Migration path & other questions

[pszilard]

Summary[/b]: Currently I am using WS 5.5 in eval mode and would like to move to 6 eval and then if stable environment, buy the license. The environment is "home office" with 2 TB Samba file server, main PC with WS and a couple of extra small PCs. My questions relate to the main PC, which is a Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM and 4x200GB HDDs in RAID 0+1.

Wish list[/b]: I wish to migrate my host OS from Win XP Pro 32 bit to 64 bit, so I can access the full 4 GB of ram, as XP 32 bit "wastes" half a gig of addresses for memory maped h/w so I can only utalize 3.5 GB ram even though I have 4 GB installed.

I also wish to transfer all my virtual PCs to the new WS 6 running on Win x64 host.

My experiances[/b]: So far have not been successful on most fronts. I have downloaded all the 64 bit drivers for the Intel mobo and the ATI dual head video. But...

x64 XP is giving very slow HDD performance, and also the gig NIC is slow. Furthermore with no s/w installed (i.e. no antivirus or anything, and the PC disconnected from the net), one of its cores is still running at 30% average - while the overall cpu usage shows 3%!!! (I can't figure that!) Looking at the processes, the Idle Process is 99%. Go figure...

Then when I installed WS 6 eval, and copied all virtual PCs, into the same folder tree as before, it wouldn't start some saying that it was already running! Others that did start, would not upgrade VM Tools, or even do an uninstall then install of VM Tools.

I had contemplated switching host OS to Linux Ubuntu, as I am on eval license of WS, I could buy the Linux version, if that was better, but I am concerned with my extremely basic Linux knowledge, coupled with drivers for dual head monitors and shared network printers, not to mention USB 2 and video editing with Adobe Premier (which I was thinking of running on the native host XP Pro.

Questions[/b]: Firstly I invite general recommendations on which way to do things. Second I have a few explicit questions:

1) What special steps are required to migrate VPCs from WS 5.5 to 6?

2) Specially with respect to VM Tools in the above?

3) Is there a way I could make use of the "lost" 512MB ram if using 32bit XP, perhaps as a "RAM DISK"?

4) Any thoughts about why the phantom CPU Core 1 usage under x64 XP? Anyone have 1st hand experiance with hosting WS 6 or 5 on top of XP x64?

Thanks in advance,

[pszilard]

Well, my post had generated zero response! Have I said something to upset you all, or is it too difficult?

[louyo]

>>Well, my post had generated zero response! Have I said something to upset you all, or is it too difficult?

I don't think you have upset anyone, it is just that your post seems to address only people who are running XP64 in a 64 bit Intel Core 2 duo machine with 4GB of RAM. Keep in mind that most of the people who post here are users and this is not the official support mechanism for VMWare (although Kevin is more than responsive).

Some of those questions would probably get better response in an XP or machine specific group. Personally, with the state of 64 bit OS's, I would not try to upgrade an existing machine from 32 to 64 unless the manufacturer of the mobo and video card had drivers with a proven track record (reported by the masses). In fact, I would only run an XP64 system if it came that way from my supplier. Just my stupid opinion.

I would guess that some of your VM's say they are in use because there are lock files/folders that didn't get closed, you can delete them. If, OTOH, you are copying your VM's and they have snapshots in them, you should see some of the posts about problems with that.

I have had mixed success upgrading VM's (Linux ) from version 5 to 6. In my case, reinstalling the guest VM was a work around which is not so bad with Linux. I have not had problems upgrading (and installing VM Tools) on Windows guests. I host on a Linux system and primarily run XP and Vista VM's for development and hosting Sharepoint (W2003 Server) and run pretty much error free.

Lou

[pszilard]

Thanks for replying. Although I got the 64 bit drivers, I had gone back to XP Pro 32 bit and WS 5.5. Looks like the "enhancements" are not ready for prime time

Had better luck upgrading my NasLite2 file server to 4x 400 GB HDDs. No I will just have to reinstall my main PC...