Knowledge Base

Here are some of the more common questions and answers we have gotten for device support in the different VMware products.

Is the SATA drive supported?

Serial ATA (SATA) drives are supported on the host system as long as you are using the "virtual disk" feature. Virtual disks exist as files on the host filesystem, and therefore can be accessed by the VMware Workstation or GSX Server software. SATA physical disks are not supported. Because there are only IDE and SCSI devices in the current device model, SATA drives used as physical disks will not work at all in VMware Workstation or GSX Server.

Are PCI card modems supported in the VMware software?

Most PCI modems are Winmodems, and are not supported in a virtual machine. If it's an external modem and plugs into the serial port, it can usually be accessed as a generic serial device from within a virtual machine.

Is ISDN supported within GSX Server or Workstation virtual machine?

The virtual machine will not be able to directly access the ISDN modem, because there is not a virtual device installed in the virtual machine to control this device directly. However, if the host machine has internet connection via an ISDN card then the virtual machine can get to the internet through the host's ISDN connection by using NAT. See "Using NAT" instructions for your product below:

• http://www.vmware.com/support/gsx3/doc/network_nat_details_gsx.html (GSX Server 3.x)
• http://www.vmware.com/support/ws55/doc/ws_net_nat.html (VMware Workstation 5.x)

Is the SATA (Serial ATA) drive supported in the VMware software?

Host Serial ATA drives cannot be used as RAW disks in a virtual machine in VMware Workstation and VMware GSX Server. Virtual disks, however, can be stored on the host's SATA drives with no problems.

Is Red Hat Linux 9.0 supported in the VMware software?

Red Hat Linux 9.0 is currently supported in all the latest versions of the VMware software. This is true for both the HOST OS as well as the GUEST OS. If you have an earlier version of the VMware software installed, check on the VMware support pages, in the System Requirements section, for specific support in your version. See http://www.vmware.com/support.

Is Fedora Core supported in the VMware software?

Fedora Core is not currently supported in any version of VMware products, either as a host or guest operating system. VMware extends official support for those operating systems that are considered in "complete" form by the manufacturer. Although popular, Fedora Core 1 (and later releases) is a community based, open source project which is in a constant state of change. It is not considered to be a shipping product, and is not supported by Red Hat. This does not allow VMware enough of an opportunity to test and certify this OS before (possibly major) changes are made to the OS. Therefore, VMware cannot support this product until it's in a "complete" form. For more information on the intent, schedule, and reasoning behind the Fedora project, please see the Fedora Project FAQ at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FAQ.

As always, VMware is constantly evaluating new distributions for supportability, and when a new OS is added to the supported list, it can be found on our system requirements pages depending on your product. See http://www.vmware.com/support.

Can I install the VMware software on a Windows 98 host machine?

Windows 98 is not supported as a host in any versions of the VMware software. Windows 98 is supported as a guest operating system in GSX Server and VMware Workstation, though. VMware is not planning support for Windows 98 hosts in the future.

Does VMware support the 64GB RAM memory kernel?

The 64GB-SMP-Kernel is not supported in VMware Workstation. This kernel uses 36-bit addressing and three-level page tables. VMware kernel code and monitor currently uses 32-bit addressing and two-level page tables, which limit it to 4GB. For a list of supported Linux host kernels, see the system requirements for your product. Note that this does not apply to ESX Server, which has it's own kernel.

Can I play games inside a VMware virtual machine?

Some Windows games will run within the VMware software. However, VMware has not tested most game software for use in a virtual machine and cannot guarantee that all games will run properly.

Are infrared (IR) devices supported in a virtual machine?

Infrared devices are not supported in a virtual machine at this time.

Is the vmware-mount functionality still available?

The vmware-mount script, used to mount virtual disks on Linux host machines, has been removed from the most recent versions of all of the VMware products. It was removed due to problems encountered with the 2.4.x series of host Linux kernels. VMware is currently considering adding the vmware-mount feature back into the product, but this feature is under technical review at this time. There is not a set release date for the addition of this feature back into the VMware software.

Is OS/2 supported as a guest operating system in any version of VMware?

Due to low demand, OS/2 is not supported in a virtual machine at this time, in any version of the VMware software.

Does the VMware software run on computers that use the Power PC (Mac) processor?

