70-640 lab setup
LJH1981
Registered Users Posts: 1 ■□□□□□□□□□
Hey everyone.
I have just started studying for the 70-640 Server2008 R2 exam.
I have the MS training kit and I have started setting up a virtual lab but I have come to a problem. It seems my hardware is not capable of running x64 VMs and I was looking for recommendations for a new machine I purchase for setting up my labs. I have tried both my laptops, my Win 7 laptop will not install x64 OS on my Virtual PC machines and my Win 8.1 laptop does not have the Hyper-V feature available to enable.
As I see it, I think I have 2 options. Get a new laptop/desktop with a CPU that can handle x64 VMs along with appripriate RAM/HD specs, or get a dedicated machine and install ESX(i) and use my existing laptop with vSphere client to connect to the VMs.
Any advice/comments on my setup would be greatly received.
Cheers,
LJ
I have just started studying for the 70-640 Server2008 R2 exam.
I have the MS training kit and I have started setting up a virtual lab but I have come to a problem. It seems my hardware is not capable of running x64 VMs and I was looking for recommendations for a new machine I purchase for setting up my labs. I have tried both my laptops, my Win 7 laptop will not install x64 OS on my Virtual PC machines and my Win 8.1 laptop does not have the Hyper-V feature available to enable.
As I see it, I think I have 2 options. Get a new laptop/desktop with a CPU that can handle x64 VMs along with appripriate RAM/HD specs, or get a dedicated machine and install ESX(i) and use my existing laptop with vSphere client to connect to the VMs.
Any advice/comments on my setup would be greatly received.
Cheers,
LJ
Comments
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eyesonly84
Member Posts: 6 ■□□□□□□□□□
Have you checked your bios settings, by default the VT-X / AMD-V are turned off and if you have 64bit machines you most likely have this feature.
As far as recommending a new set up it really depends on how much you want to spend. -
Lexluethar
Member Posts: 516
vmware player works great. I ran into the same issue with trying to figure out why x64 systems (VMs) wouldn't run on my system. I ran into the same thing and i've tried three different solutions and vmware player is the best by far. I've tried MS's free virtual labs (they moved to another vendor and it's sucked since IMO), i've setup a physical lab as well as a virtual using Virtual PC and Sunbox. None have really panned out and all have big drawbacks.
The easiest solution - download and install vmware player. It's free for non-commercial use and will get you what you need. You don't even need an extremely beefy computer - i'm running a quad core 3.2 ghz desktop with 5 gb ram. I can easily run 2 server vms (2gb and 1gb respectively) and 1 workstation vm without chocking my system.
You can also configure lan segmentation so test things RRAS and VPN (70-640 not sure how much of that you will use but CA will be used).