vmware question

[HeXen]

Can vmware be setup to boot with windows and automatically boot the virtualized OS Fullscreen?
How slow would that process be cause i've used the freebie virtualbox before but its pretty slow, i was considering checking into VMware if its any better.

i'm also curious about Vsphere hypervisor but i'm still searching info on it.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Can vmware be setup to boot with windows and automatically boot the virtualized OS Fullscreen?
How slow would that process be cause i've used the freebie virtualbox before but its pretty slow, i was considering checking into VMware if its any better

No, not that I am aware of. VMWare ESXi/ESX (now called vSphere and is version 4.0) runs as a bare-metal hypervisor and is using a streamlined Linux core. If you went to the console on a box running this, you would see this:

The free VMWare server runs on a Windows host, so you couldn't run a VM as the console on that either and that would also apply to their workstation product as well.

The only way you'd get something like that to work AFAIK would be to use a virtualized desktop environment and then you'd boot to the desktop of the VM on a physical virtual desktop terminal. Pano makes a cool infrastructure for this kind of application and you connect a monitor, keyboard, network, and mouse to this little guy:

We tested these things and they are really slick. Our management made a mistake not pursuing them.

 

[classy]

No, not that I am aware of. VMWare ESXi/ESX (now called vSphere and is version 4.0) runs as a bare-metal hypervisor and is using a streamlined Linux core. If you went to the console on a box running this, you would see this:

The free VMWare server runs on a Windows host, so you couldn't run a VM as the console on that either and that would also apply to their workstation product as well.

The only way you'd get something like that to work AFAIK would be to use a virtualized desktop environment and then you'd boot to the desktop of the VM on a physical virtual desktop terminal. Pano makes a cool infrastructure for this kind of application and you connect a monitor, keyboard, network, and mouse to this little guy:

We tested these things and they are really slick. Our management made a mistake not pursuing them.

Those Panos are really nice. I think the biggest mistake is that you couldn't test them without buying them. Wyse and all the others allowed some type of testing without buying, maybe its changed now. As for virtulization, you have tons of choices. You can run esxi inside of VMware workstation. But for free you can use esxi, hyper-v, and virtual pc 2007 is decent too. What is your goal?

 

[toosober]

You could do that, just write a script that launches vmware player and the guest operating system full screen on the login of windows. This can also be done with virtual box in linux or vmware fusion on a mac. I made this setup using vmware ace about 6 years ago when I worked for the state launching XP full screen in an encrypted vm.

You could also install esxi into vmplayer, and have esxi power up all your vms on startup, why one would do this is only for testing purposes though, it would defeat the whole concept of a bare metal hyporvisor like esxi.

 

[yinan]

Yes actually this can technically be done with a server motherboard that supports virtual device passthrough.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Those Panos are really nice. I think the biggest mistake is that you couldn't test them without buying them.

We were lucky. A consulting firm that we work with got 3 of the units when they were released, so they loaned them to us for a few weeks, along with the server software, for testing. These devices are among the coolest things I've ever seen and if not for a stubborn boss who lied about the break-even numbers, we would've deployed these guys. We hire lots of additional workers in the summer and these guys would've been perfect for that -- no reimaging, personalization, or deployment of PCs would have been necessary at all.