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NoelC1
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Windows 8 Developer Preview Runs on Workstation 8

Got it all installed and working (Windows 8 is slick!), but VMware Workstation 8 doesn't really "know" about Windows 8 yet.  I used the Windows 7 x64 settings and pointed the CD at the WindowsDeveloperPreview-64bit-English-Developer.iso from Microsoft.  Went in smooth as silk.

I'm going to snapshot the VM and try to install the Windows 7 VMware Tools on Windows 8.  What the heck!  Smiley Happy  I'll report back.  Otherwise I guess we'll have to wait for a Windows 8 VMware Tools package in order to get conveniences like copying the clipboard to/from the VM.

-Noel

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NoelC1
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

So far, the VMware Tools installation doesn't look too promising...  This popped up after the display went black and just the installer outline popped up.

VMwareToolsInstallFailure.jpg

Upon restart the display shows "Microsoft Basic Display Adapter" and VMware Tools is not in the Programs and Features list.  Perhaps I'll retry with a VMware Tools "Custom" install next...

-Noel

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NoelC1
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

An attempt to install just the mouse and display drivers from VMware Tools netted this message, and after I hit OK the system locked up.

VMwareToolsInstallFailure2.jpg

I guess the VMware Tools for Windows 7 just are not a good enough match for Windows 8's needs.

It's not like it runs badly without VMware Tools.

-Noel

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RDPetruska
Leadership
Leadership

VMware Tools installed just fine here.

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Statler6
Contributor
Contributor

It appeared to install fine on my machine too, but the Metro applications didn't like it. They didn't respond to clicking. I've now uninstalled the Tools and re-installed them using Custom Installation where I got rid of the SVGA driver. Everythings seems to work as expected now. Smiley Happy

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NoelC1
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Right, mine installed without the sVGA driver as well.

Do either of you find the mouse feels a bit sluggish going into the Windows 8 VM?  I tried adjusting the local mouse settings, but I'm not sure that helped.

Also, I'm not able to copy the clipboard between VM and host.  Does that indicate some other part of VMware Tools is not working, or have I missed a basic setting somewhere?  Today's my first day running VMware Workstation 8.0.

-Noel

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NoelC1
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Huh...   It just started working.  Now I can copy / paste between VM and host.  I just pasted a URL into IE10's address field.

-Noel

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sugarmonster
Contributor
Contributor

I had the same problem myself and got the machine into the state where the display just wouldn't respond at all, so I had to kill the vm and recreate it.

On the second run I

- updated my host video drivers to the latest ones (NVidia 280.26) before the install

- ran the guest full screen when I was installing the tools.

I'm not sure which one of those two changes made the difference but the tools install went through fine that time and I now have win8 with accelerated graphics and sound 🙂

Marc.

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mfelker
Expert
Expert

What was yousr host?

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NoelC1
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi Martin,

I have Windows 7 x64 Ultimate on a Dell Precision T5400 with dual Xeon quad core X5460s.

-Noel

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mfelker
Expert
Expert

Hi Noel!

    Gpog to hear from you again.  My machine is custom made with a AMD Phenome II x64 955 processor.  Mobo is ASUS M4A88TD EVO.

     Wondering if anybody else out there is running WS on a Linux host and which guest they are running.  Downlaodinig WS * for Windows (hsot will  be Windows 7 x64 SP1).  The I will copy the machine from Linux to Windows work opn it Windows and the grad it again from Windows using ntfs-3g.

\

Marty

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sugarmonster
Contributor
Contributor

Windows 7 x64 home pro for me, running on an i7 930. I didn't know what Win8 might want so I gave it 3GB and 2 cores.

Seems to be working fine so far, I'm just installing Visual Studio now to take a look at the Metro app developer story.

Marc.

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NoelC1
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Marc wrote:

Seems to be working fine so far

Just to be clear, you have the SVGA driver installed and it's working okay?  I found I could no longer boot Win 8 once I installed that.

-Noel

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sugarmonster
Contributor
Contributor

Yes, all VMware tools additions are working - the screenshot is probably too small to read but SVGA, HD Audio and SCSI are all present and doing their job. The accelerated graphics make a huge difference to the experience, it's very fluid.

I suppose it could be something to do with the host video card/drivers. I have an NVidia GTX 580, if that makes any difference.

win8.jpg

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NoelC1
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thanks for the info.

Another user here suggested I reduce the VM RAM to 2 GB (I had it at 4 GB) and lo and behold the SVGA driver installed and is working so far!

-Noel

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mfelker
Expert
Expert

Foolwed hints to make a custom install of Tools without the   SVGA driver and it installed and ran great on Windows 8 guest .   Time sync now seems to be the default so I used "Shrink Disk" and that worked fine.  Thanks for all the hints here.  Also copied  the guest I had setupl in Linux to Windwos 7 and I could copy files from the that Host to the WS 8 desktop.  I copied a free program which was supposed to tweak the Windows 8 GUI but it didn't work - that's OK because I'm getting used to Metro GUI and it is starting to look good.

Marty

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mfelker
Expert
Expert

Reducing the memory from 4GB to @GB did not work fori installing the SVGA drive  herer.  Screen went black and never returned.  Fortunately I had made a snapshot before this  and restoring  the snapshot with VMware Tools insatlled  except for the SVGA driver worked fine.  I made a shotcut to the CPL Lalunccher on the toolbar and saw that in facct time synac with the not was not checked - so I checked naturally.  The machinie works much better with 4GB of memory for sure.  I'm posting this from Google Chrome on the Windows 8 VM running under Ubuntu.  I'll probably leave well enough alone.  When I tweak it on Linux I'll copy it Windows again (I guess I can go back and fortth this way!)

Marty

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rjmaster19
Contributor
Contributor

I tried installing the Developer Preview using Windows 7 x64, but ran into the following message: "HAL_INITIALIZATION_FAILED". I also tried it with Windows 7 x32 (using the 32bit edition of course!)

I'm running VMware Player on Windows 7 x64. Has anyone else run into this?

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NoelC1
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

As far as I can see VMware player has not been released lately to bring it up to new technology.  The web page from which you download it shows VMware Player 3.1.4 is dated March 2011.

You need the newest virtualization environment, which supports AHCI, in order to run the Windows 8 Developer Preview.

-Noel

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Michael_Geary
Contributor
Contributor

On my ThinkPad W510, the magic number is 3696MB.

With the VM set to 3696MB RAM or less, the SVGA driver loads and runs great.

At 3700MB or more, it hangs with a black screen.    

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