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Installing Solaris 7 into a Virtual Machine

It is possible to run Solaris 7 inside a virtual machine, even though it is not possible to install it into a virtual machine using the VMware Workstation software on a Windows host. There are two possible workarounds for getting Solaris 7 to run within a virtual machine.

Note: The following workaround methods should be undertaken only by advanced users.

Method 1 - Windows Host

This method requires that you configure a virtual machine to boot from a raw disk. If your host system has only SCSI drives, or IDE drives without free space, this method cannot work for you; try method 2 instead.

  1. Shut down the host operating system if it is running the Windows host operating system.
  2. Install Solaris 7 Intel Edition directly onto a raw disk partition of the host system. The host system should be setup as a dual-boot (or multiple-boot) system allowing both Windows and Solaris 7 to boot natively one at a time.
  3. Boot the host system into Windows. If you haven't already done so, install VMware Workstation.
  4. Run the VMware Workstation software and configure a virtual machine to boot from the existing disk partition where Solaris 7 was installed.

Method 2 — Windows or Linux Host

This method requires that you use VMware Workstation on a Linux host to install Solaris 7 on a virtual disk. You can then use VMware Workstation on a Windows host to configure a virtual machine to boot from that virtual disk.

  1. On a Linux host computer, run VMware Workstation and configure a virtual machine with a virtual disk.
  2. Install Solaris 7 Intel Edition as a guest operating system on the virtual machine's virtual disk.
  3. You can now run the Solaris 7 virtual machine on the Linux host. To run this virtual machine on a Windows host, you must take several additional steps.
  4. After the guest operating system has been installed, transfer the virtual disk file to a partition where the Windows host operating system can access it.
  5. Boot the physical machine where you plan to run the Windows host operating system. If you haven't already done so, install VMware Workstation on that machine.
  6. Run VMware Workstation on the Windows host and configure a virtual machine to use the virtual disk on which Solaris 7 was installed.

Known Issues

No VMware Tools package exists for Solaris 7 guest operating systems; therefore, Solaris 7 is limited to VGA mode graphics and it is always necessary to use the Ctrl-Alt key combination to release the mouse from the virtual machine.

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