01-01-08 Booting VMWare ESX 4.1 VM From Client CD Rom

So let’s connect to a CD-ROM on the client machine, which is the machine we’re on now, the laptop or the desktop.

So I’ve inserted a Windows 2008 Server boot CD into my CD-ROM on my desktop. And we’re going to make sure our settings are correct, I right-click on the virtual server, select Edit Settings. And we’ll select CD/DVD drive.

And we’ve got Client Device selected and pass through IDE selected. So we’ll give that a shot and make sure it works. Remember if it doesn’t work and if you have problems, you can select Emulate IDE and it should work.

And notice that the device status Connected and Connect at Power On are grayed out, so we can’t select these. We actually have to connect to our client device when the virtual machine is powered on.

So, everything looks good, I’m going to click OK and let’s right-click on our Test Server 1, our new VMWare ESX 4.1 Virtual Machine, and select Open Console.

Since this is one of the first times we’ve worked with the console, I want to go over Toolbar power buttons real quick.

The Stop button – this is to power off your virtual machine. A power off operation displays a confirmation dialog box indicating that the guest operating system might not shut down properly.

Pause – this will suspend your virtual machine without running a script when VMware Tools is not installed, or runs a script, and suspends the virtual machine when VMware Tools is installed and available.

The Play button – this will power on your virtual machine when a virtual machine is stopped, or resumes the virtual machine and runs a script when it is suspended and VMware Tools is installed and available.

Resumes the virtual machine and does not run a script when VMware Tools is not installed. And this button will Reset your virtual machine when VMware Tools is not installed, and restarts the guest operating system when VMware Tools is installed and available. A reset operation displays a confirmation dialog box indicating that the guest operating system is not going to shut down properly.