[ltp] VMware: Modify virtual machine -- Copying From a Real Install

[Richard Neill]

Ron Heiby wrote:
> I've been trying to copy my existing A21p Win2K Pro installation into a
> VMware virtual machine.

Unfortunately, you're doing the equivalent of changing every single bit 
of hardware out from under Windows. All the VM hardware emulates very 
standard stuff, but it will be totally different to what Windows expects 
to see. Sadly, we've been spoiled with Linux, since Linux auto-detects 
and configures stuff at runtime, so you (quite reasonably) expect Win2k 
to do the same. Unfortunately, it doesn't.

My understanding is that it's very hard to do what you want, although 
some people have had success by first uninstalling all the non-critical 
hardware from within windows, and then setting the IDE and VGA drivers 
to generic. If you have install disks, I recommend a fresh install as 
less painful.

Incidentally, Qemu can boot the partition directly. It works fine with 
Linux (I can even run my own system from within itself!) provided that 
you use the -snapshot option (so you never overwrite the actual 
partition). This may be a quicker way to test.

Regards,

Richard