> Reviewing whether or not I can use Virtual Server 2005. Primarily we
> test our product but want to have a VM that we can play inside and
> also reload at a base snapshot to prevent repeated installs/uninstalls
> from affecting the testing.
>
> --- Color depth ---
> I've personally used VPC2007 at home for a short time. Getting Linux
> installed can be a real hassle because they presume 24-bit color depth
> while VPC only provides 16-bit color depth. It take a lot of Googling
> and hoop jumping to get a Linux distro to install correctly and be
> usable. All because the emulated S3 video card doesn't support more
> than 16-bit color depth for any resolution. Does VS2005 either
> default to 24-bit color depth or let me specify it?
>
> --- ISO images over 2.2GB in size ---
> I've had problems in VPC2007 with .iso images for bootable OS installs
> that were larger than 2.2GB in size. VPC doesn't support it so you
> have to go download the CD images rather than the single large DVD
> image file. Does VS2005 get past the 2.2GB boundary on .iso files
> that you capture for the CD/DVD drive?
>
> --- CPUID ---
> When trying to install Solaris 10 in VPC2007, it locks up because the
> CPUID returned by VPC to Solaris is "Connectrix" (or some string that
> doesn't look like a valid CPU ID). Solaris hangs on the install.
> Haven't gotten around this yet. What CPU does VS2005 report to a
> guest OS?
>
> --- Reboot or reset a VM using scripts ---
> When we uninstall a product, we now have our automated test script do
> LOTS of cleanup of remnant files and registry entries. Still we get
> nailed occasionally with some registry entry left over from a prior
> install/uninstall that interferes with a later install/uninstall.
> We're tired of figuring out the cleanup and coding for it. We would
> like to load the VM, install the product under that VM, test the
> product, uninstall it (optional, in this case), and then have the VM
> not just reboot but reset. That is, a snapshot saved for the VM
> before the product was installed gets used to restore the VM back to
> is pristine or base state. Even if we can't do that with the
> automated test scripts that are run inside the VM, we could run
> scripts on the host OS that would communicate with VS2005 to reset the
> VM. Is this possible with VS2005? Then when we get done testing,
> poof, the VM is restarted and back to its base state. I've seen the
> Undo disk feature in VPC2007 and am not impressed. It provides only
> one base state. We'd like to have multiple snapshots, one for the
> base install of the OS and another after we setup the OS for our
> testing. Sometimes we have to give our hosts to developers to
> reproduce the problem and want to blow away any changes they made to
> get back to our setup state, and sometimes we change what is the setup
> state for testing and need to go back to the base OS install state to
> resetup that OS a bit differently. VMware Server lets me save
> multiple snapshots (but I don't see that I get to name them). VS2005
> do snapshots, too? Or do we have to go making copies of the VHD files
> (which VPC uses, don't know what VS2005 uses) so we can slide them
> back atop the currently assigned one?

> "Vanguard" wrote:
>
>> --- ISO images over 2.2GB in size ---
>> I've had problems in VPC2007 with .iso images for bootable OS
>> installs
>> that were larger than 2.2GB in size. VPC doesn't support it so you
>> have to go download the CD images rather than the single large DVD
>> image file. Does VS2005 get past the 2.2GB boundary on .iso files
>> that you capture for the CD/DVD drive?
>
> Are you sure you're using VPC 2007? VPC 2004 had this problem, VPC
> 2007
> should not. VS can capture larger then 2.2GB images, as should VPC
> 2007.
>> --- CPUID ---
>> When trying to install Solaris 10 in VPC2007, it locks up because the
>> CPUID returned by VPC to Solaris is "Connectrix" (or some string that
>> doesn't look like a valid CPU ID). Solaris hangs on the install.
>> Haven't gotten around this yet. What CPU does VS2005 report to a
>> guest OS?
>
> Just FYI, Solaris isn't a supported OS, so you're going to see some
> compatibility issues. The same core VM technology is used in both VPC
> and VS.
>> --- Reboot or reset a VM using scripts ---
>> When we uninstall a product, we now have our automated test script do
>> LOTS of cleanup of remnant files and registry entries. Still we get
>> nailed occasionally with some registry entry left over from a prior
>> install/uninstall that interferes with a later install/uninstall.
>> We're tired of figuring out the cleanup and coding for it. We would
>> like to load the VM, install the product under that VM, test the
>> product, uninstall it (optional, in this case), and then have the VM
>> not just reboot but reset. That is, a snapshot saved for the VM
>> before the product was installed gets used to restore the VM back to
>> is pristine or base state. Even if we can't do that with the
>> automated test scripts that are run inside the VM, we could run
>> scripts on the host OS that would communicate with VS2005 to reset
>> the
>> VM. Is this possible with VS2005? Then when we get done testing,
>> poof, the VM is restarted and back to its base state. I've seen the
>> Undo disk feature in VPC2007 and am not impressed. It provides only
>> one base state. We'd like to have multiple snapshots, one for the
>> base install of the OS and another after we setup the OS for our
>> testing. Sometimes we have to give our hosts to developers to
>> reproduce the problem and want to blow away any changes they made to
>> get back to our setup state, and sometimes we change what is the
>> setup
>> state for testing and need to go back to the base OS install state to
>> resetup that OS a bit differently. VMware Server lets me save
>> multiple snapshots (but I don't see that I get to name them). VS2005
>> do snapshots, too? Or do we have to go making copies of the VHD
>> files
>> (which VPC uses, don't know what VS2005 uses) so we can slide them
>> back atop the currently assigned one?
>
> VS does not do snapshots, but is fully scriptable.