VMWARE Questions

[raksrules]

I have installed VMWARE on my laptop to run windows XP Professional over the default windows vista. I have a few questions regarding the same. Actually this machine is to be used by my dad for tally and i don't want him to get confused with this vmware thing.

1. If my vmware OS is running and i connect a USB device to my laptop, how
can i ensure that the USB device is detected only by windows XP (VMWARE OS) and not by my host system.

2. In what mode should i use the network connection. The current setting is "Host Only: Private n/w shared with the host". Is this ok ?
My Dad will be using LAN connection in his office to use the network mapped drives and access company resources for his work. I dont want him to face any issues on this front.

3. I have allocated 6GB MAX for my VMWARE OS. Can i now increase this size to something like 10GB or more? I do not want to reinstall the VMWARE OS.


PS: I have windows XP installed on my laptop on another partition and also setup the system in dual boot, but since i havent still found XP drivers for my laptop, i am not able to connect to network, neither the display is coming good. Thats the reason i am resorting to VMWARE.

[6laz3r]

1. to avoid VMware from connecting to USB devices, power off your VM (i mean the virtual OS, not VMware itself). goto the "VM" menu and then settings. here open the settings for "USB". uncheck both the settings. that will take care of it.

2. a Host Only network connections will only let you communicate to the host OS. (host OS is what you have on the laptop physically/Guest OS is what you have installed on VMWare) if you want you guest OS to be able to connect to internet, select the NAT to Host option. in any case, whatever you set this setting to, your dad should not have any issues at office.

3. i am assuming you mean that you have allotted 6 GB to the hard disk for win XP on vmWare. increasing the size of a VMdisk is not recommended and will most probably in you having to reinstall the guest OS. what you can do is add another hard disk to the guest OS. as with the USB settings, power off your guest OS, go into settings, click "Add", choose hard disk and when prompted, select "create a new hard disk". you can give it whatever size you want. now this drive will show up as drive D: or E: in your guest OS. you might have to initialize it and format from the computer management screen.

hope that answers everything. one suggestion, for everyday use, and if you are not into dev and testing, virtual PC is much easier to use and configure. also if you have new hardware, virtual PC can use hardware virtualization which improves performance significantly.

i use VM workstation, ESX and MS virtual server. get back to me if you have any other questions