Problem Totally don't understand VM, or do I?

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

Hi,

I am just about to start going through a Server 2003 exam (70-290), and I want to set up a Windows 2003 environment.

I have used VMWare Player for a long time, but just to host things like Windows XP and Ubuntu, to play about with, and run dodgy programs, so I can just tear them down if they mess up my VM. My computer's main OS is Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.

Now ... I am wondering some things, like:

• If I install Windows 2003 and set up a domain on VM Player, will I be able to see the effect of applying a Group Policy on the domain, on my Windows 7 desktop (or in a Win XP VM?)
• Does VMWare Player suffice, or does it have to be a baremetal hypervisor, or VMWare Server?

I know I was thinking of other questions when I was driving home, but if anyone can get me going with those two, I can crack on!

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

I am pretty sure that if you want to setup a full domain you will need vmware server, I dont think player supports setting up a vm network.

I had a vmware network running server 2003 4 xp nodes and an Ubuntu setup. but since I have moved back to virtual pc simply because I was having to setup numerous security policies on my firewall.

 

The GPO's on the 2003 DC, won't apply to the host machine unless it's joined to the domain.
Whilst technically a host machine can be part of a domain hosted by a VM, it's not really all that recommended.
Besides, the moment you add the host machine to the domain hosted by the 2003 DC VM, you're asked to reboot, which in turn shuts down the VM, and when you are back in windows and asked to logon to the domain... unless the VM in the meantime has booted as well (not sure if VMPlayer will allow for this), you'll be kinda "stuck".

 

So I could do it in Virtual PC instead?

 

Yep but when you do it in virtual pc all machines run from the same IP address although I am pretty sure you can configure it to use different IPs were as in VMware server you can set it to use NAT etc.

 

Pretty sure I managed to get a DC up and running in VM Player (it's been a while).

 

thanks for your help, really appreciated.

 

I used VMware Workstation 7.1 to create my domain virtual network so used that software.

 

give virtualbox a go, its free and pretty easy to find your way around in.

Setup your DC and a client (XP or something) inside it and you will be fine. As mentioned dont join your Windows 7 desktop to a domain where the domain controller is a guest of that box as you wont be able to login unless the dc has started when you reboot.

 

Yup second that, I used VirtualBox to set up a DC and client this way too. Works great and VirtualBox is easy to use as well

 

Sure you can. You need to start the VM as a service so that it starts when you boot your host machine. The instructions can be found floating on the net somewhere.

Sure you can log in after a reboot. You just need to have the VM DC start as a service (see above) when the host boots up. The problem is that you can't log in straight away as the VM does take some time to start.


EDIT: here's a quick instruction on how to do it

 

In any case, even if you didn't run the VM as a service, you would be able to log in using cached credentials.

 

Cached credentials are only built the first time around...

Then again, if you forgot to start VMPlayer as a service, you could always logon to the local admin account, start the VMPlayer service and a guest VM, logoff, and THEN attempt a logon with the domain user account.

Although not recommended for production, if the host had to be domain joined, I would rather have the host run a server OS and make it a DC with the clients running as VMs joined to the domain provided by the host. I'd rather keep the host machine (if running a client OS like Win7), non-domain joined so I can use it for other things like playing computer games (and free up some resources and hassle on the way).

 

Aye, that's true

 

As I said unless your DC has started when you reboot etc etc. Obviously if you configure your VM DC to start as a service, it will as a result, have started.

Regardless, if you start getting it into your head that having a guest DC with a host joined to it is a good idea then sooner or later you'll run into trouble. Best to start learning how to do things the "right" way i.e. host domain controller, guest vm as client or host in a workgroup and dc and guest as a vm.

 

Sure, I totally agree and also for the reasons that Shinigami pointed out too. I just wanted to point out to the OP that it was possible.

 

I ran my only DC/DHCP/DNS server on a VMware Server VM running on my desktop
pain in the butt but i had to deal with it for a while
I finally just transitioned to a pair of physical Acer AspireRevo 1600s running Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise
now to build up my virtual lab some more!

 

I was lucky enough to get an HP Prolian ML115 G5 from work and got ESXi running on it... So far I have 2 DCs, a file server, Exchange 2k10, and SCCM. I've also used VMWare Server in the past it worked really well for me, however with version 2 which incorporated web management, it kind got a little worse than what it was... But still a good free product non the less. I would use VMWare over virtual PC, etc...