VMware Communities: Message List - Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

lasse1234 — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 09:12:06 GMT

That seems to work, except from when I selected my multiprocessor HAL the Windows installation continues and says it can't find any harddisks!

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

PierreC — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:11:57 GMT

Thanks very much.

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

dp_fusion — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:29:43 GMT

These instructions are quite old now and there have been updates to Fusion in the time since. Are these instructions still valid or has something changed?

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

etung — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:59:47 GMT

But, for which reason in this case would I be able to see the 4 cores (in this case 2 CPU's of 2 cores each) in Parallels with the same OS ?

They're probably presenting a quad-core CPU to the guest.

Does your answer mean that the only possiblity for me to benefit from the reliability of Fusion with 2 processors is to move up to XP Professional release ?

Currently, yes. We know people would like to use more than one core per virtual CPU to get around this Windows licensing issue. However, VMware policy is to not comment on unannounced features/timelines/products so I can't say anything beyond that.

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

PierreC — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:53:13 GMT

Thank you for the answer.

But, for which reason in this case would I be able to see the 4 cores (in this case 2 CPU's of 2 cores each) in Parallels with the same OS ?

Does your answer mean that the only possiblity for me to benefit from the reliability of Fusion with 2 processors is to move up to XP Professional release ?

Pierre

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

etung — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:41:57 GMT

There's a distinction between cores and CPUs. Andreas pointed out that XP Home recognizes only a single CPU. For historical reasons, we present single core CPUs to the guest, so you will only be able to use one core.

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

PierreC — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 07:46:27 GMT

Did you sort out your problem ?

Now that Parallels has released its 4.0 version, I know for sure that the answer given by Andreas and related to the inexistent support of multi processor / multi core by Windows XP was not the appropriate one.

With Parallels 4.0 and XP Home, I can get as much as 4 cores (I run an "old" Mac Pro with 2 double core processors). With VMware Fusion, even in the latest version 2.0.1, I can only get 1 core (two processors are visible under the Device Manager, and the HAL seems in the good version (MultiProcessor ACPI) but only one is actually accepting threads).

Would anyone have an idea how to get Fusion work in multi-processor mode with XP Home Edition ?

Thanks in advance for your help,

Pierre

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

brianriceca — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 00:49:58 GMT

Sounds as if you are not successfully booting from CD. Those menu choices you mention are presented when you boot from a hard-drive install of Windows, not an installation CD.

Open the virtual machine's Settings screen and make sure that the CD-ROM is connected before it boots. Then, watch for a prompt saying "Press any key to boot from CD."

In a worst case, you might need to go into the virtual machine's BIOS menu and change its boot order. While the virtual machine is powered off (not just suspended) and Fusion is not running, edit its .vmx file with a text editor such as TextWrangler or (if you are comfortable with the command line) nano -w . (To find the .vmx file, navigate to the virtual machine using Finder, cmd-click on it, and choose Show Package Contents.) Add this line to the end:

bios.forceSetupOnce = "TRUE"

Now the VM will boot into its BIOS menu. Click once inside the VM's screen to give it mouse focus; if you need to get mouse focus out, press cmd-ctrl. (This is necessary because VMware Tools is not running.)

In the BIOS menu, you can use the right arrow to move over to the Boot submenu, the arrow keys to choose a particular boot source (the one we want is CD-ROM), and the + and - keys to change its order. Here's a screenshot:

When you're done, press F10 to save and exit. (On a MacBook keyboard, you'll need to press Fn-F10 instead.)

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

pauljude — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 21:13:50 GMT

Here is where I get stuck. After following the migration instructions to the letter, I get to the final stage to fix the shutdown issue. I follow the instructions by starting up my Wix XP Pro CD (this is a full retail version) and I choose Upgrade for an installation type but the screen for the non-GUI nevers comes up properly. Instead, I get a non-GUI screen that prompts me to run Windows XP Professional or Windows XP Professional Setup. If I hit F5, I'm taken to a screen where I have several options such as booting into SafeMode, etc. I never get the non-GUI screen that allows me to change the HAL.

Other than this problem, the conversion worked fine and everything works smoothly but I would like to fix the shut down problem and have two processors running.

Any help, would be great appreciated.

Paul

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

jamng — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 01:57:21 GMT

I have 1.25GB allocated for Windows XP when I try to install Vista. When I was getting to 64%, it would crash and force itself to rollback. After your update-fix instructions, it just sits there at the loading screen. It never gets to a crash and rollback.

