Continuing on from my previous post, I wanted to go through the process of creating a Virtual Machine with VMware Workstation Professional 15. Mostly because the last time I did a how to create a VM post, it was a few years ago and it was vCenter 5.5, and because I will be building off of this for future posts.
So let’s get started.
Launch VMware Workstation Professional 15 Pro and you will be presented with the following screen.
You will want to click on the Create a New Virtual Machine Button (Circled in Red below)
That will launch the New Virtual Machine Wizard.
From here you will want to select either Typical or Custom for your installation configuration. For the purposes my installation I am going to go with a Custom installation.
After selecting Custom click Next. You will be presented with the option to choose your Virtual Machine Hardware Compatibility.
As as you can see from the drop down menu below there are many options to choose from. Each option has different compatibility requirements which also brings different limitations. Also remember that Newer Hardware Versions will not be compatible with older versions of VMware Workstation, so if you have to move between versions please keep that in mind.
For our purposes I will be Selecting ESXi 6.5, which should allow me to import this VM into an ESXi environment without needing to use VMware Converter. I will probably cover this in a later post.
After making your selection, click Next to specify the OS for your Virtual Machine. You can either select and Installer disk, and Installer Image File (.iso), or I will install the Operating system later. For the purpose of this post I will be installing from a Image File (.iso).
Click on browse to be prompted to select your Image file.
Select your installer Image File and click Open to continue.
Depending on the .ISO you are using as the installer, VMware Workstation will attempt to determine what Operating System (OS) you are trying to install. This will also provide recommended settings based on your OS.
Click Next to continue on to name your Virtual Machines and specify where I want the Virtual Machine files to be located.
Click Next to move on to set Processor Configuration. The Processors are capped at the total number of Virtual CPUs available on your machine. If you try to over provision your processor you will get a Error message.
Click Next to continue on to set the Memory for the Virtual Machine.
As you can see there is a “Recommended Memory” setting when you get to this screen. This is gathered from the .ISO check a few slides back. Click Next to continue on.
For Network Type you have 4 Options as seen above. The default is to use network address translation. This setting is all dependent on how much access you want to give to your VM. Do you want it to be accessible to or from your network? Perhaps you are setting up a VM to test some dangerous program? All these things you need to consider before clicking Next to continue.
On this screen you will need to select your I/O Controller. I went with the recommended setting and clicked Next to continue.
On the next screen you will be presented with options for Virtual Disk Type. Depending on what you will pick will determine compatibility with other Hypervisors in the future and can cause a real headache for someone else down the line if you don’t consider your options. I will cover that in a different post. For my purpose I will be sticking with SCSI which is recommended and is also the default selection.
Next you will be asked to Select a disk from the following option.
As this is a new Virtual Machine I will be selecting Create a new Virtual Disk and Clicking Next.
You will then be presented with the following screen where you can specify the size of your Virtual Disk, if you want to Thick Provision it, and how you would like the file stored.
Make you selection and Click Next to Continue. Next you will be able to Name the Virtual Hard disk and Specify what storage it will be installed on.
Click Next to continue. Review your settings and Click Finish to continue.
