VMware Workstation Question

[moles42]

Question for you guys...

I've never used any of the current breeds of software that enable you to install an operating system onto a virtual drive and I'm wondering if this is at all possible...
can I install vmware workstation then create a virtual drive via it and install the OS of my choice and then after a period of time if I'm satisfied with it can I then copy that OS from the virtual drive to a secondary hard drive or is that not possible?
or do I have to reinstall from scratch to secondary hard drive ?

I'm hoping to install an older OS and once it's running as I want it I want to take an image of it using Acronis True Image...that way I can use it or store it.

I'm relying on your wealth of knowledge in this dept...

many thanks,

Mike.

[spwolf]

hm, i am not sure if you can "copy it"... as VMWare uses virtual drivers not real ones, not sure if it will start.

but for testing and even using older OS, VPC or VMWare are great. VPC is free though.

[Luxor]

As spwolf says Moles I don't think you can copy it either.
I found a dual boot system to be better than creating a Virtual Drive with another OS as it ran very slow on my old system. That was a few years ago though, so it might have improved since then.

[spwolf]

yeah, it will be fast today... just as long as you give it enough ram, it will be fast

[moles42]

Thanks guys for your replies...I will ponder on this issue a little longer before I choose which way to go.

[Luxor]

Originally Posted by spwolf

yeah, it will be fast today... just as long as you give it enough ram, it will be fast

That's good to know. The amount of ram that a modern computer comes with should be more than sufficient then.

[mwb1100]

There are tools which will migrate a virtual machine image to a real machine (I think that's what you're asking about). Unfortunately, I'm not very familiar with them beyond their existence.

In the worst cast, remember that a virtual machine can be treated more or less just like a physical machine - so the techniques you might use to transfer one machine to another will usually also work with virtual machines. For example, many backup utilities support imaging one machine and restoring the image on another - those should work with virtual machines, too.

If you search for phrases like "p2v", "v2p". "physical to virtual", or "virtual to physical" you'll be inundated with information. Much of the information and many of the tools are geared toward 'enterprise' use. But some are geared toward individuals (for example, Paragon makes a Virtualization Manager tool that supports p2v and v2p).

[moles42]

thanks 'mwb1100 for the in-depth explanation...it's much appreciated...I will investigate further.