7.29.2005

Using Vista Beta 1 With VMware Workstation

I found an excellent post in the VMware forums last night while trying to figure out how to get audio working inside a Vista Beta 1 guest.  I contacted the author (forum name lpsi2000) and he gave me permission to re-post the steps here.  Hopefully my blog will rank higher in the search engines than the original post in the VMware forums – thus getting this solution better exposure.  Hey, it’s all about helping each other.

Create a New Virtual Machine
1. Memory 512MB
2. Hard Disk (IED 0:0) 20GB
3. CD-ROM (IDE 1:0) Pointing to the Vista Beta1 ISO Image
4. Ethernet 1 "Bridged" or “NAT” depending on your preference

Start the New Virtual Machine
1. Boot to the DVD to begin setup
2. When you get to the part where it asks to pick the disk, delete the existing partition.
3. Recreate the partition
4. Exit the install and reboot the VM
5. During the VM BIOS hit F2 then change the boot order to have the CD/DVD be the first boot device
6. Save and Exit the BIOS
7. When you get to the part where it ask to pick the disk again, highlight then choose format
8. Now select again then choose install
9. It will now start the installation process
10. After a couple of reboots (after the first reboot, please change VMware BIOS, the CD/DVD-ROM should now be the 3rd device) and 45 minutes later (depending on your host machine), the install will be done .
11. You are now logged in but no network, video, and sound
12. Install the VMware tools to get the video going
13. After VMware Tools reboot and the video will be better
14. Still no network or sound, activate the VMware tools so the VM can see the tools on drive D:
15. Goto Device manager, right click the ethernet controller, go to properties, then reinstall the driver.
16. During the reinstall it search the CD-ROM (VMware tools) for the right network driver.
17. You should now have network and able to surf the Internet with IE 7, but still no sound
18. Surf to www.soundblaster.com
19. select drivers from the right bottom panel
20. then North America/United States/English then Go
21 then choose Sound Blaster/Other/16PCI then click Next
22. Choose English/Windows XP/Drivers then Go
23. Download the "Driver release for SB PCI 128 Vibra / PCI 16"
24. Run the installer then reboot and viola you should have sound.

I was able to skip steps 2–7 by pre-formatting the disk in another VMware guest image… but the choice is yours.  Steps 17–24 is where I was stuck before I ran into lpsi2000’s post.  Thanks again lpsi2000!