introduction to microsoft virtual server
Microsoft recently released Virtual Server 2005 R2 for free. Similar to VMWare, this application allows you to host multiple virtual operating systems on one server. In this article, I'll go over some of the basic features by creating a virtual machine that runs Windows XP.
My testing computer was a 1.3ghz Duron with 512MB of ram. After a generic installation of Windows Server 2003, I registered and downloaded the application.
The installation wizard was simple and straightforward. I chose the default options for everything. Annoyingly, on the final screen of the wizard, I was told IIS is required and to exit the wizard and install it. I suppose it could have told me that beforehand. So I did as the wizard requested and everything installed fine after that.
Like WSUS, Virtual Server is controlled through a web interface (hence the need for IIS). It's actually quite impressive and I had no trouble navigating around.
The next step was to create a virtual machine. Again, nothing confusing about the interface. I simply went down the list and filled in the options.
Once this was done, I was redirected to a page filled with details about the virtual machine. There's a thumbnail image of the machine that provides console access. ActiveX is required here, so if you're unable to use ActiveX components, you'll have to use the standalone client.
To install Windows, I inserted a Windows XP CD in my CDROM and rebooted the virtual machine. The console acted just like any normal computer and prompted me to boot from the CD. After that, I was taken through the usual Windows XP installation procedure.
Once Windows was done installing, I was presented with a default XP desktop. It might have been from me using Remote Desktop to do all this, but my mouse was completely unusable. Since the virtual machine is just sharing the main server's network card, I turned on Remote Desktop and the mouse worked just fine.
The final step I took was to install the additional tools. Choosing this option on the main page makes the virtual machine appear to have a CD inserted. I just ran the setup program from the emulated CD and rebooted. After that, the speed and responsiveness of the virtual machine was noticeably better.
Although I've only covered a simple virtual machine installation here, there're still some advanced features available to use such as multiple Virtual Server installations, copying virtual machines from server to server, and even running Linux as a virtual machine. For being a free program, Microsoft Virtual Server is impressive. Setting up a virtual server is practically effortless and, baring installation, anyone can have a virtual server farm in no time at all.
Tags: virtualization, windows, windows 2003
