camner's Posts

I see that I can buy an OEM version of XP in various places. If I buy a new OEM copy of XP, and I install it as I build a new VM, does the EULA restriction saying "you can't move it to a new machine" mean I couldn't at some future point build a different VM and use the OEM copy of XP on it (assuming I don't use it on 2 different VMs at the same time)?

Is there any point in my VM having 2 internet connections? All I (think I) need is a bridged connection with a static IP so I can connect to the VM from another PC on my network. Is it also true that the duplicate network name issue is unrelated to the number of internet connections?

Aha...perhaps I have a clue! I ran IPCONFIG /ALL on the VM, and I see two local area connections..."Ethernet adapter local area connection 2" and "Ethernet adapter local area connection 3" (I have no idea what happened to connection 1). One has a fixed IP address with DHCP turned off, and the other has a dynamic IP address with DHCP turned on. If I'm operating in bridge mode, is this expected behavior?

Editing the .vmk file to eliminate references to ide0 eliminated that error message. I have not yet tried reconnecting the CD drive, but I'm less concerned about that right now because I rarely use CDs in my VM. I AM operating in bridged mode, not NAT. When I go into Terminal on the Mac and try to ping the PC computer name, I get an "unknown host" message (whether or not the VM is running), which suggests to me that I don't really know how to ping by computer name (I can ping by IP address, but obviously that won't return anything if the PC is off!). A quick google search suggested that in order to ping by name I have to modify the hosts file, but I doubt that would be useful, because if my hosts file mapped the PC name to an IP address, I'd be doing the equivalent of pinging the IP address... I'm really surprised to learn of the restrictions on an OEM version. At this point, I understand that I can't buy a retail version of XP any more, only an OEM version. Does that mean I'm SOL?

Well, you are right that the VM was built from a physical machine. BUT, the original physical machine is NOT on the network, and in fact, had its hard drive completely wiped before being given to a nonprofit. I didn't (nor wouldn't) run multiple machines from the same copy of the OS. But, I am puzzled by something...are you telling me that a copy of XP Pro that I paid extra for I don't have the right to move from one machine to another (assuming I wipe any trace of the OS from the "source" machine and use the copy of XP on only 1 computer, physical or virtual)? You obviously are more expert than I, but I would have thought that my XP license would allow me to use a single copy of XP on any single machine I choose. That's not the case? I'm not an XP expert....can someone tell me where/how I look up what this somewhat confused VM thinks is the "network name"? I'll try the suggestion of editing the .vmk file...thank you.

The vmx file is attached. Another oddity is that when the folder is bundled, I get an error message upon booting the VM that says "duplicate name found on network", which hadn't appeared before the install/uninstall of version 2.0b2 (and I recognize that correlation does not imply causation!). How do I go about figuring out what the network name is and why the VM thinks there's a duplicate somewhere? Thanks both for your comments and your help.

My apologies for the misunderstanding, which was entirely mine. OK, so I removed the offending VM from the Library, and then rebundled it by adding the .vmwarevm extension. When I went to start up the machine, this time the message was that the floppy couldn't be connected, and a second message that the device ide0:1 wouldn't be working correctly. When I went to settings under "floppy drive", the radio button that was selected was greyed out, but said something like "custom unsupported configuration". Of course, I don't have nor ever have a floppy drive connected. I then changed the setting to indicate "no floppy", and then the VM started up and seemed to run normally. Now, things are mostly OK, but every time I start up the VM (if it's bundled), it tells me that the device at "ide0:1 will start disconnected". If I unbundle the VM, I don't get this message. Now, I know that having the folder bundled or unbundled shouldn't impact the ability of the machine to locate a virtual device (at least I don't think it should...), nor should installing/uninstalling the version 2.0b2 have anything to do with this, but there it is....it happened, and it ain't the end of the world! (But it's always nice to understand what's going on....)

Well, I DID look at the help file (prior to my asking the question...and my apologies--I should have said that I had done that and found the info not helpful for my situation). Given my issue, I surely don't wish to trash the VM package file! I'm trying to get Fusion to work correctly when the VM is in the form of a package, which it no longer does after I downgraded from 2.0b2. Another approach occurred to me...is there way to create a new VM and base it on an old one? I know I create a new VM and use a disk from an existing VM, but then the disk file isn't in the package any more...

How do I remove the VM from the Virtual Library? The only way I could figure out how to do that was to physically move the VM bundle (now unbundled) from the location it was in and then move it back. That didn't help. I still can't start it up unless it is unbundled.

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, I've discovered that things aren't so simple. After uninstalling VMWare 2.0b2 and reinstalling 1.1.3, I had discovered that my VMs were no longer bundled (they no longer had the extension .vmwarevm). I rebundled them. While bundled, alas, VMWare won't find the machines, saying that a needed file was missing. As soon as I undbundled, all was well again. Odd. Something about the install 2.0/use 2.0/uninstall 2.0/reinstall 1.1.3 process has made some things go a bit awry.

I have been running DNS preferred on my (snow, not aluminum) iMac Core duo with VMWare Fusion for nearly a year. It works flawlessly (with the same mic, an old Parrot VXI Express through an Andrea USB sound pod). To make it really hum, I needed to max out my iMac with 3GB, and I devote about 1.1GB to the VM (any less and it bogs down!). I've taken the advice of posts here and elsewhere and changed the setting to maximize HOST (Mac) performance (something about a potentially nasty bug....). I would say, anecdotally, that the speed of using DNS on the iMac is roughly comparable to the 4 year old Dell 2.8GHz Pentium 4 I had before, and it's faster than running DNS on my Dell laptop. I briefly tried Parallels with DNS, and had trouble. It was much pokier, and beyond that, Parallels hogged my Mac's resources so I didn't every keep Parallels open while I worked on the OS X side. I've read posts elsewhere (not this board) about potential issues with the software activation. Nuance only gives 10 activations. Whenever you make certain kinds of changes to the virtual machine setup, DNS thinks you've changed the hardware DNS is on, and then uses up another activation. I figure I'm up to about 7 activations, although I'm still using on what I think of as the "same machine!" I hear that while Nuance tech support is willing to reset one's activation count via a phone call (after determining somehow that you aren't making a tidy profit selling DNS on the side!), when you respond to the question "what's your machine setup?" with "I run DNS through Fusion on a Mac" they say "we don't support macs." This is 3rd hand testimony, at best, so should be taken with the appropriately large grain.... I've also run DNS through Fusion on a Mac Pro 4 core.....FUN!

Hmmm...a bit confusing. So, I suppose one thing I can do is to keep different machines in different subfolders in the Virtual Machines folder, and only edit the display name field in the appropriate .vmx file. I'll give that a whirl. It WOULD be nice if there were a way to copy (duplicate) or rename a VM!

Thanks all for the help. I must admit that after the first reply, the conversation quickly got over my head....but I suspect that it is all beyond what I currently need to know. Oh, and thank you for the polite way you put "RTFM"

Thanks...I misunderstood the term. An added bonus is that copying using the OS sharing is much faster than copying via Shared Folders! One issue that got in my way a bit was that the folders on the Mac were not able to mapped using the default username/password. I changed the permissions on the Mac folder tree so that "everyone" had read/write access. Since my machine hides behind a router using NAT, I'm not worried about this, but if I ever decide to open up access, that's certainly not what I'd want. I presume there is a better solution that I'm simply not smart enough to figure out!

Thanks both for your responses. I'm having a hard time finding info on "OS Shared Resources"...is that another way to send files/data between the Mac and XP environments? How are they set up and used? Can you point me in the direction of info about that? Thanks again!