I experienced some interesting issues with the installer when I decided to try out the new VMWare Workstation 7. After downloading the install to my Downloads folder, and running it, the installer window was displaying a strange web-page, and if I clicked on a link in that web-page, the installer would either crash or happily allow me to browse the web (I could even do a Google image search).
After examining the properties of the web-page (which was rendered in IE), I found that the installer initially places a number of files in the default temporary folder in order to display the installer's graphical interface. From browsing to the temp folder, you would also discover that it keeps installation logs there.
Anyway, the problem ended up being related to these two lines in the log:


This creates an issue if you have a file "index.htm" in the same folder as the place you run the install from (in this case my Downloads folder). For some reason it seems the installer searches for the file in this folder first before using the supplied path.
So if you're having trouble installing VMWare, and it looks similar to this:



Rather than this:



You might try relocating your install file, or deleting the file named "index.htm" in the same directory as the install.
Alternately, VMWare could fix their installer.

I must say -- realy pleased with the new version of VMware Workstation 7 -- so great that it supports better gfx card emulation now -- Now I can use Aero in VMs!!

I wonder if someone here can help me to get everything to work at once. The way I have things set up currently: I have my main NIC, which is configured to share its connection with my second NIC so that I can connect to XBOX Live (for unrelated reasons).

Internet >> PC >> XBOX

But VMWare won't connect until I disable ICS. I tried changing a few things in the VNE, but then I gave up after a while.
Basically the approach I think I should be using is to enable ICS for my second NIC, and then have VMWare connect via that interface but I don't know if that would work if my XBOX is turned off and the connection there isn't active?

Too complex for me, but all I can say is....

You should play halo with me some time Oz

You could simplify this, by using a hardware router instead of ICS...

Also, when you say VMWare wont connect, do you mean the network adapter in the VM wont work at all, or do you mean that the VM cant get Internet access ?

P4 Wrote:You could simplify this, by using a hardware router instead of ICS...

Also, when you say VMWare wont connect, do you mean the network adapter in the VM wont work at all, or do you mean that the VM cant get Internet access ?

Ok. There's really no problem with using ICS like that. It's about $20 for a NIC, and about $250 for a router, so if you're prepared to wire me the $230, I'm sure I could work something out there. I haven't even tested to see if using a router would actually work too (it's not exactly a conventional setup), so there's no guarantee.

I also don't see how you could think that the network adapter in VMWare isn't working. It seems to be working fine, and there's really no reason why it wouldn't work when I use ICS between two other network adapters.

Also, I'm not actually sure whether I will ever be able to get this to work. ICS seems to be rather strict about using only two network adapters. I just wanted to get a second opinion to see if there was something I may have forgotten about or wasn't aware of.

Josh Wrote:You should play halo with me some time Oz

Top man bey, Josh. I suck at halo, but I'll play when yous are on.

Quote:There's really no problem with using ICS like that. It's about $20 for a NIC, and about $250 for a router

Ok then, do some ICS, right now, Do it.... Just as I thought. its $20 to use ICS, but if you want it to work, then use a $60 router

As I understand it, the root of your problem is that ICS is very simplified so that it can only share the Internet from one (external) adapter to the network on one other (internal) adapter. You could try some things like bridging the internal adapter with the vmware adapter, but the best solution is to have a simple router which is your DHCP server and gateway device for your PC (and VM's) and XBOX with the WAN port getting an IP from your Uni network, and employing all the always-on keep-alive technologies that make you want to use ICS in the first place.

P4 Wrote:

Quote:There's really no problem with using ICS like that. It's about $20 for a NIC, and about $250 for a router

Ok then, do some ICS, right now, Do it.... Just as I thought. its $20 to use ICS, but if you want it to work, then use a $60 router

As I understand it, the root of your problem is that ICS is very simplified so that it can only share the Internet from one (external) adapter to the network on one other (internal) adapter. You could try some things like bridging the internal adapter with the vmware adapter, but the best solution is to have a simple router which is your DHCP server and gateway device for your PC (and VM's) and XBOX with the WAN port getting an IP from your Uni network, and employing all the always-on keep-alive technologies that make you want to use ICS in the first place.

Listen buddy! I'm not wasting $60 to buy some cheap Asus sundial just so that I can satisfy your equally dirt-cheap, whimsical desires.

I told you the problem, and I gave you the scope of the problem and the tools I have to work with. You either fix it by solving the problem using the tools I have available, buy me the tools to fix the problem yourself, or tell me that it's too hard, that after a few hours of crying you're finally ready to give up, and that we can all put our respective efforts toward something productive.

Quote:Listen buddy! I'm not wasting $60 to buy some cheap Asus sundial just so that I can satisfy your equally dirt-cheap, whimsical desires

I'm not your buddy, pal! and I'm not the one with the dirt cheap, whimsical idea that I can spend only $20 and use ICS to make a flawless network that also supports complex virtual machine networks.

But Ill fix your problem, you first want to do some pings and tracerts so we can see where the connection is breaking, I understand that your using NAT for the VM's, so I guess that means that the VM's have a virtual network going on and they connect through their own virtual gateway where their IP's are NAT'ed to look like they are coming from a physical interface, I would like to know which physical interface the VM's are being NAT'ed too, in particular whether its the Internal or External ICS interface.

To clarify -- you cant just bridge the Vmware NIC with the physical NIC because its in a network team?