Create vmdk and vmx file for VMWare Player

It's easy to create a vmdk and vmx file for use with VMWare Player. The VMWare Player is free but does not let you create virtual machines.

Steps:

1.      Create VMDK with qemu-img.exe

2.      Create VMX with VMXBuilder

1. Create the VMDK

Create a VMDK file with qemu-img.exe. This exe is part of QEMU, downloadable from http://free.oszoo.org/ftp/qemu/win32/release/QemuInstall-0.7.2.exe.

Command line:

• qemu-img create -f vmdk Windows2003Server.vmdk 10G

This creates a vmdk that can grow up to 10G. It will actually create a file of about 1,2MB.

2. Create the VMX

Create a .vmx file. To easily do that, use http://sanbarrow.com/vmxbuilder.html. You will find a batch file there that will create a vmx for you.

The batch file just asks questions. You can:

• set the virtual hardware type
• set the OS
• define SCSI and IDE disks: of course, refer here to the disk you made with qemu-img.exe
• define an ISO file to attach
• define network cards
• set advanced properties like virtual SMP, clustering support, etc....
• ....

Once you have the VMX, open it with VMWare player and you are done. You can now start installing an OS to the empty disk. It is easiest to just use an ISO file of the OS installation cd and configure the iso in VMXBuilder. When you start the VM, you will boot from the ISO!