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

brianriceca — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:19:28 GMT

I'm delighted that my update-fix instructions are helping folks. But I have few good ideas about the Vista upgrade problem. Here's a very basic one: just how much memory does your VM have? My experience has been that Vista's performance is dreadful with anything less than 1 GB. So if the VM had, say 256 MB while it was running XP, and it kept that setting after you installed Vista in it, maybe that's the problem.

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

bgaspers — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 18:25:15 GMT

I ran into the same problem with not being able to install updates. Brian's instructions about re-installing the Windows installer, then reregistering the DLLs fixed the problem.

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

jamng — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 00:24:34 GMT

Your instructions fixed my Microsoft Update issues. I reinstalled PGP and that fixed the PGP errors on startup.

Vista is failing at a different point now. I don't know if it got past 64% but it is now failing on startup. The screen where Vista is loading has the loading bar constantly going left -> right.

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

yann.bizeul — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 09:40:18 GMT

This is a wonderfull tip, thank you brianriceca.
For those who, like me, can't get windows update anymore after upgrading XP this way, I found this solution working like a charm : http://forum.telecharger.01net.com/telecharger/windows__logiciels/windows/probleme_mises_a_jour_apres_reparation_de_windows-446707/messages-1.html
Well, this is french, but it is quite simple :

in Start > Execute, do

regsvr32.exe c:\windows\system32\wuweb.dll

Once you get a positive answer, run the same thing on the following dll, one by one :

regsvr32.exe c:\windows\system32\wuweb.dll
regsvr32.exe c:\windows\system32\wups2.dll
regsvr32.exe c:\windows\system32\wups.dll
regsvr32.exe c:\windows\system32\wucltui.dll
regsvr32.exe c:\windows\system32\wuaueng1.dll
regsvr32.exe c:\windows\system32\wuaueng.dll
regsvr32.exe c:\windows\system32\wuapi.dll

Voilà !

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

jamng — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 22:23:10 GMT

I'll try those steps when I get backf from my business trip. Would the messed up Microsoft Update have an effect on upgrading to Vista? That sounds more like a separate issue to me.

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

brianriceca — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 00:34:36 GMT

In this case, I
downloaded 86 patches successfully but not a single
update can be installed.

Hey, I've seen that before, after changing the HAL on a physical computer. After some Google searching, I found some advice that seemed to help. The advice came in two parts:

1. Uninstall Windows Installer, reboot, manually reinstall it, reboot.
2. Manually re-register the DLLs that make up Windows Update, reboot.

You can download Windows Installer as a separate piece from here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/893803/en-us

In principle, that ought to do it. Some of our friends on the Internet recommend taking it one step further and re-registering the DLLs that make up Windows Update, using the regsvr32 command. You'll find a list of them in this dialogue:

http://forums.techguy.org/windows-nt-2000-xp/595966-windows-installer-3-1-will.html

Some combination of those actions fixed the problem for me. I wish I could be more precise; it was late, and I was getting sloppy.

I can't seem to upgrade to Vista using the
ACPI Uniprocessor or ACPI Multiprocessor
configurations

If the XP->Vista upgrade uses Windows Installer, your problem could be related to the above. I myself have almost no experience with Vista.

I'm also having problems with PGP now.

You may have noticed that, during the reinstall of Windows XP, you are prompted for a new username, and you get logged in as that. However, you may well have been using Windows as a different user before, maybe even Adminstrator. Maybe your PGP keyring is stored under a different username, and needs to be copied over. If so, anticipate permissions problem: your new username may not have access rights to the old keyring file. Log in as Administrator, or a user with administrative privilege, and give the new user rights. Or just go back to logging into Windows using the old username.

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

bflad — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 23:17:26 GMT

Thanks Brian - I'm still quite a newbie to VMWare and Fusion.

Other Brian

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

jamng — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 23:06:36 GMT

I agree that Microsoft Update is wonky, but I've never been able to download a bunch of updates and had them ALL fail consistently. In this case, I downloaded 86 patches successfully but not a single update can be installed. That compounded with the fact that I can't seem to upgrade to Vista using the ACPI Uniprocessor or ACPI Multiprocessor configurations makes me wonder if something is broken.

I'm also having problems with PGP now.

Message was edited by:
jamng

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

brianriceca — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 23:03:50 GMT

Someone can call me out on this... but there is an
"Upgrade Virtual Machine" option under the Virtual
Machine menu. Maybe this can help?

