I have to agree that VMware's Easy Install feature is great for us visually impaired users, as well as anybody who just wants to quickly set up a virtual machine and have a usable guest operating system. Chris Hallsworth Sent from Thunderbird On 10/07/2011 16:22, Mgr. Janusz Chmiel wrote:
Good afternoon, I would like to also inform You, that Vmwareplayer for Windows is supporting very excellent fully unattended feature. It is very simple to fill out all required information and original CDS can be perfectly installed to The virtual machines created by Vmware foR Windows. It is even possible to run those virtual machines from some Linux live CDS. Or by using some Linux live bootable USB stick. The disadvantage of this procedure is The need of big amount of RAM awailable, and, and this is very sad, user can not access The other harddrive than The virtual harddrive, YOu can not access NTFS internal harddrive and use my computer or Windows Explorer for files browsing. Vmware player will always prevent You from directly accessing The internal harddrives. To be more exact. You can for example use Ubuntu live CD and remastersys for creating remastered Ubuntu with Vmwareplayer on it. You can use external USB harddrive and You can put previously created virtual machine files, which have been created previously by using Vmwareplayer for Windows. The issue is, that if virtual machine will be successfully loaded, if You will use bootable USB flashdisk for loading Linux live system with preinstalled vmwareplayer for Linux on it, YOu will be able to run Windows XP virtual machine from USB harddrive by using Yours loaded bootable USB Linux live CD. You can even specifi on Vmwareplayer for Linux, that You want to share The whole root folder of Your NTFS harddrive with WIndows files on it. Yes, this will work, but Windows XP will recognize this device like a network drive, and You must use Linux live CD with NTFS-3G support to access NTFs volumes by using running Windows in virtual machine. The advantage is, that You can use WIndows Explorer for browsing NTFS volumes, The disadvantage is, that You will still USE Linux NTFS-3G for accessing NTFS, by The other words, WIndows core will not directly access Your harddrive. This is sad, because You can not use MIcrosoft disk defrag, or You can not use chkdsk /f /r c: command. Because disk is seen by WIndows XP like a network drive. If You will disable this feature in Vmwareplayer for Linux, so The folder will not be see like a network drive, YOu will not be able to see The drive on Windows at all. The advantages of Vmware solution. Theoretically, visually impaired user would run previously preinstalled Windows operating system by using many various computers, because Linux and Vmwareplayer for Linux will autodetect The required hardware. So if sound will be awailable in The Linux live distro with vmwareplayer, Windows will very probably work. Next advantage is, that user can browse The NTFS drive by using my computer or windows Explorer, can copy The files between NTFS folders from running WIndows.
Disadvantages. The best results will be awailable while using computer equipped with modern CPU, which is supporting The virtualisation technology. There is also The issue with RAM and that You can not simply add Vmware related big files to The Linux live CD and simply compress it to The squashfs file system. Only while running it by using external USB harddrive, not USB flash drive, or by using IDE or sata harddisk will produce usable environment. If on future will exist some virtualisation solution which will enable users to access internal harddrives without using filesharing feature of Vmware, it will very probably be a next revolution. Ofcourse, there is licensing issue, but this can be solved. Linux live distros are able to autodetecd many various sound carts. Windows7 is including support for many sound carts, but if Microsoft will not allow us to officially use those drivers also by using Windows Pe, it will be only our dream.
Wine is also not The solution, screnn reader can not interact with several applications running by using Wine.