VMWare Server - Use Physical WinXP?

[Dave Woyciesjes]

Michael James wrote:
> On Wed, 29 Aug 2007 11:10:20 am Dave Woyciesjes wrote:
>> 	My laptop has WinXP installed on sda1, and Ubuntu on sda2. Has anyone
>> with a similar setup used the Wizard in VMWare Server to use the WinXP
>> install as a guest to Ubuntu? To be precise, if I try this, I'm
>> wondering if the WinXP install will get hosed....
> 
> Boot into the native windows install and go to the hardware wizard.
> Create a  "vmware"  profile as well as the default one.
> You could all the existing profile  "native"  or  "hardware".
> 
> Don't bother to change anything in either profile at this stage.
> 
> Re-boot into Ubunto and fire up VMware.
> Give the virtual machine access to the raw Windows partition.
> Boot Windows within VMware and choose the  "VMware"  profile.
> Windows will say something to the effect of,
>  "Wow things have changed, do you want me to adjust?"
> Saying yes will only change the  "VMware"  hardware profile,
>  leaving the  "Native"  one for real boots.  (if you ever do that again...)

	Cool. Thanks for the info. So my existing, working dual-boot setup will 
survive. Of course, usual precautions apply, like backing up the 
important data from Windows... :)
	Also, I did notice in the VMWare docs, that when you are running WinXP 
in the virtual state, you should _not_ have that partition mounted in 
Linux. So in my case, that means I should add "noauto" to the 
appropriate line in /etc/fstab...

> QUESTION 1:  If anyone knows how to make Windows
>  choose the right profile automatically please let us know.

	Well, IIRC, when you have a WinXP laptop with a docking station, it 
correctly figures it out then. How? Beats me. Something in the circuitry 
of the dock?
	Hmmm, just looked at the properties of a hardware profile in WinXP. 
There is a option of specifying that it is a portable computer. Maybe 
you need to make sure that option is chosen? In there, there are fields 
for Dock ID & Serial Number. Those could very well have something to do 
with profile auto-detection...

> QUESTION 2:  If anyone knows how to make a Linux install
>  re-run hardware detection and configure itself
>  to a different hardware environment, please let us know?
> Imagine taking a system dist to a new machine...
	Hmmm... Ya got me...

-- 
--- Dave Woyciesjes
--- ICQ# 905818
--- AIM - woyciesjes

"From there to here,
 From here to there,
Funny things
are everywhere."
--- Dr. Seuss