Part 1 – Installing VMware Server 2.0 RC 2

I have been using VMware products for quite some time. With the latest release of VMware Server I thought it would be a good idea to write a How To, to help those people that want to learn more about virtualization.

VMware server is a free product provided by VMware as an introduction into virtualization. Version 1.0 of the product has worked quite well, particularly as a test, development and proof of concept platform. It was not really good enough for running production servers on. The latest release has made some improvements. The biggest changes are in the user interface. You can also now buy support if needed. Small businesses that need a server or two could use this product to meet their needs.

Small and medium enterprise that already have servers might want to look at VMware ESX3i. This is still a free product but has some very explicit hardware requirements.

To get started download the latest VMware Server release from VMware.

The beta version can be found at http://www.vmware.com/beta/server/download.html

The latest releases can be found at http://www.vmware.com/download/server/

You will need to register to get the serial number, save the file somewhere. It will take a little while to download. You can install VMware server on a PC, Laptop or Server. Make sure you have 1 GB of RAM or more and enough disk space to create the virtual machines on. It would also be better if you have multiple CPU’s or cores, but it isn’t essential.

Once it is downloaded double click the file and start the installation process. Follow the prompts as they come up.

The installation includes an Apache Tomcat server, which enables the Management interface through the web browser. You can change the port numbers, but only do this if you know what you are doing.

Enter the registration information, including the serial number you downloaded from VMware.

After the product has finished installing do not reboot. There is a known issue in the beta (The error does not always occur).

Open Regedit, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon. Change the entry for GinaDLL from vmgina.dll to msgina.dll. If it is already set to msgina.dll, then exit regedit.

If you rebooted before doing this you may get an error at start up saying

“The Logon user Interface DLL vmgina.dll failed to load. Contact your system administrator to replace DLL or restore the original DLL.”

To fix this, go boot into Safe mode.

Press F8 just after the BIOS screen, to get to the Start-up options for Windows, select Safe Mode from the menu. Log in using the local administrator username and password, and then follow the above steps.

Now everything is installed you are ready to start VMware. If you have used a previous version of VMware server you will notice that you now have to log into the VMware management console.

This new management console design is similar to that of VMware’s Virtual Infrastructure suite and is an improvement of the VMware Server 1.0 management tool.

Part 2 of Creating a Virtual machine with VMware Server 2.0 will describe how to create your first virtual machine.