Installing Windows Server 2008 RC1 on VMWare is dead simple.
First Download the necessary files:
1 Download the Windows Server 2008 Image from Microsoft
3 Download VMware virtual disk files
4 Download this VMWare configuration file or create an file here.
Second Install VMWare.
Create a new folder named WindowsServer2008 and put the Win2k8 ISO file, the virtual disk files and the VMWare config files in it.
Towards the bottom of the .vmx file configure the IDE disk
-
# First IDE disk, size 20GB ide0:0.present = "TRUE" ide0:0.fileName = "20g.vmdk" ide0:0.mode = "persistent" ide0:0.startConnected = "TRUE" ide0:0.writeThrough = "TRUE"
This is assuming you are using a 20GB persistent drive.
Also configure the name/location of the .iso file:
-
# Settings for physical CDROM drive ide1:0.present = "TRUE" ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-raw" ide1:0.startConnected = "TRUE" ide1:0.fileName = "WindowsServer2008RC1.iso" ide1:0.autodetect = "FALSE"
Once the .vmx file is properly configured either double-click the file or launch VMWare and browse for the file.
From here you should see the Windows welcome screen and the beginning of the OS installation. At this point you quickly find out if you configured the IDE disk when you are prompted to select a destination drive. If there is less than 5GBs of space the OS will not install. It took me a few tries to get this right.
You'll also need to have your Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Trial key to continue the installation.
The installation was surprisingly quick less than 20 minutes from clicking install to logging in for the first time.
Good luck and enjoy.
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