Networknet.nl

Since couple days I am running Windows XP x64 and I wanted to scan some documents with my old Canon Lide scanner which is connected by USB cable on the host. Drivers are not supported in Windows XP x64 and therefore I am using a Windows XP 32bit virtual machine.

After connecting the scanner in Removable Devices I get the message below: 

• Please upgrade your virtual machine to enable high-speed USB 2.0 support for the device “Canon CanoScan”. An attempt will be made to connect this device to the best available host controller. This may result in an undefined behavior for this device

• Shutdown the virtual machine; click VM in the menu and choose “Upgrade or Change version”; follow the wizard and choose VMWare Workstation 6/6.5
• Open the vmx file in Notepad and change virtualHW.version = “6.0″ and add ehci.present = “TRUE” to the configuration.

Getting done is how the virtualization at least helps me here. Scanner is now working.

I am running Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Desktop Edition 64bit edition and after I installed VMWare Workstation 6.04 Linux x64 edition I got the following error when trying to start my virtual machines sitting on a NTFS USB disk volume.

VMware Workstation unrecoverable error: (vcpu-0)
Failed to allocate page for guest RAM!
A log file is available in “/media/USB_DATA/NET-DC-01/vmware.log”.  Please request support and include the contents of the log file.
To collect data to submit to VMware support, select Help > About and click “Collect Support Data”. You can also run the “vm-support” script in the Workstation folder directly.
We will respond on the basis of your support entitlement.

Please click OK and locate the vm file. Open the vmx file with nano or another text editor and add the setting below. Save the file and try to start the virtual machine again.

This setting doesn’t use named-file - use for VMs on USB-disks or other slow disks
Windows: useNamedFile= “FALSE” causes memory to be backed by the host’s swap space.
Linux: useNamedFile= “FALSE” causes a hidden file to be created in a temporary directory, which is immediately deleted when you power off the VM

If you are curios and interested like I am than the latest VMWare Workstation 6.5 beta is definitely something to download and install on your system.

Why Participate in a VMware Beta Program?

Here are a few reasons why you should participate in VMware beta programs.

• Exposure to the next generation features helps you grow your technical skills and understand the direction of the virtualization industry.
• Ability to prove that the product will work properly in your environment and report areas where it doesn’t.
• Prototype your solution during the beta program and be ready for deployment when we reach General Availability.
• Help shape today’s product and tomorrow’s features.
• Ability to work with VMware engineers on some programs.
• Problems encountered have a higher probability of being fixed by GA.

Join the new beta program for Workstation 6.5 here.

New Features in VMware Workstation 6.5:

• Seamless integration of guest and host applications with Unity
• Enhanced advanced VM Record and Replay
• Support for Smart Cards & Smart Card Readers
• Link state propagation networking
• Enhanced ACE authoring capabilities
• Easy Install Option’s support for Linux
• Improved 3D graphics Support
• Release 91182 supports ESX 3.5 and 3i installations

For me personally I would like to explore Unity and ESX in virtual machine support features. I like to keep my system as clean as possible and right now I can have one virtual machines hosting all my applications which I use occasionally. I don’t want to install Adobe Photoshop, Paintshop,  Visual Studio and many others on my host system; with Unity I can bring all those application to my host system. Definitely  something I will use quite often.

Since the release of ESX 3.5 and 3i I have been waiting to have a working installation of those products into VMWare Workstation. Thanks to Eric from NTPRo.nl who is confirming that ESX is up and running in the latest release of VMWare Workstation 6.5 beta.