When going mobile I mostly use VMWare Player because of it’s simple interface and speed, unlike VMWare Server which in my opinion has a bloated web interface. However using VMWare Player means there is no native way to create new virtual machines. Third party solution like EasyVMX do a good job but I knew there had to be an easier way, the lazy way. The solution was to create a blank virtual machine, meaning it’s just an empty container waiting to be filled.
The process is very simple just insert a CD/DVD with the operating system prior to starting the virtual machine, then proceed with the regular installation.
Download blank virtual machine
Specifications
- 1 processor
- 512 MB of allocated RAM
- 25 GB of hard drive space (unallocated)
You might also find this article interesting : Create a virtual machine from an ISO with VMWare Player
January 6, 2009 at 3:53 am
Dude great work, so if understand this … all I have to do is (using your blank virtual machine), run up the blank virtual machine, mount the ISO, and run the install for linux as normal through the vm blank..!
Just one question, might be a bit stupid though…! when is comes back and says that hdd* is not formatted i should not really be worred hey, as this is reffering to the blank virtual machines vm disk space, is this correct…?
January 6, 2009 at 7:43 pm
You can use the ISO or cd/ dvd, I like the ISO because I don’t have to keep burning media . Remember it’s a blank virtual machine, do not worry after the operating system installation is done the virtual machine hard drive will be formated.
Good luck.
January 16, 2009 at 12:57 pm
The link “Download blank virtual machine” was working 30 minutes ago, but now it results in an error msgs like:
Warning: include_once(../../../wp-config.php) [function.include-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/ls354/public_html/log/wp-content/plugins/wp-codebox/wp-codebox.php on line 32line 142
January 16, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Thank you Dave, Thank you that was very nice of you to alert me of the problem it’s been fixed.
Thank you.
March 29, 2009 at 4:36 pm
This is great and works for me right way.
I am a first time user and have a couple of stupid questions.
a) I want to run my virtul machine in full screen. How to do that?
b) Is it possible to allocate a bigger hard disk space to virtual machine?
Thanks
Guoxi
March 29, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Guoxi I think I can help you. To expand the hard drive download VMware Converter (free) from the VMware site. Now to run the virtual machine in full screen you need VMware Tools, if you are installing Linux then you can use Open VM Tools or if using Windows you need to download a trial version of VMware Workstation to install the Windows version of VMware Tools.
This may be a bit confusing, post another comment if you have any more questions. Good luck.
April 2, 2009 at 8:16 pm
You opened a new world to me. With VMware Tools and VMware Converter, I am able to manage my computers in a brand new way. Thanks a lot,
April 3, 2009 at 10:35 pm
VMware offers alot of useful software, if you need more help post another comment. Good luck!.
April 9, 2009 at 12:19 am
I installed the windows 7 beta in the blank machine but several devices don’t work because the device drivers could not be loaded
(Ethernet Controller, Multimedia Audio Controller and Scsi controller). Could this be a VM problem?
April 9, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Probably, try this blank virtual machine configured for Vista http://linhost.info/download/windowsvista.zip. Its worth the try!.
April 10, 2009 at 2:39 am
The blank virtual machine configured for Vista worked!. I now have the network adapter and sound card working. This is a huge improvement over what I had before. Thanks for everything!!
April 11, 2009 at 12:21 am
Glad that it worked.
May 29, 2009 at 12:50 pm
dataninja, Thanks for posting this – very handy. It worked without a hitch for me.
Just one question – Do you know where one can download a blank VM with a bit more disk space than 12GB?
May 29, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Mike the blank virtual machine has been upgraded to a 25GB virtual hard drive. If you want I can temporarily upload a virtual machine with an even bigger hard drive ?.
June 27, 2009 at 11:23 am
I am loading and it comes up like it is supposed to. When I go to install the OS (XP Black) it says no hard drive is found. I noticed the SCSI HD icon at the bottom. Do i need to load a 3rd party SCSI driver to make this work?
July 24, 2009 at 11:19 am
I’m having same issue as Chuck. If empty VM has 25gb Harddisk, how can I get XP to find it?
August 25, 2009 at 3:12 pm
I’m having the same problem as Chuck and Jeff…
After poking around a little, I found that you may need the SCSI Disk Drivers found at http://www.vmware.com/download/server/drivers_tools.html
Also see http://pubs.vmware.com/guestnotes/wwhelp/wwhimpl/common/html/wwhelp.htm?context=guestnotes&file=guestos_winxp.html
Sadly, this didn’t work for me, but maybe someone else can use it to find a solution…?
August 26, 2009 at 1:04 am
I just made changes to the virtual machine, please download again.
September 19, 2009 at 1:09 am
I’m new at this, and not very computer savvy, but this lazy way sure made things easier!
I have a problem that i can’t seem to find a solution to, however. My pointer keeps jumping out of the VM back to the host every time I try click on something.
Anyone have any thoughts on what could be wrong?