Windows XP Home Edition or Professional can be installed in a virtual machine using the corresponding Windows XP distribution CD. If you wish to use sound in the virtual machine, be sure to read Using Sound in a Windows XP Guest Operating System below.
Note: If you have a virtual machine with a SCSI virtual disk and a Windows 9x, Windows Me, Windows NT or Windows 2000 guest operating system, you cannot upgrade your guest operating system to Windows XP. Windows XP does not support the BusLogic SCSI adapter that VMware Workstation currently uses for its SCSI virtual disks. If you want to use Windows XP as a guest operating system, you should create a new IDE virtual disk. VMware is working on a resolution for SCSI support in Windows XP guest operating systems.
To install Windows XP into a virtual machine:
Note: If you want to run Windows XP Home Edition or Professional in a VMware Workstation virtual machine, be sure you have a full installation CD for the operating system.
Before installing the operating system, be sure that you have already created a new virtual machine and configured it using the VMware Workstation Configuration Wizard. Make sure you selected Windows XP as your guest operating system.
Follow these steps to install Windows XP into a virtual machine:
Windows XP does not automatically detect and install drivers for ISA sound cards, such as the Creative Sound Blaster emulated in a virtual machine. Follow these steps to configure sound in a Windows XP guest operating system.
The Microsoft Windows XP product activation feature creates a numerical key based on the virtual hardware in the virtual machine where it is installed. Changes in the configuration of the virtual machine may require you to reactivate the operating system. There are some steps you can take to minimize the number of significant changes.
For more details on Windows XP product activation, see the Microsoft Web site.
On a Linux host with an XFree86 3.x X server, it is best not to run a screen saver in the guest operating system. Guest screen savers that demand a lot of processing power can cause the X server on the host to freeze.
The hibernation feature is not supported in this release. Instead of using the guest operating system’s hibernate feature, suspend the virtual machine by clicking Suspend on the VMware Workstation toolbar.
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