I have also noticed that disk I/O from the host seems slower, and that more RAM on the host is used than with V1.x

They have also changed the command line programs, so scripts that backup the VMs need to be re-written for v2. I have written a guide to backup vmware server 2 guests here – if anyone is interested.

Of course I’m mentioning this strictly out of my own experience of using both.

Converted all production MVhosts to ProxMox recently, (KVM + OpenVZ + webgui), I doubt we will ever ever take a look at VMware products again. Not because VM sucks all over, but free/OSS alternatives are arising and prove to be rock solid.

It was the new VSS Backups in ESX 4.0 driving me to update my private VMServer from 1.x to the newest. This was not for the first time but I rolled back last time because I didnt like the Webiface. So, I did again because I thought I can do the same in VMServer 2 now as with ESX 4.0 for the VSS gadget. Unfortunately I couldn’t deal with the VSS integration and it endet with the fight again to get comfortable with the Webiface.

The good thing I may add here is that there is no problem accessing the VMServer 2.0 with the VI-Client 2.5, so I’m happy now. The bad thing is there is still no nice way to backup a VI using the same technology as with ESX 4.0.

Thanks for this nice thread here
<<<michel

Yes, now they don’t have to write two separate GUIs for Win and Lin, but it is not a big deal: they could have used Java, or a cross platform graphic library like Qt… anyway they have to write a lot of platform specific code since paths, security model, and environment values (and registry) works in a completely different way on the two platform!

And, the complexity of testing the UI explodes: now they have to test it on Win and Lin, AND for each test it with the available browser: FF, Opera, Epiphany, Konqueror, Safari, IE (and don’t 4get XP integralists have ditched IE7 and following ones, so you would still need to run well on IE6 that has still a sizeable market share!).

Ok, and some tasks requires the process met some specific security settings… so multiply the previous number for any combination of system’s security setting for the current user for any possible security setting of the web browser… nice!

Result? A lot of issue running the most basic tasks I used to do in 1.x version, no context menu, a lot of problems complicated by the fact sometimes they are not reported at all.
I’ll stick with 1.x version as long as it is reasonable, then I’ll migrate to something else unless they provide again a viable GUI.

To your post (late response, I know!), I installed VMware 2.0 on Windows Server 2003 R2 x64 fully updated. Super clean OS with no “junk”, not even AV software. There was not much to do wrong, I’ve been working in IT for over 8 years but certainly I’m not infallible… I basically didn’t have time to figure out why the web server was randomly crashing/hanging and requiring a reboot. Maybe IE was sending malformed requests VMWare rocks… not trying to rag on their product. Can’t beat free. Older versions are still readily available so it’s all good. I’m going to test 2.0 in a lab environment soon and give it another go.

PS I do know about ESXi. Another great free product. We kind of skip it though. In my environment, we use VMWare Server on Windoze for various reasons. And work with ESX 3.x installations running HA and VC.
D

Is there any way to get back to the old Gnome interface that I used on 1.0.5?? That was a great tool…

VMware Server 2.0 isn’t beta anymore, so take that.

Anyways, I’m currently using VMware Server 2.0 on a linux box, and one of the virtual machines has a USB > Serial dongle attached via USB support. It works fine.

I’ve had pretty much any USB device work with VMware but sometimes it can be tricky connecting them. If the host OS doesn’t have a driver for it, you can’t pick it from the list to connect it. It’s a little bit of a pain in the ass. You can open the console, and have the “Automatically connect USB devices to Virtual Machine” and you won’t need the driver on the host, but you need the VM console to be open and active in order to attach it.

I’ve found that a generally better solution for connecting USB devices to a virtual machine with less problems is to use a network USB hub like the Belkin network USB hub. It’s about $100 and it’s pretty cool. You connect USB devices to it, and plug it into the network. There’s a client app that runs on the machine (or virtual machine) for connecting those devices over the network.

It’s surprisingly quick. It’s only 100Mbit Ethernet, but that’s enough for most things. I tried lots of stuff like my Windows Mobile PDA (ActiveSync works no problem,) mice, drives, USB keys, and a webcam. They all worked great. Not as fast as direct connect, but good. The mouse movement was indistinguishable from local connect – over the network!

The downside is that you have to login and run the Belkin client app to connect devices. The upside is that they support Windows x64 and it works in Windows 7. They also support MacOS. Another upside is that multiple machines can connect to the device – only one can connect to any individual device but you can have different machines plug in to different devices on the same Hub.

To address the previous post. VMware server is a server class virtualization product. The fact that you are trying to use a TV tunner suggests to me that you are NOT running a server virtual machine (correct me if I am wrong here and I will be glad to provide more insight), in which case a server grade solution is NOT what you are looking for. VMware workstation has much better support for desktop virtulization.

What I’m having problems with is USB support to my USB Analog TV Tuner devices… Anybody use the USB support for other than disks?

I fully support your post, the Beta was a big disappointment. Now the release version really gets the job done just great.

As for the problem with dns, thats an issue you will have with all most all services doing reverse lookups, which the console does. (ssh will behave the same)

Vmware Server 2 did apeal me a lot from the beginning.
The biggest mistake was releasing a very buggy version as beta, but they did make up for that after the 2.0 release big time.

Handling administration of such vital processes through a web interface is something I’m not a fan of. Despite my opinion it is working flawlessly on FF3 and IE7. The option to run it over an non encrypted connection shouldn’t be there if you ask me.

You could still access your VM consoles with the “old” VM VIclient. The installer is included in the Win package of VMS2, located typically after installation in “C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Server\hostd\docroot\client”.

None of the problems described above applies AFAIK on the current release. You can e.g.:
-Make snapshots of running VM’s and back them up, this can be automated/scripted
-Set the autostart option vor VM’s
-Set the order and wait time for autostarting VM’s
-Import VM’s created by (older) VM desktop and/or server software

I can understand the rant here for the first beta release, but the current version is a hyperV killer.

The performance footprint of VMware Server 2.0 is smaller than I imagined it to be.

I had only one problem, you can’t access a VM console through the web interface when the VM host has no connection with a DNS server. (when testing in local network or localhost without internet e.g.) This can be bypassed by adding static DNS entries or using the ViClient.

For the money Vmware Server rocks. Big time.

Ummm, I still use VMWare Server 1.x (1.0.8) and I have a web interface. You need to have IIS installed BEFORE you install VMWare Server 1.x It warns you of this during install, so might want to read first before clicking Next at light speed. With the 1.x interface you can tell which VM to start first, second, etc and how many minutes apart. Great for a domain with Exchange etc.

I am just getting into Server 2.0, so far so good.

In the old version it was very user friendly – either switching between machines via the inventory or via tabs.
Now each machine has to open in a new window it’s bloody awful.