You can download VMware player (free if for personal use) here VMware Virtualization for Desktop & Server, Application, Public & Hybrid Clouds - United States Just click on downloads and the far right column is the free versions.
HI there.
for VMware player (FREE) - for you - UK site.
VMware site VMware Player Plus: Easiest Way to Run a Virtual Machine - UK
Ignore the "Buy" in Plus -- anything Plus or Pro usually means PAY -- all this means in this case is that it's FREE for personal use but organisations have to pay.
Have a read too for other VM products -- I still think using a Virtual machine is the BEST way of learning about servers etc since you can try anything out and if you hose it up then you just roll out another one.
What I would do is after you've got your base configuration (before changing anything etc- just get it booted up).
At this point after ist activation MAKE A COPY - with VMware you can either clone the VM or with windows simply save the data files - to the HOST OS the VM files are simply DATA. Then use this every time you want to start again - so you won't have to keep re-activating.
The Esxi option is also interesting since you can use some of your actual hardware in the VM ("Passthru") but I'd suggest if you are new to VM's then use the VMWARE option to start with.
There's also an interesting feature in VMware WORKSTATION (this is a paid app -- you don't really need this unless you anticipate doing a huge amount of development on many different VM's) where the disks can be set to NON-persistant -- this means that at the end of the session all changes are backed off and the disks are restored to the initial state.
Bit of "light bed time reading" for you I'm afraid.
Cheers
jimbo
I just wanted to say that I'm also using VMware player to virtualize Windows Server 2012 R2 on my laptop. There are no problems that I found with the VMware tools nor functionality (well you can't use Hyper-V when the OS is virtualized). Virtualized Bluetooth doesn't work though. I use it run Metro Apps and Metro games (Pinball FX2, Adera, Jetpack Joyride, etc), but I've never used it as a "server". I don't know if it can actually do "server" roles (can be configured on the server manager) since it's inside a VM.
lovely. will keep you posted once i have had a play with this over the weekend.
great little machine for the price. just need to get some more RAM as only supplied 2GB. ESXi needs at least 4GB.
hi all,
just have a question that you might be able to help with. I purchased HP microsoft windows small business server 2011 client access licenses suite from CCL Computers the other day.
no disc or link down download the software. called CCL who were no help at all informing me that i needed to contact microsoft directly.
this may sound like a silly question but were do you find the download for this content? why sell a product with no disc or download link?
thanks
andrew
Did you purchase the operating system or just the CALs? The CALs are just licenses that dictate how's my users or devices can be connected in the client/server network. The operating system will have a different license.
For example, I have Windows Server 2012 R2 license for the operating system and then 5 additional CALs that state that I can have 5 users that can access the server at any one time.
Josh
Hi there
for testing you don't need to install extra CALS - obviously for running Production type applications you need to.
You can install things like Office on the server - use the Terminal Service key from TechNet (Office 2010) rather than the standard one --you don't need to install the VL version.
Access the server via RDP is probably the easiest way -- then I'd try and set it up as a VPN and then you can have all sorts of fun with it. There's some quite decent FREE VPN software out there too.
(Accessing the server remotely by ONE user doesn't require a CAL also I believe that you can have several RDP connections as well - 4 I believe (although that was with W2003 server so it might have changed a bit).
Note if you run your Virtual Server in the background you can connect to it without even needing a User Id / Logon id on the HOST too - so the host can just be left trundling away in the corner with nobody logged on. Just set the VM to run in the background.
Cheers
jimbo
My assumption is that you have purchased a CAL and not the operating system. The website appears to be extremely vague and not showing any identification between the two types. My main judgement for this is the price. £35 for a server operating system? That's lower than Windows 7 client operating system!
It would appear that you would need something like this:
Microsoft Windows Small Business Server Standard 2011 - T72-02881 - CCL Computers
Microsoft Windows Small Business Server Essentials 2011 - 2VG-00202 - CCL Computers
That being said the specification stated that the product was an operating system under form factor therefore I would be on the phone demanding what I paid for or a full refund for false advertisement.
Josh
Hi Shadowjk... agreed. appreciate that you have the same thoughts as mayself.
i also asked some questions before buying and at no point did they mention that i could not run this as an operating system and not just a cal license.
Quote