Windows Server 2003 Installation Guidelines

Support

This guest operating system is supported on the following VMware products:

General Installation Notes

You can install Windows Server 2003, Web Edition, Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition or Datacenter Edition in a virtual machine using the corresponding Windows Server 2003 distribution CD.

VMware Workstation: To use SCSI disks in a Windows Server 2003 virtual machine under VMware Workstation, you need a special SCSI driver available from the download section of the VMware Web site at www.vmware.com/download. Follow the instructions on the Web site to use the driver with a fresh installation of Windows Server 2003. If you have a virtual machine with a SCSI virtual disk and a Windows 9x, Windows Me, Windows NT or Windows 2000 guest operating system and want to upgrade it to Windows Server 2003, install the new SCSI driver before upgrading the operating system.

ESX Server: If you are using the virtual LSI Logic SCSI adapter, Windows Server 2003 automatically installs the SCSI driver when you install the guest operating system. If you are using the virtual BusLogic SCSI adapter, you need a special SCSI driver available from the download section of the VMware Web site at www.vmware.com/download. Follow the instructions on the Web site to use the driver with a fresh installation of Windows Server 2003. If you have a virtual machine with a SCSI virtual disk and an earlier Windows guest operating system and want to upgrade it to Windows Server 2003, install the new SCSI driver before upgrading the operating system.

Installation Steps

If you want to run Windows Server 2003 in a virtual machine, be sure you have a full installation CD for the operating system.

Before installing the operating system, be sure that you have already created and configured a new virtual machine.

Installing the Guest Operating System

  1. Insert the Windows Server CD in the CD-ROM drive.
  2. Power on the virtual machine to start installing Windows Server.
  3. If you are using the virtual BusLogic SCSI driver downloaded from the VMware Web site, you must take some special steps at this point in the installation process. Follow the instructions from the Web site to install the SCSI driver.
  4. Follow the remaining installation steps as you would for a physical machine.

VMware Tools

Be sure to install VMware Tools in your guest operating system. For details, see the manual for your VMware product.

Known Issues

Product Activation

The Microsoft Windows Server 2003 product activation feature creates a numerical key based on the virtual hardware in the virtual machine where it is installed. Changes in the configuration of the virtual machine may require you to reactivate the operating system. There are some steps you can take to minimize the number of significant changes.

For more details on Windows Server 2003 product activation, see the Microsoft Web site.

Display Hardware Acceleration

Windows Server 2003 has display adapter hardware acceleration disabled by default. This slows down graphics performance and mouse responsiveness in the guest operating system.

To enable hardware acceleration in a Windows Server 2003 guest, open the Control Panel, then open the Display Properties control panel. On the Settings tab, click Advanced. On the Troubleshoot tab, drag the Hardware acceleration slider all the way to Full.

Guest Screen Saver

On a Linux host with an XFree86 3.x X server, it is best not to run a screen saver in the guest operating system. Guest screen savers that demand a lot of processing power can cause the X server on the host to freeze.

Hibernation

The hibernation feature is not supported in this release. Instead of using the guest operating system's hibernate feature, suspend the virtual machine.

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