One of the most important principles when designing a scientific experiment is to add only one new factor at a time. So call me a bad scientist—my first attempt at desktop OS virtualization was also my first time trying Windows 7. Scientific method aside, it was a great experience and I think Windows 7 will be used inside virtual machines (VMs) often.
I installed the Windows 7 RC from the publicly available 32-bit ISO file. Workstation quickly identified the ISO as Windows Vista and asked for my product key and full name. Despite the misidentified OS, Workstation's Easy Install feature ran through the entire install without asking me for any further input and successfully started Windows 7, with the only apparent problem being the clock set in the wrong time zone. Whether that's a testament to VMware's programming team or the similarities between Vista's installation process and Windows 7's, I can't say.
My test machine has a 2 GHz dual-core processor and 2GB of RAM and runs Vista Enterprise. 2GB is what I'd call the bare minimum for running Vista, so I wasn't expecting much in terms of performance. I assigned my VM one processor and 1GB of RAM and I continued to use the host machine during my Windows 7 install. Despite all this, the installation process took just 34 minutes, including a reboot of the VM to install VMware's tools into the guest OS.
 |
Aside from a few minor graphical problems, the Windows 7 RC runs very well in VMware Workstation. Click to expand. |