VMWARE APPLICATION NOTE
VMware Player
Using VMware Player
This document contains the following sections:
• Work and Play in a Virtual World on page 1
• Options and Features in VMware Player on page 4
• Installing VMware Player on page 4
• Supported Host and Guest Operating Systems for VMware Player on page 8
Work and Play in a Virtual World
VMware® Player makes it easier than ever to take advantage of the security, flexibility, and
portability of virtual machines. VMware Player is the only solution on the market that lets you
run virtual machines without investing in virtualization software.
What Is VMware Player?
VMware Player is a free desktop application that lets you run a virtual machine on a Windows or
Linux PC.
VMware Player provides an intuitive user interface for running preconfigured virtual machines
created with VMware Workstation, GSX Server, and ESX Server. VMware Player includes features
that let you configure virtual machines for optimal performance and take advantage of host
machine devices. On Windows hosts, VMware Player also opens and runs Microsoft® Virtual PC
and Virtual Server virtual machines and Symantec® LiveState Recovery system images. VMware
Player makes your VMware virtual machines accessible to colleagues, partners, customers, and
clients who do not own VMware products. By downloading VMware Player, anyone can open
and run compatible virtual machines.
VMware Player is available as a free download for both Windows and Linux PCs.
Note: Use of VMware Player is subject to the VMware Player end user license terms, and
VMware provides no support for VMware Player. For self-help resources, see the VMware Player
FAQ at
www.vmware.com/products/player/faqs.html. You might also want to check the VMware Player
Discussion Forum on the VMware VMTN Web site, at
www.vmware.com/community/forum.jspa?forumID=123. The forum is a site where VMTN
members can exchange information, questions, and comments with each other regarding
VMware products, services, and product support issues.
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Using VMware Player
Downloading VMware Player and Virtual Machines
You can download VMware Player from the VMware Web site at
www.vmware.com/download/player/. See Installing VMware Player on page 4.
You can download a virtual machine to use with VMware Player at
www.vmware.com/vmtn/vm/.
What You Can Do with VMware Player
VMware Player gives software developers and vendors great flexibility in marketing and
distributing products. You can package complex, sophisticated applications, complete with a
full working environment, in a virtual machine that can be used by anyone who downloads
VMware Player.
With VMware Player, you can:
• Collaborate with colleagues–Download VMware Player to run any virtual machine.
VMware Player makes it easy for support, development, and QA to share customer
scenarios.
• Transform software distribution–Simplify software distribution by shipping
preconfigured software in virtual machines. End users can experience the benefits of your
products immediately, without setup hassles. VMware Player is ideal for shipping
evaluation copies or beta software.
• Evaluate prebuilt applications easily–Download and safely run prebuilt application
environments in virtual machines that are available from the growing library of virtual
machines in the VMTN Virtual Machine Center at
www.vmware.com/vmtn/vm/.
This library includes virtual machines from various software vendors, as well as virtual
machines that are preconfigured with popular open source software. With VMware Player
you can easily get started with applications from leading software vendors, including
Oracle, Red Hat, Novell, BEA, SpikeSource, IBM, and MySQL.
Key Features
VMware Player combines powerful virtualization features into an application with an intuitive
interface:
• Virtual machine isolation–Safely run virtual machines isolated from the host PC by
making use of the hardware-level security and fault isolation of virtualization solutions.
• Access to host PC devices–Use CD/DVD drives, network adapters, and plug-and-play USB
devices.
• Copy and paste–Copy text and files between the virtual machine and the host quickly
and easily.
• Adjustable memory–Tune virtual machine memory for optimal performance.
• Powerful networking capabilities–Let the virtual machine share or obtain its own IP
address or isolate it from the network and host.
• Configurable shutdown–Power off or suspend the virtual machine when exiting VMware
Player.
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Using VMware Player
Host System Requirements for VMware Player
The minimum host system requirements for installing and using VMware Player are:
• Processor speed–400MHz or faster (500MHz or faster recommended).
• Memory–128MB minimum, 256MB recommended. You must have enough memory to run
the host operating system, plus the memory required for each guest operating system and
for applications on the host and guest. See your guest operating system and application
documentation for their memory requirements.
• Hard disk–At least 1GB free disk space for each guest operating system. For installation,
VMware Player requires approximately150MB.
Compatible Virtual Machines and System Images
The following virtual machines and system images are compatible with VMware Player.
VMware Virtual Machines
VMware Player runs virtual machines created in VMware Workstation 4 and higher,
GSX Server 3.x, VMware Server, and ESX Server 2.x and higher. You must upgrade virtual
machines created in versions before Workstation 4 to run them in VMware Player. Workstation 4
virtual machines are run in legacy mode.