This menu option has nothing to do with the software inside the virtual machine. Rather, it concerns the virtual machine itself. You'd use it if you had built a virtual machine on some earlier VMware platform, such as Workstation 5, to bring its virtual hardware up to Fusion's level.

To be specific: taking a virtual machine from XP to Vista does not necessitate the use of the "Upgrade Virtual Machine" option.

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

bflad — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 21:55:10 GMT

Someone can call me out on this... but there is an "Upgrade Virtual Machine" option under the Virtual Machine menu. Maybe this can help? (I've never done this... just thought I'd suggest)

And for the record... using Microsoft Update can be flaky even on normal PC's... I wouldn't trust it as a true measure of things working/not working.

Brian

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

jamng — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 18:04:49 GMT

Thanks! That was it. I got past the installation part, but Microsoft Update looks broken now. It will sometimes refuse to connect to Microsoft Update. Other times it will connect and download but refuse to install. The Automatic Updates will download it but refuse to install. The pre-updated version works fine.

Since I'm just fiddling with stuff at the moment, I decided to try and upgrade to Vista and it keeps crashing and reverting back when it hits about 64% during the last completion steps.

Is there a good XP SP2 -> Vista upgrade guide that I missed in the searches or should it just upgrade normally within the VM without a problem? It's Vista Ultimate if that matters.

Message was edited by:
jamng

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

etung — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 02:20:58 GMT

If you have a laptop, the function keys are not actually function keys by default; in your case you'd need to press Fn-F5.

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

jamng — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 01:05:40 GMT

I'm at the step where it says click on the window once and then wait for the F6 screen and instead press F5. I tried to do this and it doesn't put the focus in the window and instead just turns the Mac speaker louder.

How do I force it to take the F5 key in the window?

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

Jim Hammond — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 00:23:46 GMT

Many thanks for all your time and others in trying to help out.

Jim

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

Andreas Masur — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 00:05:02 GMT

I guess I should have spent the few extra bucks to get and OEM of XP Pro.

Well....what should I say....yes...you should have. I wish Microsoft would just stop the 25,000 different versions and just comes clean with one or two may be. The whole thing (Home Edition, Home+, Home++ etc.) most of the times gives more headaches than it actually makes things easier...sorry Jim....

Ciao, Andreas

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

Jim Hammond — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 14:25:35 GMT

Well that's sure a bummer and a disappointment. Such is life I guess. I guess I should have spent the few extra bucks to get and OEM of XP Pro.

Jim

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

Andreas Masur — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 04:19:14 GMT

I went back and looked at my computer, under processors and I still have two
icons showing, plus under my computer it still shows ACPI Multiprocessor PC, so I'm not sure what's up
except that XP Home must not support it even though they are shown.

Well...I have not looked into the internals of XP Home and its device manager...nonetheless, the Home edition unfortunately does not support more than one physical CPU...

Ciao, Andreas

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

Jim Hammond — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 03:02:17 GMT

Very strange, I opened task manager clicked on performance, then view then cpu history. There was a dot next to one graph per cpu. I clicked on it and then closed it and checked the task manager window and still only one graph showing. I then went back and selected it again and now "one graph per cpu" is greyed out and not selectable. I went back and looked at my computer, under processors and I still have two icons showing, plus under my computer it still shows ACPI Multiprocessor PC, so I'm not sure what's up except that XP Home must not support it even though they are shown.

Jim

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

Andreas Masur — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 01:41:50 GMT

If you use XP Professional make sure you have set Task Manager to actually show one graph for each available CPU...

- Make sure 'One Graph Per CPU' is selected

If you only have Windows XP Home you are out of luck since it will not recognize dual processors.

Ciao, Andreas

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

Jim Hammond — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 01:14:39 GMT

Yep, that's exactly what it says, 'ACPI Multiprocessor PC, and under processors I have two icons one each for 5150 Xeon, but in the task manager, I only have one window for cpu. So I am a little confused as to whether I am getting the benefit of both my processors or not. It seems strange that it shows the above but only one cpu window.

Jim

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

brianriceca — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 00:37:39 GMT

How do I tell which HALS i have currently installed?

Right-click on My Computer, choose Properties, bring up the Hardware panel, and click on the Device Manager button. In the resulting display, click the little plus next to Computer."ACPI Multiprocessor PC" is what you want to see.

But I am pretty sure that Windows XP Home won't utilize two processors (or cores), no matter what the hardware or the HAL.

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

Jim Hammond — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 23:57:51 GMT

Brian,

How do I tell which HALS i have currently installed?

