Windows NT Server 4.0 blue screen (video driver)

[mgoheen]

I'm trying to move a Windows NT Server 4.0 SP6a virtual machine from running under VMware 5.x on a PC (running Windows XP) over to VMware Fusion 2.0. When I first moved the machine over, it simply froze during the boot process. Booting in "VGA" mode allowed the machine to boot, so I upgraded the VMware tools. Now the machine blue screens at boot, seemingly when loading the display driver. I can still boot in VGA mode, and then I can switch back to the (glorious) 16-color VGA driver -- and perhaps that's what I'll HAVE to do. I've looked all over the net for previous downloads of the VMware SVGA driver, but haven't found anything...and I don't know if it will even help.

I could also try some other generic VGA driver, but I haven't found that either.

Do other people have NT Server 4.0 running in Fusion 2.0?

We moved this thing over to VMware so that we wouldn't have to deal with hardware issues...and THAT promise certainly hasn't been fulfilled!

Thanks for any help anyone has.

[DanM]

The VMware supplied video drivers aren't your problem, it's the cruft left behind from the physical-to-virtual conversion. Before P2V'ing an NT4 box uninstall any "remote display" solutions such as (and especially) Symantec PCanywhere. Anything that uses a shim or "mirror driver" is liable to cause serious grief when changing the video driver in NT.

As well, remove any vendor-specific systems management software (IBM Director, HP SIM, etc...)

P2V or P2P'ing an NT4 box is at best a dark art. Every time I think I've seen every way it can go horribly wrong, something else breaks in a new and wonderful way.

D.

EDIT: Sorry, I misread your post; you're going V2V here but the same issues apply; hope this helps.

[mgoheen]

Thanks for the reply...but as you pointed out, this isn't quite the case here. The VM was working fine under VMware Workstation (under Windows XP), it's SOME issue with Fusion (2.0).

If you boot in VGA mode and then just try to TEST a resolution using the VMware SVGA II driver the machine blue screens. I can try to get a snapshot of the crash if anyone cares (or if it will, indeed, help).

[DanM]

Go ahead and post the screen-grab, I'll see if I recognize anything in the fault.

One more thing, uninstall VMware tools in its entirety and reboot... Does the VM still lose its mind when you try to detect displays? You want to be able to boot the VM in VGA-only mode using the stock WinNT VGA.sys video driver. Once that's done you can mount the VMware tools CD and "have disk" the VMware video driver to see how that goes.

D.