The VMware software is not an emulator and instead a virtual machine monitor for the x86 architecture. Therefore, VMware products will not run on PowerPC driven machines. By design we offer a level of performance which is not possible with emulators; therefore, to run VMware on non-x86 processors the software would need to be ported. This would cause a signifigant degradation in performance on such host machines.

Are RAID configurations supported?

The VMware software supports access to RAID file systems, as long as you use virtual disks to run your virtual machines. A good general rule for support on storage devices is:

If your host can see and modify the files on a piece of storage, a virtual disk will run and operate a virtual machine on the same storage device.

Is Solaris x86 operating system (for Intel hardware) supported as a guest operating system?

Solaris for Intel is not supported as a guest operating system at this time. For a list of officially supported guest operating systems, refer to http://www.vmware.com/support/guestnotes/doc/index.html.

Can I run VMware products on a multi-processor host machine?

The VMware software will run on Symmetric Multi-Processor (SMP) systems, also technically referred to as Multi-Processor Specification (MPS) systems. However, the environment provided within each VMware virtual machine is a Uni-Processor (UP) system. Multiple concurrent VMware virtual machines will make use of the multiple processors in a system.

The VMware software requires at least a Linux 2.2.x kernel to run on an SMP system and will fail with an error message on SMP systems running 2.0.x or 2.1.x kernels. With VMware products for Windows NT/2000/XP, the VMware software supports SMP kernels. The host OS will run its tasks on multiple processors dynamically (regardless of whether apps or one, two or more VMs are running at the same time). Keep in mind though that each VM runs as a single process on the host OS, so if you run a single VM on a dual processor machine, the performance will be only slightly higher then if you ran the same single VM on a single processor system. However, if you run two VMs concurrently, the dual-processor machine will yield higher performance since the host OS will assign each of the two main VM processes to each processor.

At this time, ESX Server 2.x virtual machines have the option of running in SMP mode, with the Virtual SMP add-on available from VMware. See http://www.vmware.com/products/server/vsmp_features.html.

VMware has plans to support SMP inside a virtual machine environment with our other products; however, the feature will not be available in the near future and there is no ETA on its availability at this time.

Refer to our website for further announcements.

Are 3-D graphics and 3-D applications (DirectX) supported by VMware?

Windows can emulate Direct3D support for a device that does not support hardware acceleration, (such as VMware's virtual SVGA adapter), but most 3-D capable graphics applications will run very slowly, or not at all, in this condition. Thus, a virtual machine that tries to run a 3-D capable graphics application in software emulation mode will run very slowly, at best.

Does VMware run on 64-bit (IA-64) machines?

VMware is supported only on host processors and host operating systems running in 32-bit mode; processors and operating systems running in 64-bit mode are not supported. VMware is considering supporting 64-bit machines for future versions, but this is still under technical review at this time.

Update (2006-NOV-17): ESX Server 3.0.1 introduced support for selected 64-bit guest operating systems. For more information on 64-bit guest operating system support including important hardware requirements, see:

• Details of What's New and Improved in VMware Infrastructure 3 (http://www.vmware.com/support/vi3/doc/whatsnew_esx301_vc201.html)
• Systems Compatibility Guide for ESX Server 3.x (http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_systems_guide.pdf).

Do VMware products support USB devices?

At this time, the latest versions of GSX Server and VMware Workstation support USB devices. ESX Server does not currently support USB.

VMware Workstation and GSX Server provide a two-port USB 1.1 controller. You can use up to two USB devices in your virtual machine if both your host operating system and your guest operating system support USB. If your host computer supports USB 2.0 devices, you can use those devices in the virtual machine.

Note: Windows NT and Linux kernels older than 2.2.17 do not support USB; therefore USB devices cannot be used in VMware on these host systems.

Although your host operating system must support USB, you do not need to install device-specific drivers for your USB devices in the host operating system if you want to use those devices only in the virtual machine.

On a Windows 2000 host computer with USB 2.0 support, be sure you are using the Microsoft USB 2.0 driver for the USB controller. Third-party USB 2.0 drivers, such as those provided by some motherboard manufacturers, are not supported. For notes on replacing the third-party drivers, see "Replacing USB 2.0 Drivers on a Windows 2000 Host" at:

• http://www.vmware.com/support/gsx3/doc/devices_usb_drivers_gsx.html (GSX Server 3.x)
• http://www.vmware.com/support/ws55/doc/ws_devices_usb_win_usb2.html (VMware Workstation 5.x)