Need Help Keeping VMs Small with multiple VMDKs

November 30, 2015, 5:35 pm

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So I have been looking around but cannot find any good information on how to keep the base VM as small as possible. I especially cannot find anything that is VMware specific and/or discusses split VMDKs. My problem is that my Windows 7 VM keeps growing and is so much larger than the XP version, having many of them becomes unmanageable on my SSD. I have an XP VM with software installed that is only 5 gB. My Windows 7 fresh install was already 8 gB. By the time I got SP1 on there, it quickly grew to 12 gB. Through use it keeps growing, but much faster than it should be.

I have a couple baseline questions to help me tackle this issue:

1) On split VMDKs, how are you supposed to compact the other VMDKs? What dictates the split (does not appear to be triggered by size)

2) Why do some of my VMs have the first VMDK listed and others have the second?

3) Why does the VM say 11 gB are used when the physical computer says 18? Even after a defrag and compact?

Please let me know if you have some good tricks for keeping your base OS VM as minimal as possible. I don't want to limit the user's capabilities, but I'm okay removing fluff.

What I've done so far:

No auto-updates, SP1 only
Reduced the Page File
Ran System Clean-up
Turned off System Restore
Defrag (both in the OS and in VMWare)
Compact

Is there any Win 7 fluff that I can remove?

Please advise,

Furbs

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Host machine X hangs after CTRL + ALT

December 1, 2015, 12:58 am

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Whatever the VM I am using as soon as I push CTRL + ALT to get out of the VM, the entire system freezes and only the mouse is functional.

I still can invoke terminals (ALT + Fn) and switch back to the still hanging X.

Linux gns3-iouvm 3.13.0-68-generic #111-Ubuntu SMP Fri Nov 6 18:17:06 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Distributor ID: Ubuntu

Description: Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS

Release: 14.04

Codename: trusty

VMware Player 12.0.0 build-2985596

vmrun version 1.14.2 build-2780323

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NOT_YET_IMPLEMENTED

December 1, 2015, 3:40 am

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I get NOT_YET_IMPLEMENTED exception. Until I press "OK" on error mesage machine works fine, but can not suspend. After OK, window disapears. After I run VMware again I can not take ownership of this machine, have to reboot system to run it again. I attach vm-support log. Please implement this missing code.

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VMware Workstation 12 Player - Boot Loop

December 1, 2015, 3:44 am

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Hi All,

I constructed a VM on my desktop and copied the disk file across to another machine. I then added the disk file to a new VM, but when the VM is powered on it gets as far as the end of "Windows is loading files" and then restarts the whole boot process. I have had a look through the log files and have been unable to find anything that would obviously be causing the problem; the worst I found were the file read and creation errors associated with the various config files.

Both my desktop and the laptop are running version the 12.0.0 of VMware Workstation 12 Player.
The problem also occurs when VMware Workstation 12 Player is launched with administration privileges.
The first boot device is the hard disk file
The laptop is running the VM inside another VM provider (VMware Mirage).

Does anyone know what sort of message I should be looking for in the logs, or knows how to resolve the problem?

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Thoughts about running Workstation and Workstation Player on same HOST

December 1, 2015, 1:32 pm

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I have a Win 10 Pro host. On that host I have Workstation 12 installed. I am thinking of using Workstation player to run the VMs I created in Workstation. Would running VM in Workstation Player be problematic because Workstation is installed on the same host computer?

I know someone is going to ask, so let me answer "Why on earth would you want to do that !?!"

The short answer is I want to practice energy conservation in my office. It takes several minutes to start the host computer and then start the 6 VMs I have running constantly during the day. Neither the host or VMs are need after the end of the day. They get left on because it takes a long time to start and later stop them. By using Workstation player I can create a batch file which will start the VMs in sequence when the host computer starts. If this feature were available in Workstation, I would not be contemplating this use of Workstation Player. I hope a board admin reads this and suggests this enhancement to Workstation 13. It would be very GREEN of VMware to incorporate this feature.

thanks,

pat

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Network Configuration

December 3, 2015, 6:34 am

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I am creating 3 machine-network using VMWare & Windows Server 2012 on each.

m1 with IP 192.168.100.1

m2 with IP 192.168.100.2

m3 with IP 192.168.100.3

Current Configuration

m2 & m3 uses Preferred DNS Server m1's IP

Domain Controller: m1

Current Situation

m1 can ping m2 & m3

m2 can ping m1 & m3

Problem

m3 can ping m1, but Not m2

Question

What changes I should make in the N/w configuration?

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VMware Player Pro v7 pre-sales questions.

December 3, 2015, 6:50 am

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Hi,

I have a couple pre-sales questions please:

Are VMware Player v7 Pro licenses still available for purchase in the USA ?

Is VMware Player v7 Pro supported on a Windows 8.1 host ?

