It's always nice to try out new things, for instance Windows 7. If not for any other reason than to see what the fuzz is about.

But trying a new operating system usually means that you need a computer to install it on. Trouble is that you usually don't have any spare computers lying around.

This is when you need a virtual machine, and EasyVMX is here to help you. Provided you have installed VMware Player and you have downloaded the ISO with Windows 7, you are now just a few steps away from installing Windows 7.

First, go to the Super Simple virtual machine creator. Now follow these steps:

• Fill in a name for your new virtual machine.
• Select "Windows Vista" from the list of operating systems.
• Assign some memory to the virtual machine. 1024MB would be nice, if you can spare it.
• Windows 7 needs about 5GB of disk for the install. Choose maybe 10GB, or more if you need it.
• Enter the name of the ISO file you have downloaded, and check the "Enable" box.
• Click "Create Virtual Machine", and download your freshly created virtual machine. (And give a donation, if you think I deserve it.)

You are now left with a zip-file. Extract it to a place of your liking, and move the Windows 7 ISO file into the same folder.

Double click on the file that ends with .vmx. VMware Player will start, and begin installing Windows 7. That's all there's to it!

Remember, this will work for any operating system. All you have to do is change the field "Virtual Machine Operating System" accordingly.

Every now and then, people decide it's time to do some tinkering with virtual machines. And then they figure it's a good idea to share the experience.

embeddedman.com did just that with the article Creating Virtual Machines — EmbeddedMan Style. Check it out, it's a good read.

I recently received an email from a guy who has done a very nice tutorial on how to use VMware Player. His tutorial includes a section on EasyVMX. It's clearly written and easy to understand, so I decided to share it here on the blog.

His article is called Using VMware Player to Create Images for New Virtual Machines.

VMware Player just got upgraded to version 2.5.

This release introduces Unity View (integrating guest applications with the host), an installer bundle for Linux hosts providing a graphical UI wizard, and accelerated 3D graphics (DirectX 9 accelerated graphics with shaders up through Shader Model 2.0) on Windows XP guests. Operating system support was expanded. Several other enhancements and performance improvements were made.

Go to the VMware Player page to download the latest version.

If you prefer to play around with pre-configured virtual machines, you can get as many as you want from the VMware Virtual Appliance Marketplace.

VMware player is actually quite a versatile piece of software. Chances are that you get yourself a virtual machine or two (as a virtual appliance or maybe you use EasyVMX! to create them), and you get on with your life.

With the new features of VMware Player 2.0, that's not bad at all.
You get shared folders, experimental support for SMP (more than one CPU), full Vista support, Drag-and-Drop between the host and the guest, USB 2.0, dynamic screen resolution, better sound support and much more.

Just running a virtual machine by itself may sound neat. But you can also use this in a QA process, or maybe even use it to distribute software.

But VMware Player has a few tricks up it's sleeve that you may not know about.

VMware Products

First of all, VMware Player can run virtual machines created by all the other VMware products. VMware Workstation, ESX Server, VMware Server and GSX Server.

Virtual PC/Server

But wait, there's more! Did you know that VMware Player could run MS Virtual PC and Virtual Server images?
Running VPC images is super smooth, thanks to the fact that VMware Player now includes VMware Tools. VMware Tools are all the drivers and applications that make an operating system work perfectly in a virtualized environment.

System Recovery

The VMware Player usability doesn't stop there.
Users of Symantec's Backup Exec can actually run System Recovery system images directly in Player. This is quite a feature for all you system administrators out there!

I promised you new EasyVMX! features to match the abilities of VMware Player 2.0.
All the new features are now completed, and you can find EasyVMX! 2.0 here!

Here's the complete list of new features:

• Windows Vista is no longer "Experimental"
• Default guest OS is Windows Vista
• Virtual Hardware version is 6 (Workstation 6)
• Sound is autodetected, and will work in Vista
• SVGA is autodetected, and will set the resolution automatically when resizing VMware
• The new enhanced virtual keyboard setting is on by default
• VMware Tools will be upgraded at power on
• Default when turning off a virtual machine is suspend (snapshot)
• Ability to reserve CDROM exclusively to the Virtual machine
• Wake-on-LAN for both network cards
• Shared Folder
• VNC - Remote Display
• Options for PowerOn and PowerOff
• The GuestOS list has been updated^*
• Tip: For better performance in Vista virtual machines, use SCSI disks

EasyVMX! 2.0 has not been fully tested, so use it with caution.

^*Only the new list of GuestOSes has made it to the stable version of EasyVMX! yet.

Get ready to step up to VMware Player 2.0.

The new player has support for USB 2.0, experimental support for two virtual CPUs, Vista (both as a host and a guest) and it now has full shared folders.

Check out the release notes for more information.

I'll admit it right now: I don't understand a single word of this. Dutch is like Greek to me.

But, if you can read and understand Dutch, and you want a tutorial on how to use VMware Player and EasyVMX! in this language, go to Planet.nl and read this article.

So, you've heard about virtualization. And you found VMware Player and EasyVMX!. What next?

You could always try the tutorial on this page, or you can go for some real style!

Blindhog.net has a wonderful video tutorial showing you how to obtain and install VMware Player, and how to use EasyVMX! for creating virtual machines.

There's even a follow-up showing you how to install Ubuntu in a virtual environment.

The VMware Player tutorials over at x86Virtualization.com have been a great hit, and part 3 has just surfaced.

This time you will learn how to make your own virtual machines, using either EasyVMX! or VMX Builder.

I'm sure you know about EasyVMX!, since you're already here reading this story. VMX Builder is another very nice piece of software that will make virtual machines. It's a Windows program, so you will need Windows (or maybe Wine) to run it. Or, if you're up for it, create a virtual machine to run it!

The article at x86Virtualization will take you on a trip down memory lane.
They're installing MS-DOS 6.22, Windows 3.11 and Netscape!

You may want to Digg it!