Jim

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

sunnfun — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 21:46:09 GMT

I am still concerned that this may not solve your
problem, because I myself didn't have to do it when I
moved my own XP VM to use the PRO/1000. But the
Intel driver installer's complaint about a GUID is
suggestive, so we might as well try.

Brian, unfortunately that did not fix it. Same results...

By the way, do you have the Parallels VM from which
the Fusion VM was cloned powered on during this time?
I can't think of any reason why that would cause
this problem, but I'm basically out of rational
theories at this point, so we may as well start
exploring the supernatural.

No, I've deleted Parallels and the old VM after I successfully converted to Fusion. I even unplugged the Firewire Backup Drive to be sure...

I've also done the Windows "upgrade" a fourth time, this time to a ACPI Uniprocessor HAL, same results.

Anyway, let's not lose sight of the whole
cost/benefit picture: ultimately, conversion is
intended to save the time of rebuilding a VM from
scratch. At some point, when weird conversion issues
arise, troubleshooting them starts to cost more time
than rebuilding. And this issue is quite weird. If
I were you, I would start considering a rebuild under
Fusion.

Yes, I think I'll just stop here. I think it'll be better if I just setup a new VM from scratch.

Would you recommend a free backup software so I don't have to re-install all the software?

I also think that you should go find the guy at that
Kuala Lumpur flea market and get your ringgit back.

I don't think I'll have too much luck with that either...

Again, thanks so much for your help!
Have a great day!
Jens

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

brianriceca — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 19:14:02 GMT

First of all there was no ethernet0.virtualDev
line in the vmx file.

That's expected. The absence of that line just tells Fusion to assume the default kind of virtual Ethernet adapter. I just wanted to make sure you didn't accidentally wind up with two ethernet0.virtualDev lines in your .vmx file.

After starting up the VM and installing the Intel
Software the network adapter shows again with a
yellow "!". When I open the properties, it stops and
says "failed to obtain the GUID"

Now that's interesting! May I suggest powering down the VM and editing its .vmx file once more, this time deleting all the lines that refer either to a UUID or to a Mac address. (Fusion will regenerate them, with fresh values, on power-on.)

So you'd delete these lines:

[code]
uuid.location = "56 4d 20 89 82 b1 1c 9b-d6 4f 89 a2 d2 0a b8 59"
uuid.bios = "56 4d 20 89 82 b1 1c 9b-d6 4f 89 a2 d2 0a b8 59"
ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:0a:b8:59"
ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0"
[/code]

I am still concerned that this may not solve your problem, because I myself didn't have to do it when I moved my own XP VM to use the PRO/1000. But the Intel driver installer's complaint about a GUID is suggestive, so we might as well try.

By the way, do you have the Parallels VM from which the Fusion VM was cloned powered on during this time? I can't think of any reason why that would cause this problem, but I'm basically out of rational theories at this point, so we may as well start exploring the supernatural.

Anyway, let's not lose sight of the whole cost/benefit picture: ultimately, conversion is intended to save the time of rebuilding a VM from scratch. At some point, when weird conversion issues arise, troubleshooting them starts to cost more time than rebuilding. And this issue is quite weird. If I were you, I would start considering a rebuild under Fusion.

I also think that you should go find the guy at that Kuala Lumpur flea market and get your ringgit back.

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

Jim Hammond — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 18:32:08 GMT

Yes, my version is XP Home, so maybe that is the problem. I'll look to see which HAL that I have then drop a note back here.

Many thanks,

Jim

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

sunnfun — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 18:21:42 GMT

This evening, I started with a
100%-patched-up-to-date Windows XP SP2 VM inside
Parallels (I ran Windows Update until there were no
more patches to apply). Then I went through the
whole migration, Windows re-install, and
HAL-replacement process. The VM's network still
worked.

Of course, the reinstall clobbered all those patches.
So I once again ran Windows Update until it had no
more patches. And then, once again, I did the
Windows re-install. The network still worked.

Brian, I really appreciate your efforts, outstanding support! I am glad I switched to VMWare.

I have now for the third time re-installed Windows into my working VM and for the third time I got the exact same result.

Strange, huh?

