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Thread: VM for dummies

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    VM for dummies

    Is there a good guide/intro to setting up and using Virtual Machines? How does it all work? Is it a cloud or local thing? I'm literally after a beginners intro and babysteps etc.

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    Senior Member AGTDenton's Avatar
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    Re: VM for dummies

    It's quite a vast area that will depend on your needs whether personal or business related as to how you implement it.
    Virtual Machines are versatile and can be cloud based, server based or desktop based. And these days there's probably something for your mobile phone.


    Rather than reciting what's already out there have a look at these guides

    https://www.howtogeek.com/196060/beg...tual-machines/

    https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E50245_01.../vmcon-vm.html

    https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/ov...rtual-machine/


    Then you have plenty of options when it comes to your preferred Hosting platform.

    VMWare & Virtual Box are both very good for beginners.
    Then if you're on a Mac, Parallels is one to look at.

    Have fun

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    Re: VM for dummies

    Just came across this, VM Ware have uploaded a copy of Next Gen Virtualisation For Dummies.
    Of course this will be slightly biased to VM Ware but will cover a lot of useful stuff!

    https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/l...al_Edition.pdf

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    Goron goron Kumagoro's Avatar
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    Re: VM for dummies

    I have never bothered with vmware so I do know how it compares. But go with virtual box over hyper v to learn. Vbox is intuitive enough, to me at least, that I didn't have to read anything to make it work and understand things. Hyper Vi found annoying though Hyper V mainly because of how hard it is to get stuff from host to the vm and vice versa. Much more obvious in Vbox and I didn't have to look it up. Note I still had to think about things and play around to learn.

    Quick tip is in Vbox don't forget to install guest additions inside the vm you install otherwise it will run slow.

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    Senior Member AGTDenton's Avatar
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    Re: VM for dummies

    Quote Originally Posted by Kumagoro View Post
    I have never bothered with vmware so I do know how it compares. But go with virtual box over hyper v to learn. Vbox is intuitive enough, to me at least, that I didn't have to read anything to make it work and understand things. Hyper Vi found annoying though Hyper V mainly because of how hard it is to get stuff from host to the vm and vice versa. Much more obvious in Vbox and I didn't have to look it up. Note I still had to think about things and play around to learn.

    Quick tip is in Vbox don't forget to install guest additions inside the vm you install otherwise it will run slow.
    Hyper V isn't really aimed at using the guest visually on the host machine. Hyper V is geared towards business server use where you would setup VMs for multiple users connecting from remote locations via remote desktop or VNC etc... so those nice features of VBox just won't exist because of a completely different target market. You'd only rarely use the Guest GUI side for support & diagnosis. For users to move files you have to treat it like a physical PC and setup network shares, or the users accessing the VM via remote desktop can simply copy & paste if your policies allow.

    I use VBox for local VMs because of the advanced controls & features you get, but Hyper V for Server VMs where I have multiple people connecting in over RDP.
    When you setup Hyper V for the correct usage it's a real doddle to configure, I prefer it's simplicity for handling large amounts of VMs. It also correctly handles planned & unplanned shutdown scenarios without any configuration whatsoever.

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    Re: VM for dummies

    What do you want to achieve, also what kit do you have, Windows 10 has Hyper-V role installable for instance so this could give you something to play with easily enough, depends on what you want and your existing knowledge base.

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    Goron goron Kumagoro's Avatar
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    Re: VM for dummies

    Gonna be a bit cheeky and ask a question about HyperV. It is possible to add USB dongles (not USB storage drive, more specifically a HASP security dongle) to the VM. In Vbox it is easy but I cant see how to in HyperV.

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    Re: VM for dummies

    I'm not sure. curious to learn about it, and then how best to serve a small company say 5 people. Trying to work out how to set up a server to allow file sharing, remote access, web log in, back-ups etc. and all on a budget.... could allow VM mean potentially fewer software licenses accessed online rather installed on each person's machine?
    Last edited by atemporal; 30-11-2020 at 09:33 PM.

