01-01-07 Options For Installing OS on VMWare ESX 4.1 Virtual Server

Now that our virtual machine configuration is complete, it’s time to turn it on and install the operating system inside our VMWare ESX 4.1 Virtual Machine. Each virtual machine (VM) needs its own unique OS installation, but once you have it set up you can create multiple copies of it.

The new ESX Server 4.1 virtual machine we created is like a physical computer with a blank hard disk. Before you can use it, you must partition and format the virtual disk and install an Operating System. The Operating System’s installation program might handle the partitioning and formatting steps for you.

Installing a Guest Operating System inside your virtual machine is essentially the same as installing it on a physical computer. There are four ways to put an Operating System on our blank virtual server.

The first one is to install the Operating System using the Client Device option which basically means you insert the DVD into your local workstation DVD ROM and ESX Server maps that device to the VM in a way, so that the VM can boot off that DVD media. The second one is to use the Host Device, option which could be useful if you have physical DVD ROM in your ESX Host. You can insert the DVD install media into the ESX Host DVD ROM and use that device to install the OS. The third option (called Data store ISO) is when you use an ISO file that has already being uploaded on the ESX Server local hard drive or a shared storage (SAN). The last option is to use an ISO image located on your local workstation hard disk.