Now, using a text editor, edit the .vmx file. Delete
any lines that start off with ethernet0.virtualDev,
and put in a new line like this one at the very end:

[code]
ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"
[/code]

I did all that and guess what? It did not work. First of all there was no ethernet0.virtualDev line in the vmx file. Here is the full .vmx file the way it was created by Fusion, I added the 'ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"' at the end:

[code]
config.version = "8"
virtualHW.version = "6"
scsi0.present = "TRUE"
memsize = "512"
MemAllowAutoScaleDown = "FALSE"
scsi0:0.present = "TRUE"
scsi0:0.fileName = "/Users/jens/Documents/Virtual Machines/Image from Parallels/Image from Parallels.vmdk"
ide1:0.present = "TRUE"
ide1:0.autodetect = "TRUE"
ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-raw"
floppy0.present = "FALSE"
usb.present = "TRUE"
ehci.present = "TRUE"
sound.present = "TRUE"
sound.fileName = "-1"
sound.autodetect = "TRUE"
pciBridge0.present = "TRUE"
isolation.tools.hgfs.disable = "FALSE"
displayName = "Windows XP"
guestOS = "winxphome"
nvram = "Windows XP.nvram"
deploymentPlatform = "windows"
virtualHW.productCompatibility = "hosted"
RemoteDisplay.vnc.port = "0"
tools.upgrade.policy = "upgradeAtPowerCycle"
powerType.powerOff = "soft"
powerType.powerOn = "soft"
powerType.suspend = "soft"
powerType.reset = "soft"

svga.vramSize = "134217728"
mks.enable3d = "TRUE"

numvcpus = "2"

sharedFolder0.present = "TRUE"
sharedFolder0.enabled = "TRUE"
sharedFolder0.readAccess = "TRUE"
sharedFolder0.writeAccess = "TRUE"
sharedFolder0.hostPath = "/Users/jens/Desktop/ShareWin"
sharedFolder0.guestName = "Sharewin"
sharedFolder0.expiration = "never"
sharedFolder.maxNum = "1"

uuid.location = "56 4d 20 89 82 b1 1c 9b-d6 4f 89 a2 d2 0a b8 59"
uuid.bios = "56 4d 20 89 82 b1 1c 9b-d6 4f 89 a2 d2 0a b8 59"
mks.keyboardFilter = "allow"
scsi0:0.redo = ""
pciBridge0.pciSlotNumber = "17"
scsi0.pciSlotNumber = "16"
sound.pciSlotNumber = "33"
ehci.pciSlotNumber = "34"
tools.syncTime = "FALSE"

ide1:0.startConnected = "TRUE"
ide1:0.fileName = "auto detect"

ethernet0.present = "TRUE"
ethernet0.connectionType = "nat"
ethernet0.wakeOnPcktRcv = "FALSE"

ethernet0.addressType = "generated"
ethernet0.pciSlotNumber = "32"
ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:0a:b8:59"
ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0"
ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"
[/code]

After starting up the VM and installing the Intel Software the network adapter shows again with a yellow "!". When I open the properties, it stops and says "failed to obtain the GUID" and then "Error getting the adapter Info" (See attached screenshots).

Please let me know if I can give you any further information to diagnose this.

Thank you so much for your support!

Jens

PS: I have used TextWrangler to edit the .vmx file

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

brianriceca — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 18:06:49 GMT

Are you, by any chance, running Windows XP Home? I seem to recall that Microsoft requires Windows XP Professional for use of 2 CPUs.

If that's not the problem, which HAL do you have? (In Device Manager, look under Computer.) You need to see ACPI Multiprocessor.

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

brianriceca — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 18:02:04 GMT

Yeah, I love TextWrangler.

For folks who are not too afraid of the command line yet do not want to tangle with the devil known as vi, there's also nano, a nice friendly editor that always keeps a little menu at the bottom of the screen. Just be sure to always invoke it with the -w command-line option, so that it doesn't word-wrap your configuration files for you.

[code]
nano -w ~/Documents/Virtual\ Machines/myw2k.vmwarevm/myw2k.vmx
[/code]

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

Jim Hammond — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 15:00:43 GMT

If I look in device manager, I have two icons for 5150 xeon processors, but if I look in task manager, I have only one cpu window that shows up. What might be causing this?

Jim

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

jgl1975 — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 07:46:27 GMT

If you want a free text editor, TextWrangler did the trick for me.

http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

tirmidi — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 07:23:08 GMT

Just for the record, I think Brian is providing an extraordinary level of support. Bravo.

One caveat: do not use TextEdit.app on the Mac to edit the .vmx file, as it doesn't handle end of lines properly. Instead, use the free BBEdit (Google is your friend) (or vi in the terminal if you are a proper UNIX weenie).

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

brianriceca — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 07:10:23 GMT

If that were so, I would be able to reproduce the problem. This evening, I started with a 100%-patched-up-to-date Windows XP SP2 VM inside Parallels (I ran Windows Update until there were no more patches to apply). Then I went through the whole migration, Windows re-install, and HAL-replacement process. The VM's network still worked.