Is Microsoft Windows 98SE a supported guest in VMware Player v7 Pro running on a Windows 8.1 host ?

I appreciate anyone's assistance. I couldn't confirm this with certainty using the host/guest configurator and various KBs.

Regards . . .

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Cannot start copied VM after later version of VM had blue screen error STOP 0x0000005 - BIOS not fully ACPI compliant.

September 10, 2013, 3:36 am

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Hi all,

I am facing a blue screen issue that appears unrecoverable in my VM: at startup, the system prompts to start in normal/safe mode and whichever way ends up with the blue screen and restarts. This happened after I was prompted to install VMWare v 6.0 while the VM was starting up - I clicked yes and it suddenly shut down. From then on the blue screen error appeared.

When this happens, we usually download another version of the VM that is currently working on another station and it boots up straight away.

But when trying to bootup a working version, the blue screen error is still there. Usually, VM folders are standalone entities that can be exchanged and will work on other machines, but not this time - I tried with 2 other working versions of the same VM.

It looks like VMWare player is using some sort of cached files, reproducing the error no matter what version of the same VM is started.

So in essence, I would like a tip on :

- Either how to clear whatever is cached with VMWare player - reinstallation did not give a fresh start and the error was still there.

- Or how to solve that blue screen error - booting up from the disk did not succeed and I could not access the recovery console.

More information:

- Trigger: This error happened after prompted to install VMWare v 6 while machine was starting up. I clicked yes and the machine shut down suddenly.

- OS: windows XP pro - Other VMs using windows XP work on my machine - other projects' VMs.

- Host machine OS: Windows 7.

Logs analysis:

- According to the logs, the following files are missing: Windows XP Professional.vmx, Windows XP Professional.vmdk

- These files are actually there in the folder of all 3 machines I tried.

I have attached the error and the logs to this post.

Any tip would be greatly appreciated

Kind regards

Ben

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vmware 12 on kubuntu

December 5, 2015, 5:23 pm

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Only problem, I had, it did not start from menu. I had to start it from console,

by command /usr/bin/vmplayer.

First, I thought it was more serious, and issued commands

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/vmware/lib/libgliexport LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/vmware/lib/libglibmm-2.4.so.1/:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

echo /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libglibmm-2.4.so.1 | sudo tee -a /etc/ld.so.conf.d/LD_LIBRARY_PATH.conf

ldconfig

But, I also had to edit /usr/bin/vmplayer file and add this setting, just before set -e command.

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/vmware/lib/libglibmm-2.4.so.1/:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

Now it's working as should be.

Message was edited by: vesav

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Hyper-V e VMWare Workstation

December 7, 2015, 11:46 am

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Como faço pra rodar o Hyper-V e o VMWrae Workstation no meu notebook ao mesmo tempo?

Obrigado.

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Why does the Removable Devices dialog keep popping up, even when having ticked 'Do not show this hint again'?

March 21, 2012, 1:04 am

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With VMWare Player 4.0.2 build-591240, when it detects newly attached USB device, a dialog box will appears as shown in the attachment.

This dialog box keeps appearing, when new devices are detected, even when having ticked the 'Do not show this hint again' option.

Why?

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vSphere WEB cliente falha ao tentar acessar o serviço do SRM

December 10, 2015, 5:47 am

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Estou logando no vSphere Web Cliente e e quando tento acessar o SRM aparece uma mensagem de falha de atenticação e os sites estão off line. Porém já alterei a senha da conta do serviço do SRM e mesmo assim não funciona.

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Virutal Machine Image of Free BSD for VMWare

December 9, 2015, 8:16 pm

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Hello everyone

This is my very first post in any VMWare community forum and I would like advice to leverage ready-made virtual machines available from the FreeBSD site:

ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/VM-IMAGES/10.2-RELEASE/amd64/Latest/

This page of the same site says the .vmdk image is for VMWare, but my latest copy of VMWare Workstation 12 Player accepts .vmx or .vmc files - not .vmdk:

ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/VM-IMAGES/README.txt

Does this mean that .vmdk images can only be loaded into other paid VMWare products?

I am looking forward to receiving some tips.

Thank you in advance

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Help ECC or NON ECC for vmware workstation

December 11, 2015, 12:10 pm

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I work as software developer, Hadoop (Cloudera), big data analysis and banking core application such as calypso, when I work i usually use vmware and work with 2-3 virtual machines at same time.

I am looking for a laptop 17 inch or 15 inch, but prefer 17. all new laptop workstation comes with Xeon an ECC memory as an option. (see new dell precion, MSI WS, or thinkpad P series)

and I am really confused between i7 6ºgth (i7-6820HQ v5 (8M Cache, 2.80 GHz)) or XEON E3 v5 (E3-1505M v5 (8M Cache, 2.80 GHz)), if I choose the xeon processor I can pick ECC memory, and here appears my question.

