Posted: 8/6/2010 6:43:33 PM EDT
| I'm trying to set up a windows 7 virtual machine through OS X...looking for any advice or help. Thanks. |
| Used to swear by VMWare, but now I'm using VirtualBox It does very well with USB, etc. It also runs headless easily, so you can boot it with your host machine and only connect to the GUI as needed. |
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I'll second virtualbox –– literally just download it and run it.
Once you've downloaded it, you've got to create a virtual machine. Basically just push the "new" button and it walks you right through. Attach either a CD drive or an iso file as your install disk, and boot it up. Probably the easiest is one of the Linux live CDs, you can run it off the CD, then install it if you like it or try another version if you don't. post questions, I'll help you if you need it. I've got 9 VM's built in virtual box on my Mac. |
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http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
Select the link to download the VirtualBox 3.2.8 for OS X hosts (note: I run VirtualBox on Linux so how to install in on OSX is unknown to me) Once it is installed you fire it up: Click New Enter Name For your new VM (Entering Windows 7 will automatically select the other two options below) Select your base memory; how much ram do you want to allocate to the virtual machine (If you have a bunch then give it enough to run smoothly) Create new hard disk, I use expanding. Give it enough space for what you are going to use the vm for. Expanding disk will start off small but will grow in size as you install software on the VM. Select finish and then it will bring you back to the main screen Highlight your new VM and select settings Select Display and change the amount of "video ram" to what you think you will need. For windows guest you can select 3d acceleration Select Storage, your "cdrom" will show as empty. You need to add your cdrom drive or an iso image (what I always use because it is faster) to use for installation By default it uses NAT for networking and for most uses this works perfectly well, but you have a few other choices. I use Bridged for Virtual Servers because it will be accessible from other computers on my network or from the internet if I forward ports to it. Using NAT will make it invisible to other computers, but it will still be able to access the Internet. On Linux it is pretty straight forward to install (I use Debian based distros and apt-get to install). Windows is even easier to install VirtualBox on. I have no clue about OSX. The VirtualBox GUI is pretty straight forward and easy to configure machines, you can always tweek a machine after it has been created; video/system ram allocation, networking type, etc. I would also suggest reading through the User manual, it has a bunch of good info in there. One of the most important things to consider in my opinion is the amount of ram the host computer has. The more ram you have the more you can allocate to the guest. If you don't have a lot of ram then you don't want to allocate too much or both the host and guest will run like crap. I find that allocating 512mb of ram (Out of 2gig) to my Linux and XP guests runs them pretty good. And remember that the guests video ram is also pulled from the same pool as your system ram. |
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I'll second virtualbox –– literally just download it and run it. I'll third that. Everything just works right off the bat. I use high-end VMware products at work, but VirtualBox at home. How does it compare to VMware? I've been using VMware for work for the past 5 years and even have it for home. Just wondering if its worth switching or if there are any benefits over VMware? |
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Quoted: How does it compare to VMware? I've been using VMware for work for the past 5 years and even have it for home. Just wondering if its worth switching or if there are any benefits over VMware? It's like VMWare workstation. You generally run it on demand, not as a server. It's free, unlike VM workstation. The network and USB access works like a champ, as does access to the host's file system. All the stuff that 'vm tools' does is native to virtualbox, so it's a simpler setup. I use it mostly to test stuff for compatibility against older versions of software, or to keep goofy DOD-specific settings, and keep it shut off the rest of the time. If I wanted to run a persistent VM I would use VMWare Server. You can't (afaik) do any fancy load-balancing tricks with it like you can with VSphere. I have not converted a real system into a VM with it like I have with VMWare or Acronis, but (again, afaik) it is possible. (Acronis is pretty slick, btw) Give it a shot. It's free, and very simple. |
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Here's another vote for Virtualbox. The PUEL (Personal use and Evaluation License) version, not OSE (Open Source Edition) is what you want, as the OSE flavor doesn't have USB support.
I can't speak to the differences between VMware and Virtualbox, except to say that I was not smart enough to figure out a way to get a fully-functioning machine going under VMware for free. Maybe that's intentional. All I could find for free was the VMware player, which required that I already have a virtual machine created in the VMware format, for which I would have needed some other program that I had to buy. Also I'm not smart enough to configure VMware. Virtualbox was a breeze. I even got a Windows 98 virtual machine going, although I couldn't do much with it. I routinely use Virtualbox under Ubuntu 9.10 64-bit, to run a virtual Windows XP machine. It is useful for those few programs which do not require 3D graphics, but simply are not available for anything but Windows. It is also good for using USB devices that require Windows-only drivers, such as many printers. Be aware that you can't really expect to run any 3D applications under Virtualbox. 3D games will either install and then crash when you try to run them, refuse to install, or run but be slow & buggy. Virtualbox's main strength is running Windows-only, non-3D things like Paperport, MS Office, or a Windows-only printer. Virtualbox is also great for testing, as you can simply restore the image to an earlier time if you mess things up/get a virus/etc. You can even have your CDROM or DVDROM drive be a passthrough device. I used this briefly to watch DVDs on my virtual Windows XP machine, before I figured out how to watch DVDs natively in Ubuntu. |
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The newer Vmware Player has the ability to create virtual machines from scratch unlike the older versions. This is a big improvement on vmwares part. You use to have to mess around with third party software and edit configuration files by hand to install a guest from scratch.
As far as Virualbox vs Vmware, I like the fact that VBox is easy to setup and everything just works. Now I do use Vbox on a CLI only headless Linux server which takes a little knowledge of how to use vbox's command line tools to build and install a guest system. And yes, vbox works great for running virtual servers...not as refined or as easy to maintain as vmware server, but as long as you know what you are doing it's pretty easy. I would say that both vmware and vbox are both great products. But I like vbox better due to it being less of a resource hog, and totally free. Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile |
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I started using VirtualBox before I realized that the latest version of VMware lets you create your own VMs. I've been real happy with it so far and the USB support does work very well. I've used it on Windows hosts and created Linux VMs as well as running it on Linux creating Windows VMs. It the latter scenario I have had a problem on more than one machine with a XP VM that would quit working for some reason. This seems to only happen with my laptops, though. I have a XP VM that's been running fine on my Ubuntu desktop.
There's a little more work if you want to install the guest additions under Linux but it's not too bad. |