Operating Systems That the Operating System Vendor No Longer Supports

For operating systems listed in this guide that the operating system vendor no longer supports, VMware
might, at its sole discretion, provide support and fixes to VMware products to address problems that are
exposed by running such operating systems on a VMware virtual machine. VMware is not responsible for
resolving problems with or providing support or fixes to the operating system itself.

Installing Guest Operating Systems

The Guest Operating System Installation Guide includes installation instructions for installing supported guest operating systems on the following VMware products:

 VMware ESX Server 2.0 and later

 VMware ESXi/ESX 3.5 and later

 VMware Workstation 4.0 and later

 VMware Server 1.0 and later

 VMware Fusion1.0 and later

 VMware ACE 1.0 and later

 VMware GSX Server 3.0 and later

If you are using VMware® Workstation 3.x, VMware GSX Server 2.x, VMware ESX Server 1.x or an earlier VMware product, see the user’s manual that came with your product for installation instructions for the guest operating systems supported by that product.

Operating systems that are not included in this guide are not supported.

See “General Installation Instructions for All VMware Products” on page for information that might apply to the guest you are installing and see “Latest Updates” on page 11 for the most recent changes to this guide.

General Installation Instructions for All VMware Products

Installing a guest operating system in a virtual machine is essentially the same as installing it on a physical
computer.

Before installing a guest operating system, create a virtual machine and ensure that its devices are setup correctly. For example, install networking software when you install the guest operating system, and configure and enable the Ethernet adapter for the virtual machine.

The tool or interface you used to configure the virtual machine depends on the VMware product you are
running.

A new virtual machine is like a physical computer with a blank hard disk. Before you can use it, you must partition and format the virtual disk and install an operating system. The operating system installation program might handle the partitioning and formatting steps for you.

NOTE You should disable screen savers that might be running on the host system before you install the guest operating system.

Windows PE 2.1 ISO image Installation Steps

Installation Steps

1. Boot the virtual machine from a Windows PE 2.1 ISO image.

After the boot process completes, a command prompt appears.

2. Use Windows PE to prepare your virtual machine to install a Windows operating system.

To Create a Windows PE 2.1 ISO Image

1. Select Start > All Programs > Microsoft Windows AIK > Windows PE Tools Command Prompt to open the Windows PE Tools Command Prompt.

2. Type one of the following commands to create a Windows PE build environment for an x86 or amd64
machine in the winpe-x86 folder.

         Platform                              Command

         32‐bit                                   copype x86 C:\Winpe-x86

         64‐bit                                   copype amd64 C:\Winpe-amd64

3. Create a Windows PE 2.1 bootable ISO image by entering the following command:

oscdimg -n -h -bc:\winpe-x86\etfsboot.com c:\winpe-x86\iso c:\winpe-x86\winpe-x86.iso

Installation Steps

1. Boot the virtual machine from a Windows PE 2.1 ISO image.

After the boot process completes, a command prompt appears.

2. Use Windows PE to prepare your virtual machine to install a Windows operating system.