Any Plan to Allow Auto-Start for VMs in Workstation Product?

[westes]

I have been patiently waiting for YEARS now for VMWare to add a feature into Workstation that lets us auto-start virtual machines when a computer is rebooted, WITHOUT requiring any user to login.    This would fill the void in the VMWare product line from their discontinuing the VMWare Server product that ran under Windows.   There are clearly cases when you have a simulated network of VMs and want to have those run 24x7 on a workstation.   It is an unbelievable hassle to have to login and start them every time the computer is rebooted.

Does VMWare perceive some kind of conflict with VSphere or other server-based products if it allows this feature in Workstation?  Honestly, why would VMWare care?  We are paying money for workstation.    As long as you get paid for the software why micromanage something so low level as why someone would want to autostart the virtual machine on a workstation?

Frustrated by this product.....

[dariusd]

Hi westes,

Please see the Workstation 9 documentation under "Configure Shared and Remote Virtual Machines to Start with the Host".  Does that meet your needs?

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Darius

[continuum]

> I have been patiently waiting for YEARS now for VMWare to add a feature  into Workstation that lets us auto-start virtual machines when a  computer is rebooted,

Waiting is fine - but I guess you also slept the time away 😉

> It is an unbelievable hassle to have to login and start them every time the computer is rebooted.

Man - where have you been all the time ? - folks use vmrun cmds to autostart VMs at system start since years.

The latest version had autostart feature buildin - but the gap between ESXi and WS does  not get smaller because of this.

[westes]

Hi Darius, this feature is new in release 9?   I will buy that release and go test soon, thank you.    

[westes]

Thanks for the alternative solution.

[dariusd]

Hi Will,

The feature was added in Workstation 8.0.

There's also a free 30-day evaluation of Workstation, if you'd like to try Workstation 9 before committing to a purchase.

Cheers,

--

Darius

[westes]

I am looking my release 8 product and in following the short document you referenced, it looks like I have to first make each VM I want to autostart a "Shared VM".   After I move the VM into the Shared VM area, then I can access the autostart feature.    Correct?

What are the implications of making a Virtual Machine a "Shared VM" in Workstation?   

[westes]

continuum what do you see as the primary advantages of running ESXI instead of Workstation, for autostart VMs?

Assume we are not constrained on disk, memory, or CPU.    Assume further that we don't really have time or resource to set up two redundant servers sharing the same disk.   We don't need to load balance VMs or migrate them.   I'm looking for a very simple reliable way to get 10 or fewer VMs to autostart in a 64-bit host OS environment.    Total memory consumed across all VMs will be under 10GB.

[westes]

Darius, if I need to support Windows 2000 VMs, am I better off purchasing another Workstation 8, or will WS9 also support Windows 2000 client OS fully?

I believe I was having problems getting VMWare Tools to install correctly on Windows 2000 VMs even under Workstation 8.

[dariusd]

Windows 2000 VMs should run fine on either WS8 or WS9.  If you want to use VMware Tools, make sure you've installed all the available Windows 2000 service packs inside the guest: VMware Tools will fail to install if you don't have at least SP4.

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Darius

[dariusd]

Yep, you can configure the Autostart feature only for VMs that are under "Shared VMs".

The best information I found on the implications of sharing a VM is in the Workstation 9 manual under "Interacting with Remote Hosts and Virtual Machines":

"Features that you cannot use with remote virtual machines include Unity mode, shared folders, AutoProtect snapshots, drag-and-drop, and copy and paste."

That somehow sounds like it might not be a definitive list...

Hope this is of some help, regardless!

--

Darius

[westes]

I have Windows 2000 servers with SP4 installed where VMWare Tools refuses to start.    

[westes]

Would those features continue to be available in a Shared VM if you only accessed it locally?    

[dariusd]

No.  Sharing the VM will make those features unavailable for anyone/everyone using the VM, whether local or remote.

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Darius

[dariusd]

That is probably something that deserves its own thread, if there aren't already solutions to be found elsewhere in the VMware Communities site or the VMware Knowledgebase.

(Sorry to be a thread-stickler, but it does help keep the Communities website more searchable, and hence more useful to all of us, by keeping separate topics separate.)

Thanks,

--

Darius

[westes]

Losing copy and paste from host OS to VM would be a tough loss.

Losing shared folders is also a tough one.   That was a nice way to stage files over to the VM.   

Definitely do not want to start Windows file sharing on the VMs due to security issues.    I guess we have to use a file server.

[continuum]

> continuum what do you see as the primary advantages of running ESXI instead of Workstation, for autostart VMs?

I used to be an advocate of WS for long years - but not any more.
With the latest version of WS the performance  dropped down so noticeably that I would rather spend 500 euros for a cheap second hand server than 200 for a copy of WS when the task is to use one of both for a small scale 24x7 setup.

For that decision autostart feature would be irrelevant. If I really had to use Workstation to race against a ESXi I would use ersion 6.5.4 and do the autostart with vmrun - especially since I know that that old version can run latest Windows guest such as Windows 8

[westes]

Okay, thanks for your very quick and very helpful answers.

[westes]

continuum, you feel that Workstation 6.5 runs much faster than 8 or 9?  Can you quantify that?

vmware run can be used to autostart 6.5 VMs?

My cynical perspective on PCs is that it costs you $1K to buy the hardware, and $20K of time and manpower to set it up, make it work, and make it compatible with other infrastructure.   This is why cloud computing is so attractive.   The whole PC / server architecture is a death trap...an endless sink hole of time spent on incompatible software, bugs, limitations, and maintenance.

[continuum]

> continuum, you feel that Workstation 6.5 runs much faster than 8 or 9?  Can you quantify that?

I could run comparison tests ....
I would not select 6.5.4 because it feels faster - more for other reasons.

This is on a 8 Gb RAM Dell machine with Windows 2003 32 Enterprise

With WS 6.5.4 tuned for overcomitting of RAM I can run 20 VMs with each 1 Gb RAM - and would not be afraid of host freezes
With WS 9 I expect frozen VMs or a non responsive host if I use 6 VMs or more of those 1Gb RAM VMs

With WS 6.5.4 VMs suspend , shutdown or start of a VM happens in a reasonable time - always abhout the same
With WS 9 I avoid suspend or shutdowns of VMs as a suspend occasionally can take 30 minutes and can result in a frozen host

With WS 6.5.4 tuned for performance of a single VM a single 3 GB VM is always fast
With later versions tuned for performance a VM may be fast on mondays and crawl on tuesdays

Maybe it is just me - some folks seem to be satisfied with the performance of WS 9 - for me it was the worst WS I ever used.
Today I switched one of my ,machines back  to 6.5.4 ...