chicken and egg

[robber576]

i am new to this and learning but now i am stuck and running in circles for a few days.

i have vmware 15 installed on a windows7-64bit and am trying to get a win2000 running to use some old 32bit software, i got it installed but now the tools have to be installed and as i understood the tools need w2k-service pack4, it will break off installation with an error(setup was unable to upgrade the windows installer), i found a forum post for that error telling me the win2000 needs to be updated to sp4, so i need to install sp4 and there is where i get into the chicken and egg, because there is no sp4 installed the tools will not install and because the tools will not install i cannot get sp4 in the vm and install sp4

i tried to make a shared folder , followed the instructions on several fora but the folder will not show up in my virtual w2000, as i understood this is because i have no vmtools installed 🤣, this running around in circles is getting funny.

trying to import via a usb stick also doesnt work, the stick doesnt show up in the vm despite checking the checkbox to mount it to vmware when asked.

so i am stuck and running in circles, how do i get the w2k-sp4 installed?, i have the sp4 update as a *.exe file on my harddrive.

could this be caused because i am not logged in as admin but as user?, i tried to "run as admin" but that doesnt help.

thank you for helping.

gr richard

[niyijr]

Sounds frustrating. I feel you.

What if you got a Windows 2000 SP4 ISO image and do a fresh install of that in VMware Workstation? I suppose it should be possible to find that online.

[oligarch]

I found (and downloaded) sp4 here:

https://winworldpc.com/download/41c38361-6518-c39a-11c3-a4e284a2c3a5

[scott28tt]

Use a regular network shared folder, rather than the VM-specific shared folder feature.

Wherever you have your SP4 files on your host system, share that folder on your network the same as you would any other file share. Then in your guest OS go to \\hostnameorip\nameofsharedfolder to access the SP4 files.

[robber576]

thanks all for giving suggestions and help.

i already feared it, i need to install w2k+sp4 integrated or burn a cd with sp4, i did the cd burning as i have no intention of reinstalling w2k, 1x is already a trip down memory lane of waiting and waiting and waiting 😁

it is up and running now, i have the tools installed and now copy/paste to import works.

i thought this vm ware can mount just about any windows os but apparently(obviously) thats not true, its only certain versions it can mount with some user friendly capabilities, i have to be fair, it did install and work but just had no import options besides burning a cd 😉

is there somewhere on this site maybe a list with windows os and the limitations/prerequisites i can expect ? , i am planning to also install more or less the whole series, 3.11-95-98-me-xp as i have a lot of old software i want/need to use.                            i have for that purpose now a bunch of old pentium machines and even a 386 and 486 but as these get older and older and more fail i am planning to decommission them and go vmware.

all this bug-searching is very time consuming i would like to know in advance what to expect and take measures.

thanks and greetings richard, netherlands.

[niyijr]

Hello,

Glad this is sorted out. Although, another way is to get the SP4 files into an ISO image by using MagicISO. Once you have the ISO, you can then mount it on the virtual CD drive. I guess that may have been easier than physically burning it. 😊

[RaSystemlord]

Glad that you got it working. I don't know about any specific limitations per OS and their SPs, but as a summary and further comments:

- if you use NAT (or Bridged), you can use Windows networking. The only limitation is the generic network functionality within Windows, otherwise it always works.
- as mentioned, you can create an ISO image from anything with several different software or by default delivered functionality of many Linux distros

- you didn't explicitly mention: didn't drag an drop between desktops work? Perhaps copy/paste, rather than draging, is a safer bet. Generally, you don't need VM Tools for this to work. Not sure how it is per OS, because that seems to be broken with recent *buntu/VMware-combinations.

- I gather you have a specific reason for installing Tools ... you don't need it for basic use

[robber576]

thanks all again for replying.

to elaborate; i tried drag and drop but also copy/paste and both did not work, just like the usb-stick and the network share, all work now without any problem after installing the vmware tools.

having an os installed is ofcourse nice but otherwise pretty useless if you cant get any data in or out like program installers and after that (in my case) whole series of panoramic photos to import to get VR (virtual reality) photo data as output to my regular desktop on win7.

this is not a novelty for me but a way to keep using old software that doesn't need a subscription, most of it is photographic software but also hardware like a film scanner with wide-scsi connection.

it was a bit rocky start but i got it working now and i get more and more used to the way this stuff works, so thank you all.

gr Richard