Virtual Hardware Requirements for Guest Customization
This topic describes the virtual machine hardware requirements for customizing the guest operating system.
Guest customization requires that the source virtual machine that you use to create a clone or template has the
following:
n
VMware Tools installed
n
32-bit or 64-bit hardware corresponding to the 32-bit or 64-bit operating system being installed
n
SCSI disks
About SCSI Disks
The guest operating system being customized must reside on a disk attached as SCSI 0:0 node in the virtual
machine configuration.
vCenter Server customization operates on the disk attached to the virtual SCSI node with the lowest address
on the SCSI controller with the lowest index.
Setting Up SCSI Disks
This section lists the requirements for setting up SCSI disks.
Consider the following requirements when setting up SCSI disks:
n
If a virtual machine has mixed IDE and SCSI disks, the first IDE disk is considered the boot disk, and
vCenter Server passes it to the customizer. “First” is in controller:device order, that is, ide0:0, ide0:1, scsi0:0,
scsi0:1, and so on.
n
On a Windows guest operating system, if the virtual machine resides on a host running ESX Server 3.0.x
or earlier, both the active partition (the partition containing
boot.ini
) and the system partition (the
partition containing the system directory, for example,
\WINNT
or
\WINDOWS
), are on the same virtual disk
and attached the SCSI 0:0 virtual SCSI node. It is not a requirement that active and system partitions be
the same partition.
n
On a Linux guest operating system, if the virtual machine resides on a host running ESX Server 3.0.x or
earlier, the virtual disk containing the system partition (the partition containing the
/etc
directory) must
reside on the SCSI 0:0 node.
Windows Requirements for Guest Customization
To customize a Windows guest operating system, the virtual machine must meet certain requirements.
The following are the requirements for Windows:
n
The guest operating system is not a primary or backup domain controller.
n
The clone or template has the Windows versions that is supported for Guest Customization. For a list of
Windows operating systems supported for guest customization, see the vSphere Compatibility Matrixes at
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_compatibility_matrix.pdf
on the VMware vSphere
documentation Web site.
Windows XP Home or Windows NT4 operating system guest customization is not supported.
n
The guest operating system has the most recent version of VMware Tools installed.
n
The Microsoft Sysprep tools are installed on the vCenter Server system.
Microsoft Sysprep tools have certain requirements and impose certain restrictions on the source machine.
vSphere Basic System Administration
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VMware, Inc.
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