VMware Workstation 8 Tutorials
Getting Started with Workstation / Host System Requirements
Subtitles of the Movie (VMware Workstation 8 / Getting Started with Workstation / Host System Requirements)
Now let's turn our attention to the Host System Requirements. When you get ready to install VMware, really any virtual product, you need to be concerned with the System Requirements for both your Host System and your host operating system. Now just to make sure that we're all on the same page and you always want to make sure, which page you're on, when you're talking about a virtual environment and I'll talk more about that in just a few minutes. The Host System refers to the hardware of the actual machine that's hosting all your virtual machines. Another way to say that, just like you see here, the computer that you installed VMware Workstation on, is the Host System. Then you have the software side of that Host System and the term we use for that is the Host Operating System and that of course is the OS, Windows 7, Linux, whatever that's running on the host system. Now some of you are thinking, gee Mark, I'm glad I got the course and you've explained to me, you know, about hardware and software. Well believe it or not, this will get very confusing and where it will really get confusing is when people will interchange the terms or they're in a virtual environment and they'll talk about the system or the operating system. Well when that happens, you need to flag them down and say wait a minute, are you talking about the Host System or the Guest System? The Guest System being one of the virtual machines running inside VMware Workstation. Because the requirements can be different and changing the wrong setting on these can create some pretty interesting situations. So always make sure you're understanding whether you're talking about your Host System or your Guest System. Now on that Host System, you've got some requirements that are kind of interesting. On the CPU or the processor, you're looking for a 64-bit X86, meaning X86 instruction set, 1.3 gigahertz or faster. Now in the year 2012, it's kind of hard not to get this kind of processor and this is something you need to watch especially in virtual computing. The farther you go back, especially when you get around 2009, 2010, which is only three years ago, keep in mind in the corporate world and in the personal world with our laptops and so forth, we tend to run our computers until the wheels come off. And if you've got a machine manufactured around 2009, 2010, you may find that you don't support some of the things you need here. So you need to watch for that. Now for the nerds among us, you need LAHF and SAHF Support in Long Mode on that processor and I can just hear some of you saying and that would be? Well we'll talk about it in a separate video, it is actually pretty interesting but we'll get to that a little bit later on. For Windows 7, if you're going to run Windows 7 in one of these virtual machines, there are some graphics requirements you need to be aware of. You'll be needing to use an Intel Dual Core 2.2 gigahertz or later or an AMD Athlon 4200 plus or later. If you don't have that you're not going to get the full Windows Aero Graphics functionalities and all the cool transparencies and glass effect and all that. Now as far as memory is concerned, on the Host System, you need a minimum of 1 gigabyte, that's going to be kind of bizarre, you're not going to open very many virtual machines. I would say probably no more than one and depending on what operating system that's going to be tough. They recommend 2 gigabytes or more, pay close attention to the or more, you want a lot more than that. The class that I'm going to take you through here in this course, I'm on a machine with 8 gigabytes of memory and I wouldn't go much less than 6 to be comfortable with this, if you're going to run multiple machines. If you're only going to run one virtual machine, you can probably get by with 4 gigabytes but trust me it's worth the investment if you got it, to add some more memory. Now the display for your Host System is not a big deal, just use the latest graphics driver recommended for your Host System. So whatever computer you're running and then you're running you know, like Windows 7 or something, just make sure you've got the latest graphics driver for it. If you're going to Windows 7 Aero Graphics, you'll need an NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT or later or an ATI Radion HD 2600 or later. And again if you buy a machine in 2012, it's going to be hard not to hit these, so just be careful about that. If you're purchasing a machine designed to be used for a virtual computing environment, you want to pay close attention to these things, especially if you're talking about a personal laptop that you're going to depend a workstation to help you work multiple operating systems there. And you'll see that as we move through the course and I'll continue to point it out. Now on the disk drives, you can use IDE or SCSI hard drives on the Host System, it's not going to be a problem with VMware. Even floppy drives are supported, even though it's hard to find floppy drives anymore, you can still use those here. Now as far as the Host Operating System, let me just say it simply, Windows and Linux, pretty much any version of Windows and Linux that we're using nowadays is going to be okay. Specifically let me point you to VMware.com and just when you get there search for the Compatibility Guide. They have a very impressive Compatibility Guide, you answer all kind of questions, you know, you, you do all kinds of gyrations there and they will actually print you out a table, it's a, a kind of a JavaScript Based Functionality on the website. You tell them exactly what operating system you've got and it will pop back and show you the Compatibility Guide for the versions and so forth. There's too many to, to talk about here, we could probably do an 8 hour course, just on the various operating systems that are supported and the little nuances of each one. So the bottom line is, your Host System Requirements, you're really limited by two things, that processor that's on there. And we'll talk more about that in a separate video that will be entitled Processor Specifics and the actual RAM memory. If your processor is okay, Workstation will install, if not, it won't and then the more memory you have the better off you're going to be, the better you're going to like your life in a virtual environment. So that's your Host System Requirements for VMware Workstation 8.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | VMware Workstation 8 |
| Author: | Mark Long |
| SKU: | 34309 |
| ISBN: | 978-1-61866-043-5 |
| Release Date: | 2012-05-04 |
| Duration: | 8 hrs / 99 lessons |
| Work Files: |
Yes |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
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