¿for my usage, ECC memory with Xeon cpu will give me a significant advantage vs i7 with non ECC memory?

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Reset NVRAM On El Capitan 10.11.2 Using VMWare Workstation Pro

December 15, 2015, 7:58 pm

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I have El Capitan 10.11.2 running on VMWare Workstation Pro. I have been told to reset the NVRAM by booting "my mac" while holding Command+Option+P+R. I can't seem to figure it using VMWare.

Can anyone help?

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Transferring PCIe Card from Old Physical Machine to New One - Will It Be Accessible by Image of Old Machine?

December 16, 2015, 5:55 pm

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Hi folks,

Sorry if this is a newbie question, but...

I have a 32-bit PC running XP, and I just bought a 64-bit PC running Windows 10. The XP box contains a PCIe audio interface card, and I plan to remove that card from the old PC and insert it into the new PC.

Before removing the card, though, I'm going to create an image of the XP system (using vCenter Standalone 5.5), which I'll then run in Workstation Player as a guest on the new machine.

So here's my question: Will Workstation Player automatically associate the physical PCIe card in the new machine with the virtual PCIe card in the VM?

Thank you,

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VMware Player unrecoverable error: (vmx)

December 17, 2015, 4:28 am

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Hello, I've got this problem when I want to start a virtual maschine with andy software:

VMware Player unrecoverable error: (vmx)

ASSERT d:/build/ob/bora-2844087/bora/vmcore/vmx/main/timeTracker_user.c:234 bugNr=148722

A log file is available in "C:\Users\Alberto\AppData\Roaming\Andy\machines\a1bbaaaa-3668-4724-aae2-441f3480534f\images\vmware.log".

You can request support.

To collect data to submit to VMware technical support, run "vm-support".

We will respond on the basis of your support entitlement.

I tried to unistall and reinstall but nothing

Here is the log file, can you help me? Thanks a lot!

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can vmware player run win vm from read-only drive

December 18, 2015, 5:43 pm

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I have Window OS VMs that run correctly (on VMware Player 6.0.4 on Win7 host). Are there any execution switches of configuration settings that would let me copy the VM to a read-only drive, launch it from there, and force any writes to a writable drive?

The objective is to prevent any changes to the VM itself.

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Can't access shared Windows Folder from Linux guest

December 19, 2015, 5:19 am

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Hi:

I'm quite new into this virtual machine stuff. Although I think I'm close to achieving all that I need.

This is my envieornmen't.

I have a Suse Linux guest running under a Windows 7 host (VMWare Player 12)

I have setup on my Windows 7 a shared folder called 'C:\Users\Enrique\Downloads\Shared_LINUX'

This same folder is set up as a shared folder on VMWARE Player

Running under LINUX, I issue the following commands

> ls /mnt

cdrom hgfs

> vmware-hgfsclient

Shared_LINUX

I have created a new folder on '/tmp/sharewin' which I'm attemting to access from LINUX.

But when I enter this command

> mount -v -t vmhgfs .host:C:/Users/Enrique/Downloads/Shared_LINUX /tmp/sharewin

Original command line: "/sbin/mount.vmhgfs -v -o rw .host:C:/Users/Enrique/Downloads/Shared_LINUX /tmp/sharewin"

Directory in share name must be an absolute path

Error: share name is invalid, abosting mount.

Please excuse me for posting such a naive and basic question, but I feel like I almost got it....and I can't really figure it out....

Thanks for your help.

Regards

Enrique Valdez

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VMWare Workstation Isolated Network with Internet Access

December 19, 2015, 10:04 am

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Hello dear VMWare community.

I'm trying to study about Computer viruses so i want to take some security steps. I don't want my VPC(Virtual Personal Computer) to get access to my main LAN network, but give him access to the Internet. That's because if i got a virus that search for computers in Network to infect, and i don't want to take that risk. I was reading about Host-Only networking but i got no Internet.

Any ideas how can i isolate my VPC that any virus can't infect any other Devices in LAN, but still have connection to the Internet?

I hope you can help me, i want to try out how fast i could become a Virus without damaging my or other devices, only my VPC.

Regards.

Some Specs
Host PC:
OS: Windows 7 Professional, 64-bit 6.1.7601, Service Pack 1
RAM: 8GB
CPU: Intel Pentium N3540 Quad Core 2.16ghz

HDD: 500GB

Internet Connection: Via WLAN (Adapter Name: Qualcomm Atheros AR956x Wireless Network Adapter)

VMWare:

Product: VMware Workstation 12 Player

Version: 12.1.0 build-3272444

Virtual PC:
OS: Windows XP Home Edition 32bit
RAM: 4GB
CPU: Dual Core
HDD: 50GB HDD

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