Of course, the reinstall clobbered all those patches. So I once again ran Windows Update until it had no more patches. And then, once again, I did the Windows re-install. The network still worked.

Is there a way to manually install/update the driver?

Other than explicitly deinstalling it and then rebooting? I can't think of one.

But I got one more trick up my sleeve for you to get this VM talking on the network. You have VMware Tools installed, right? Download to your Mac the Windows XP driver installer for the Intel PRO/1000 Ethernet adapter:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/detail_desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=4275

Then drag-n-drop it into your VM (or, if you like, use Shared Folders). Don't try to install it yet.

Then shut down and power off your VM. I'd suggest exiting Fusion entirely, just to make sure the VM is really off.

Now, using a text editor, edit the .vmx file. Delete any lines that start off with ethernet0.virtualDev, and put in a new line like this one at the very end:

[code]
ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"
[/code]

Yes, this is a virtual Intel PRO/1000 Ethernet card. Support for it was added to Fusion and Workstation 6 mostly to benefit 64-bit VMs, but we can exploit it here too.

Now power up the VM, and decline the opportunity once again to connect to Windows Update. Instead, run that PRO/1000 driver installer that you drag-n-dropped in earlier.

I did this on a VM, and it now has happy nice network connectivity. Give it a try.

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

sunnfun — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 03:54:11 GMT

What's in your C:\WINDOWS\Driver Cache\i386? Windows
XP is supposed to ship with a copy of a driver for
the AMD PCNET Ethernet card in driver.cab in that
folder.

I have two files in there:

driver.cab 61,568 KB 8/4/2004
sp2.cab 18,300 KB 8/4/2004

Some people in this forum who had problems with
conversion had run Parallels Compressor and chosen to
allow it to delete driver caches. I would tell you
to do what those folks have been doing (copying over
driver.cab and sp2.cab from another XP SP2 machine),
except, if that were your problem, I don't see how
you would have gotten this far. For those folks,
VMware Converter itself was failing. I guess it
couldn't hurt to try, though, especially since you
have a backup.

It looks to me like there is a problem to have a Windows XP SP2 Installation that is fully patched with literally hundreds of security updates and patches and what not to be re-installed with a XP SP2 CD. There seems to be an incompatibility between those.

I'll try to save the driver cache from the pre-update VM to a neutral location and see if I can run the driver update from there. Would you recommend to save other files too?

Did this machine have a virus infection at some point
in its life, which resulted in the deletion or
quarantining of driver files?

No, there were no problems at all. Like I said earlier, this VM ran just fine before I've installed Windows again. And only the NIC driver gives me these problems, everything else is just fine (See attached screenshot).

Did you buy your copy of Windows XP originally from a
guy selling stuff out of the trunk of his car?

I bought it on a flea market in Kuala Lumpur. It should be genuine, no?

No really, it's an OEM copy and I got it from Newegg.com two years ago.

But seriously, I am starting to worry that either
your install media or your Windows install is
corrupt.

I think the CD corrupts a fully patched XP SP2 installation and for some reason the VMWare NIC driver is affected by this.

Is there a way to manually install/update the driver? I tried to start the VMWare Tools installation and then update the driver from the mounted CD image, but it won't let me since the drivers are the same version...

If I would only to be able to connect to the Internet and have Windows Update run again and re-install all those patches...

Message was edited by:
sunnfun

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

brianriceca — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 00:46:40 GMT

What's in your C:\WINDOWS\Driver Cache\i386? Windows XP is supposed to ship with a copy of a driver for the AMD PCNET Ethernet card in driver.cab in that folder.

Some people in this forum who had problems with conversion had run Parallels Compressor and chosen to allow it to delete driver caches. I would tell you to do what those folks have been doing (copying over driver.cab and sp2.cab from another XP SP2 machine), except, if that were your problem, I don't see how you would have gotten this far. For those folks, VMware Converter itself was failing. I guess it couldn't hurt to try, though, especially since you have a backup.

Did this machine have a virus infection at some point in its life, which resulted in the deletion or quarantining of driver files?

Did you buy your copy of Windows XP originally from a guy selling stuff out of the trunk of his car? But seriously, I am starting to worry that either your install media or your Windows install is corrupt.

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

sunnfun — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 22:47:10 GMT

Brian, thanks for your detailed reply!

Yes I am logged in as an Admin. I did steps 1. trough 3. to no avail.

