tools in Longhorn guest operating systems. Sometimes these messages are hidden. The driver installation appears to hang. However, if you press Alt-Tab, you can bring the warning message to the foreground. There are two types of messages.
- A message that says the driver is not Authenticode signed. When you see one of these messages, click Install Now to continue installing VMware Tools.
- A message that says the driver package is not compatible with Longhorn. When you see one of these messages, click Cancel to continue installing VMware Tools.
You may also see a message asking you to restart before the VMware Tools installer has finished. Do not restart the guest operating system at that time. Wait until the Installation Wizard Completed screen appears, click Finish, then restart the guest operating system when you are prompted to do so.
21. In the custom install ensure that you have not chosen to install the SCSI driver. If I accidentally install it and restart the machine then the longhorn will refuse to boot.
22. Restart your virtual machine. If you have reached this far then the chances are that your longhorn installation is good.
Summary
This article is an attempt to help those would try to install longhorn on vm ware. This article is not extensive and does not cover all the possible failure scenarios.