Quote Originally Posted by johnrw
.... I accepted them.
It killed my network. When I ran the My_Super_Easy_VM.vdx, I also got errors for:
parallel0 not found, and the same with the serial port....
That's strange. I've installed VMplayer many times and never had a problem with it. I did have some problems trying to install Sun Solaris to a virtual machine, but I expect thats a different issue, as my VMplayer installs can play all vmx's I've downloaded and the other ones that I built myself, even my Win98 and Vista VMX's.

I don't know that I've ever used the "super easy" mode in Easy VMX, think I always used the more middle of the road approach. But I don't use it at all any more, I just find the downloadable VMXbuilder application so much nicer.

Still, these should work for you. Unfortunately, you don't give many details on what the problems were or even supply the supposedly bad files. When I have such a problem, I don't just say "it doesn't work", I want to understand what is failing. For example, you should be able to inspect that vmx file you had the website create for you and either find what is wrong with it or concede that it's correct. Kind of like the guys who post here that Windows will not boot after trying a Knoppix CD. I see such posts two or three times each year, but have absolutely never seen anyone post any meaningful information about what they think Knoppix has done to their system. I don't know what I can do for you (and I suspect you don't really want your VMware issues resoved, you seem to just want to make a case for Virtualbox over VMware) unless you are willing to get a little more involved. I suggest downloading vmxbuilder and making a vmx file that way that gives access to the ports you want. Then look at both that vmx file and the one that you made with the easy vmx website and seeing what is different in the port section of the files. I would also suggest trying the more stanndard easy vmx option, not the vmx for dummies option, but I don't really know if that's an issue.

You seemed to want to put words in my mouth when you posted "it appeared you were trying to advise others that they should use VMware Player instead of VirtualBox". But I only made my post after you had done an extensive post highly pushing one virtualization solution, Virtualbox, complete with extensive graphics, and not only ignoring many other solutions but also making the false claim that it would cost $189 to do the same thing with VMware. I only wanted to correct that claim, particularly since I enjoy the products that VMware has made available to us for free.

Quite frankly, when I first saw your Virtualbox post, it looked like a spam message posted by a shill for SUN. If it had been posted by a new member to these forums rather than someone who has been active here for 18 months and with nearly 50 good posts on many different topics, it would have likely been deleted. But knowing you as a helpful member here, you clearly went to a lot of trouble to write up such a detailed piece on this virtualization tool, one that I assume you found helpful and wanted to share with others. I don't know why you seem to have less than positive feelings about my correction of the VMware cost issue or my sharing of my experiences with VMware and third party tools for it.

I'll also point out that in conflict to your $189 claim to create vmx files for VMware, VMware is actually "more free" than Sun's Virtualbox. VirtualBox is free for personal use, but the full version has more restrictions on it than the free VMplayer for commercial use. If one is looking for true free open code software, neither Virtualbox nor VMware fit that requirement.

As to your statement "it appeared you were trying to advise others that they should use VMware Player instead of VirtualBox", I just let it slide when you posted that yesterday, I didn't want to get into a debate. But your post today with limited information and bad results that I've never duplicated seems to demand a response (you didn't actually install both VMplayer and Virtualbox on the same instance of an OS, did you?). I wasn't trying to advise others to install either, just trying to correct the misinformation. But after giving it consideration based on your post, yes, I'll advise others to install VMPlayer rather than Virtualbox. VMware is very clearly the current leader in this technology, and has many features that Vrtualbox lacks (some of which you have acknowledged). I don't stop there though. If users have an interest in this technology, I encourage them to look a other options, including KVM, XEN and Virtualbox as well as many others. I'll even point them to this comparison of different solutions to get started. I advise against trying to install more than one of these applications on any single Windows or Linux install however; while the install of a virtual machine may look like a very simple dialog, it has to do a number of complex things to the host OS to get everything right, and it's not unlikely that multiple virtualization products would have some conflicts if more than one were installed on an OS at the same time.