Incidentally, after you completely uninstall VMware
Tools and reboot, your VM will be able to talk on the
network, using the unaccelerated AMD PCnet 32 driver
that ships with XP. You would not want to live that
way, because a VM without Tools is quite annoying;
the mouse is weird, and you have to click ctrl-cmd to
get input focus out. But if you had some reason to
want to connect this VM before Tools finished
installing, that'd be the way.

I have now removed the driver and also removed the network adapter from the VM Configuration, rebooted a few times as necessary and then added the adapter again in the VM Config.

Guess what, it won't even install the generic driver. It looks on the windows CD and then comes up with

"There was a problem installing this hardware: AMD PCNET Family PCI Ethernet Adapter".

An error occured during the installation of the device:

The system cannot find the file specified."

So it won't even use the generic driver. I have then reinstalled the VM Tools, still no luck. The entry in the Device Manager says that "This device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device. (Code 31)". The driver version is 2.0.0.10 VMware, Inc.

I actually have gone back to my backup VM from before and did the upgrade to the multiprocessor HAL all over again, same results. It almost looks like all the windows updates and patches made the installation incompatible with the intial Windows XP SP2 install CD.

Any more ideas? I'd hate to go back to my single processor installation, The VM feels much snappier with Multiprocessor enabled.

Thanks a lot!

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

brianriceca — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 21:43:20 GMT

Hmm, I tried to reproduce that and failed. Make sure you are doing your work as a user with administrative privilege.

Anyway, here are some things to try, in ascending order of annoyance:

1. In Device Manager, right-click on VMware Accelerated AMD PCnet Adapter, choose Uninstall. After the uninstall completes, reboot. Log back in as a user with administrative privilege. Windows should re-detect the device on reboot and reinstall the driver.

If that doesn't work, try...

2. In Control Panel, switch to Classic View if necessary, then choose Add Hardware. Run the hardware discovery wizard. (If #1 didn't work, I bet this one won't work either.)

3. Use Add or Remove Programs to uninstall VMware Tools completely. At the end of the uninstall, you'll be prompted to reboot; do so. Then log in as a user with administrative privilege. Allow the spasm of device discovery to complete, declining any requests to connect to Microsoft for driver updates. At the end of the process, when Windows asks you to reboot, say yes. Now, after that reboot, install VMware Tools afresh; of course that'll call for one more reboot.

Incidentally, after you completely uninstall VMware Tools and reboot, your VM will be able to talk on the network, using the unaccelerated AMD PCnet 32 driver that ships with XP. You would not want to live that way, because a VM without Tools is quite annoying; the mouse is weird, and you have to click ctrl-cmd to get input focus out. But if you had some reason to want to connect this VM before Tools finished installing, that'd be the way.

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

sunnfun — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 20:29:21 GMT

Yes, re-running setup will regress it to whatever
version (most likely XPSP2) you have installed.

So, I had an unexpected day off today and ran the Update. Everything went smooth and XP now shows two processors. Only problem is that now I can't get online anymore. The "vmware accelerated amd pcnet adapter" shows a yellow "!" in the Device Manager and it won't go online anymore.

I ran the VMWare Tool repair twice now (Once after XP Setup was done and once after removing and reinstalling the Network Adapter), no luck...

Any Ideas?

Thanks,
Sun'n Fun

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

sunnfun — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 05:02:58 GMT

Yes, re-running setup will regress it to whatever
version (most likely XPSP2) you have installed.

Oh, @#$%... I guess I have to wait till the weekend then so I have two days to run Software Update...

Thanks for your reply, much appreciated!

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

getwired — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 04:02:55 GMT

Yes, re-running setup will regress it to whatever version (most likely XPSP2) you have installed.

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

sunnfun — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 02:07:02 GMT

Quick question, does this erase all the software and security updates? Do I have to redownload and reinstall the 120+ upgrade packs?

If that's the case I'll pass on this and live with only one core...

Thanks,
Sun'n Fun

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

getwired — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 23:16:27 GMT

FWIW, Brian - when Vista support is there, the process is much easier - since there is basically only one HAL in use anymore (multiprocessor ACPI) for both x86 and x64. That has always been the case for x64 since it shipped with Windows Server 2003 SP1.

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

tirmidi — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 22:31:47 GMT

Good point, tirmidi! I should not have forgotten
that a lot of people have old pre-SP2 CDs.

Folks who want to make an SP2 CD should know that
there is no need to actually burn a physical CD-ROM.
Instead, VMware Fusion can use the ISO image
directly as if it were a CD. ISO images typically
give better performance than physical CDs.

Good point, Brian. I should have remembered that you don't really need to burn a CD.

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

brianriceca — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 15:42:51 GMT

Good point, tirmidi! I should not have forgotten that a lot of people have old pre-SP2 CDs.

Folks who want to make an SP2 CD should know that there is no need to actually burn a physical CD-ROM. Instead, VMware Fusion can use the ISO image directly as if it were a CD. ISO images typically give better performance than physical CDs.

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

tirmidi — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 15:26:02 GMT

This procedure doesn't work if I have an original XP
disc and upgraded to XP SP2 via Microsoft Update
patches. Windows won't allow me to "upgrade" using an
older disc.

You need to make a "slipstreamed" XP SP2 disk, the instructions for which are here:

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp

Re: Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

jamng — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 14:58:33 GMT

This procedure doesn't work if I have an original XP disc and upgraded to XP SP2 via Microsoft Update patches. Windows won't allow me to "upgrade" using an older disc.

Parallels conversion continued: How to change a WIndows XP VM's HAL

brianriceca — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 06:22:38 GMT

Some readers of the instructions for converting a Parallels VM to Fusion

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/fusion_vm_from_parallels.pdf

have complained that it needs a concluding chapter. Because Parallels VMs running Windows are built using a non-ACPI HAL, and because converting a VM from Parallels to Fusion does not change the HAL, converted VMs cannot use Fusion's support for dual virtual CPUs.

The solution is to change the HAL. Before Windows XP, it was fairly easy: just go into Device Manager and choose a new one (NT4) or delete the old one and reboot (2000). And the point is moot for Windows Vista: VMware Converter does not yet support converting Vista installs. But Converter does support converting XP installs, so a lot of people have been using it to bring their Parallels XP VMs to Fusion. Unfortunately, Microsoft does not support changing an XP VM's HAL without reinstalling Windows.

A lot of people asked, "Okay, how do you do that?" So I prepared this followup. If you follow it, be sure to make a backup before you start! The following is one guy's experience, not an official VMware document. Frankly, most of what's in this document is Microsoft stuff rather than VMware stuff anyway.

I started off with a Parallels VM and converted it to Fusion using the instructions in the PDF I linked to above. I even installed VMware Tools in it. As you will see later, I could have omitted that step, but I wanted to mirror what most folks will have done with their converted VMs up to this point.

Next I connected my VM to a Windows XP SP2 CD. When Windows noticed the CD, it ran the CD's autoplay script and gave me this menu:

I picked "Install Windows", chose Upgrade from the "Installation Type" pulldown. I had to re-enter my Windows product key. Pretty soon, Windows rebooted into its text (non-GUI) installer.

WARNING! If you're following along with me, be alert here! When Windows reboots, click once in the window to ensure that it has input focus. Windows will, for a few seconds, display a message telling you to press F6 if you have a driver disk. Instead, when you see that message, press F5.

Windows will not acknowledge the fact that you pressed F5 right away. But in a few seconds, it will show you this screen:

Believe it or not, that's a scrolling window. Use the up-arrow to scroll all the way up to ACPI Multiprocessor HAL or ACPI Uniprocessor HAL.

Either of these HALs will allow your VM to shut down cleanly, without requiring the gui.exitonCLIHLT = "TRUE" .vmx file hack that that PDF discusses. But only ACPI Multiprocessor HAL will allow your VM to have two virtual CPUs. So I picked ACPI Multiprocessor HAL and let the reinstallation proceed.

Eventually Windows rebooted into its GUI installer, and the boring part began.

After 30 minutes or so, Windows finished reinstalling itself; I declined the opportunity to register my copy of Windows again; and then I had my VM back. Just one catch: the mouse was a little broken. Apparently, something in the reinstall process messes up the VMware mouse driver. So I hit ctrl-cmd to get input focus out of the VM, and then re-launched the VMware Tools installation once again (as always, by pulling down the Virtual Machine menu and choosing Install VMware Tools).

But this time I did a Repair of VMware Tools rather than an Install.

I allowed VMware Tools to reboot the VM as always, and my mouse was back to normal on reboot. Next I wanted to take advantage of the fruits of my labors! So I shut down the VM.

Look! Stand By isn't grayed out anymore! That's because we now have an ACPI HAL.

While the VM was off, I went into Fusion's Settings dialogue and changed the number of virtual CPUs from 1 to 2. Then I booted up and reveled in the multiprocessor goodness.

Mission accomplished.