Microsoft Virtual PC and Virtual Server Virtual Machines (Windows Hosts Only)
On Windows hosts, VMware Player can run Microsoft Virtual PC and Virtual Server virtual
machines. When you open a Virtual PC virtual machine in VMware Player, it automatically creates
a VMware-compatible configuration file (.vmx), and preserves the original Virtual PC (.vmc)
configuration file. You can save the VMware-compatible virtual machine.
Symantec LiveState Recovery System Images (Windows Hosts Only)
On Windows hosts, VMware Player can run system images created with Symantec LiveState
Recovery. When you open a LiveState Recovery system image in VMware Player, it automatically
creates a VMware-compatible configuration file (.vmx), and preserves the original LiveState
Recovery system image file (.sv2i). You can save the VMware-compatible virtual machine.
Virtual SMP
VMware Player does not support Virtual SMP™. You cannot use VMware Player to power on a
virtual machine that has more than one virtual processor assigned.
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Using VMware Player
Options and Features in VMware Player
VMware Player is primarily a vehicle for playing virtual machines, and does not contain the full
feature set found in other VMware products.
VMware Player does provide the following features:
• You can connect and disconnect any preconfigured devices in the virtual machine.
• You can change the amount of memory allocated to the virtual machine.
• You can set the type of network connection for the virtual machine: bridged, host-only, or
NAT.
• You can copy and paste from the virtual machine to the host and vice versa. To use this
feature, you must have VMware Tools installed.
• You can drag files between a Windows host and a Windows virtual machine, if the virtual
machine was configured with this feature. To use the drag-and-drop feature, you must
have VMware Tools installed.
• Virtual machines can be preconfigured to revert automatically to a snapshot of a particular
virtual machine state when you power off. This is useful, for example, in a demo that resets
itself to a clean state when powered off.
• You can set preferences for how commands are displayed in the VMware Player interface
and for how VMware Player closes a virtual machine (by powering it off or by suspending
it) when you exit VMware Player.
For instructions on using these features, see the help provided in VMware Player (Choose
Player > Help).
Note: VMware Player can run only one virtual machine at a time. You must close the virtual
machine currently running in VMware Player before you can open another virtual machine.
Installing VMware Player
The following sections give instructions for installing VMware Player.
To install VMware Player on a Windows host
1. Download VMware Player from the VMware Web site at
www.vmware.com/download/player/. Right-click the appropriate download link for your
host machine (Windows or Linux) and save the application to the hard drive of your host
machine.
If you are installing VMware Player from a CD and your host machine has autorun enabled,
installation instructions are displayed when you load the CD in your CD-ROM drive.
2. If your host machine does not have autorun enabled, copy the file
VMware-player.exe from the Windows directory on the CD to the hard drive of the
host machine.
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Using VMware Player
To install VMware Player on a Linux host
The steps below describe an installation from a CD-ROM disc. If you downloaded the software,
the steps are the same except that you start from the directory where you saved the installer file
you downloaded, not from the Linux directory on the CD.
1. Log on to your Linux host with the user name you plan to use when running VMware
Player.
2. In a terminal window, become root so you can perform the initial installation steps.
su -
3. Mount the VMware Player CD-ROM.
4. Change to the Linux directory on the CD.
5. To use the RPM installer, skip to step 6. To use the tar installer, take the following steps:
Note: You can skip the steps for copying and unpacking the archive and install directly
from the vmware-player-distrib directory on the CD.
a. Copy the tar archive to a temporary directory on your hard drive — for example, /tmp.
cp VMware-<xxxx>.tar.gz /tmp
b. Change to the directory to which you copied the file.
cd /tmp
c. Unpack the archive.
tar zxf VMware-<xxxx>.tar.gz
d. Change to the installation directory.
cd vmware-player-distrib
e. Run the installation program.
./vmware-install.pl
f. Accept the default directories for the binary files, library files, manual files,
documentation files and init script.
g. Answer Yes when prompted to run vmware-config.pl.
Skip to step 7.
6. To use the RPM installer:
a. Run RPM specifying the installation file.
rpm -Uhv VMware-<xxxx>.rpm
VMware-<xxxx>.rpm is the installation file on the CD-ROM. In place of <xxxx>,
the filename contains numbers that correspond to the version and build.
b. Run the configuration program from the command line.
vmware-config.pl
7. Press Enter to read the end user license agreement (EULA). You can page through the EULA
faster by pressing the spacebar. If the Do you accept prompt doesn’t appear, press Q
to get to the next prompt.
8. Accept the default values for the remaining prompts.
Note: If you do not enable host-only networking when you install VMware Player, you
cannot allow a virtual machine to use both bridged and host-only networking.
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