New to VMware workstation

[andyturpie]

Good Morning ravers,

 

I am currently toying with VMwarework station and was wondering if there was a way to always open the cleanest virtual machine. The reason is we are hopefully going to use it to create packages for our RM network and would be good as to when we are finished with package creation that we log off and all changes made to the OS will be discarded and always guarenteed a "clean OS" on start up.

 

Hope that makes sense?

 

Regards,

 

Andy T

[Theblacksheep]

You make a VM with non-persistant disks.... any changes are discarded when powered off.

[andyturpie]

absoulte diamond info there "theblacksheep" much appricated- now configured and works a treat

[synaesthesia]

Christ, I'd been deleting and recreating the drive with a small script. Never even crossed my mind to try that - cheers fella!

[Arthur]

Snapshots are another option you might want to consider. These can be really handy if you need to frequently switch between different configurations. e.g. XP SP3, XP SP3 + Office 2010 etc.; or want to power off your VM and continue working on a package at a later date.

[andyturpie]

Christ, I'd been deleting and recreating the drive with a small script. Never even crossed my mind to try that - cheers fella!

 

I was thinking along the same lines but not with a script, just copying all the files to a USB and overwriting them each time, haven't looked at the snapshot function yet. God I love Edugeek

[birchanger]

I used to support about 10 primary schools running CC3. Best thing I ever did was buy VM workstation, build a clean CC3 client for every school and take snapshots. I always reverted to the snapshot when I needed to build a package and updated snapshots when the backlog of hotfixes grew long. Worked a treat!

[andyturpie]

I used to support about 10 primary schools running CC3. Best thing I ever did was buy VM workstation, build a clean CC3 client for every school and take snapshots. I always reverted to the snapshot when I needed to build a package and updated snapshots when the backlog of hotfixes grew long. Worked a treat!

 

You might have an answer for my next question Birchanger, the main install was from an RM CD, which basically is the vanilla-ish sort until you run the RM commissioning utilities to rename and join it to the domain. I have tried a few times but cannot get my VM to join the domain.

 

I was going to create a new VM by trying to use a floppy boot and pull the files across the network for a more autonomous build but everytime I start it doesn't detect floppy (0) do you wish to try to connect each time on start up which I do - checked settings and all seems ok. Any ideas before I open the PC and physically attach a floppy drive? Thanks again

Edited June 4, 2010 by andyturpie

[Theblacksheep]

@andyturpie, why not create a real physical clean machine then use VMware converter to covert it to a VM. Job done.

 

I do just use snapshots instead of non-persistant disks. The RM one only has the latest clean build. I'm also using snapshots for creating master builds for new domain (vanilla) PCs. Very handy to keep a baseline of builds (snap 1 = teacher laptops, snap 2 = teacher laptops with maths software)... I'll leave the rant about mass storage drivers for another time.

 

I do use non-persistant disks for automatically cloned ALAN VMs (and VMware view to connect to them (1 alan install!)).... but thats vsphere technology rather than workstation, but you get the idea.

Edited June 4, 2010 by Theblacksheep

[andyturpie]

thanks theblacksheep, I have downloaded the convertor looks quite a handy tool to have. I have also sorted the other issue out by changing the network adapter from NAT to bridged (doh should have checked that first). I also need to seek the AMD lance NIC driver and integrate into the RM boot floppy creator:)