vmware

alharland

Hi All,

I wonder if anybody can answer this query for me.

I am currently using vmware server v1.0.1 for my training lab, and constantly have to create new virtual machines. What I want to be able to do is copy one VM and create a new one from that (with the setup on the vmdk file too). Sounds simple enough. But I can seem to work out how.

What I'm doing is copying the folder that contains the VM files to a new folder and renaming the vm specific files to the new server name. For example, I have a vm called Server01, and I want to create an exact copy of that called Server02. So what I'm doing is copying the C:\Virtual Machines\Server01 folder to a new folder, C:\Virtual Machines\Server02. I am then renaming the Server01.vmdk and Server01-flat.vmdk files to Server02.vmdk and Server02-flat.vmdk in the new folder.

I then open vmware server console and open the new vm (Server02), and then change the VM name to Server02 (on the options tab of the vm settings). When I now try to power on I get a vmdk error.

Does anybody have any ideas? Getting this to work will save me a huge amount of time in setting up new VM's all the time.

Thanks in advance.

Adam.

Ahriakin

Copy the folder as you have been doing, rename the folder ONLY. When you open it in VMware server it will ask do you want to Keep the original identity or generate a new one, choose to create a new one. That's all you need to do and it'll work fine (it generates new sids/mac addresses etc. for the guest OS). Load the machine and change it's name inside the OS to something unique then join it to your domain/network setup.