koko: virtually fun

“Genghis Khan and his brother Don
Could not keep on keepin’ on”
(1971) “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” – Bob Dylan

VMware Server 1.0 wasn’t broke…

After almost 10 years of being comfortable with VMware Server 1.0[1],[2],[3],[4],[5],[6], I mostly needed to move on:

  • 1.0 wouldn’t install on 64-bit Windows, even after accepting the unsigned drivers.
  • 1.0 was released for Windows & Linux, not  macOS
  • Either Windows 10 exposed previously latent 1.0 memory leaks or 1.0 exposes Windows 10 memory leaks. Either way, Fedora 19 on 1.0 on Windows 10 will only stay up for a couple of days whereas Fedora 19 on 1.0 on older Windows seemed fine
  • Installing VirtualBox on Windows machines with 1.0 broke 1.0, seemingly requiring reinstalling Windows to fix

VMware Server 2.0 was…

When 2.0 came out it was such a radical change, replacing the Console with Web interfaces. Maybe I should have given 2.0 more of a chance, but it didn’t seem a suitable replacement for my needs. Recently I’ve tried to find copies of 2.0 to better evaluate in hindsight. The VMware download links for older products don’t seem to work in general. One source download link seems to work, but otherwise that path seems a dead end.

VMware ESXi, vSphere, VMware Remote Console, … are…

After mostly ignoring VMware products after Server 2.0, I think sometimes trying to jump forward to today’s products felt reminiscent of Marty McFly. Certainly I was daunted at first. Now that I’ve grasped and sorted through the free VMware products enough to have Fedora 24 VMs in place on ESXi and manageable from my MacBook with Remote Console, the modern environment is intriguing and fun. I still have much to learn about the free products, not to mention the purchase products.

VirtualBox?

It is not clear how VirtualBox fits into Oracle’s plans, but since Oracle seems to enhance and support VirtualBox, I’m not about to complain. I’ve mostly used it for a Windows VM on macOS, but have experimented with a bunch of other VMs, mostly with VirtualBox on Windows. VirtualBox VMs do seem to move OK between Windows and macOS. VirtualBox does seem to handle VMs from VMware Server OK. But…

VMware Server 1.0 still has a place

As part of revisiting old Windows versions, I had VMware Server 1.0 replicas of all sorts of variants on the physical machines. When I started trying VirtualBox and ESXi, it quickly became apparent that neither handles old DOS and Windows. Whether I tried to run existing VMs or tried to install new VMs from scratch, they just didn’t work at all. This may not be the bright line test, but it appears that Windows 2000 forward will work OK with VirtualBox, ESXi and VMware Workstation Pro, but NT 4 (and older), Windows 9x and DOS will not.


  1. Fedora & VMWare “right side up”
  2. Upside Down (Windows over Fedora 7 Linux)
  3. Windows 98 virtual machine excursion anomalies
  4. Upside Down (Windows over Fedora 7 Linux)
  5. Real Virtual
  6. Free code meets free sectors

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