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    Re: VM for dummies

    The company I work for is around that size. We have a Linux server which runs the Centos OS (a free version of Redhat server) and use that as a VM farm. Centos comes with KVM as standard, where you can log in and run "virt-manager" and get a nice GUI to configure and mess with a farm of virtual machines. We are an engineering company, and hence Linux based, but on my workstation Fedora desktop I use the same thing to run a Windows virtual machine for those times when only Windows software is available. Pretty impressive for something bundled with a free OS (the lure is to get you to pay for a Redhat OS install, but I haven't felt any need so far).

    The main server has a VM for automatically building software, a VM for the company intranet wiki, one for running the VPNs for remote access, one for source control, one for Jira etc etc. So basically server consolidation. We have a lot of VMs, and are looking at upping the ram from 32 to 64GB now ram prices have dropped since we built the thing.

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    Re: VM for dummies

    Quote Originally Posted by Kumagoro View Post
    Gonna be a bit cheeky and ask a question about HyperV. It is possible to add USB dongles (not USB storage drive, more specifically a HASP security dongle) to the VM. In Vbox it is easy but I cant see how to in HyperV.
    Sorry I forget that Hyper-V is now available on desktop versions of Windows and presume this is the version you are referring to. So my previous comment is about the Hyper-V version on Windows Server.

    I don't like Hyper-V desktop, it manages to be worse than the original Virtual PC that Microsoft used to do.
    However, to get around the lack of USB passthrough, connect to your VM via Remote Desktop, and allow the USB device to be shared. I don't know if this will work for your HASP device but worth a shot.



    You'll find full instructions here.
    https://www.nakivo.com/blog/performi...sb-passthrough

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    Pedandic mo-fo IAmATeaf's Avatar
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    Re: VM for dummies

    I’ve tried them all, started with VMWare Workstation running on a Windows 2008 server which I later upgraded to Server 2012 R2. I had license for VMWare at that time but when I was few releases behind I moved over to Virtual Box. Used that for a while but found issues with the networking side so then moved over to Hyper-V which I personally hated. Then eventually moved back over to VMWare Workstation which is what I currently use running in Server 2016.

    I work in IT, yes I know boring so use it to run my test rig so nothing for home. I never really found a need for anything VM based for home, have a NAS and a separate PC which runs the CCTV software, that’s about the level of automation in my house

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    Re: VM for dummies

    AGTDenton, unfortunately the reason why I am using a VM is because the dongle doesn't like RDP and will stop the software from running.

    Another thing I found out today is that turning HyperV on will stop VBox from working, maybe some useful in for you there atemporal I certainly didn't expect it. I have given up on HyperV for this problem at least.

    My options now are networked dongle sharing device (dongle server) over priced if you ask me, some kind of software version of the device Donglify annoying subscription pricing. Cheaper one on face of it and allows one device free . A free opensource one. Just thought I would stick this here in case anyone has the same problem in the future.

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    Senior Member AGTDenton's Avatar
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    Re: VM for dummies

    Quote Originally Posted by Kumagoro View Post
    AGTDenton, unfortunately the reason why I am using a VM is because the dongle doesn't like RDP and will stop the software from running.

    Another thing I found out today is that turning HyperV on will stop VBox from working, maybe some useful in for you there atemporal I certainly didn't expect it. I have given up on HyperV for this problem at least.
    Ah that's a pity it won't work in RDP.
    Does the USB passthrough not work on VirtualBox for the HASP device?

    This post here suggests it does, but with a caveat when you reboot the host.
    https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=86483


    If you disable 'Nested VT-x/AMD-V' under Settings > System > Processor - within VBox (you would have to do this individually for all running VMs), you might be able to run Hyper-V & VBox side by side. You certainly could with Virtual PC & Virtual Box in the past but I'm not sure I had a CPU with the hardware extensions back then. I would personally stick to VMWare & VBox for desktop. Although the free version of VMWare I think is limited to a single VM, but might have a USB passthrough capable of operating your HASP device. Presumably you wouldn't want it available on multiple VMs?

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