The VM Install on Windows 7
So, I built the VM in the last post. When I double-click the new .vmcx file, it tries to start and goes looking for a DHCP server. That takes a few seconds. When it fails, it says to load the bootable install disk in the DVD drive which I do and press enter. Then the window gets bigger and it says Windows is loading files.
That seem like a good thing.
Then barf:
Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software blah blah blah…
…
Attempting to load a 64-bit application, however this CPU is not compatible with 64 bit mode.
Rats.
Now it seems there’s some diagreement about what to do here. I search for the error message in Google and I find two courses of action. The first is that VPC won’t run 64 bit guests, i.e. I’m screwed. The other is to check the virtualization option in the BIOS settings. I’ve done that before with some success so I’m rebooting and will open the BIOS with the machine starts to come back up.
And thanks for reminding me to take the Win7 DVD out of the player so it doesn’t try to reinstall my OS when it comes back up.
So I turned on the VM options in the BIOS and no luck. Are we looking at a technical constraint running a 64 bit VM on Windows VPC? I’m beginning to believe these guys.
So, for a robot on a budget, our options are limited to the free VMWare Player or VirtualBox.
The VMWare Player will allow us to create and install VM’s so let’s try that first. Looking at VirtualBox, it’s a little confusing re: Intel x64 with it says it supports but the download just says AMD64. If we have any friends with cycles through VirtualBox, now would be a good time to hear from them. The VirtualBox site registration and forums authentication process is hateful so that took about ten times longer than it should have but I got both options downloaded. The VMWare Player download is 106Mb and the VirtualBox download is 75.
But the first thing this robot is going to do is get rid of Virtual PC. It’s not a program, it’s a Windows Feature so you just have to turn it off and reboot.
-robot
Tags: