Like a physical machine, you must always power on a virtual machine to use it. A startup actually entails the following components.
Because you can combine these steps or do them individually, you can actually start a VM in a few different ways.
If you wish to use a subdirectory for each instance of a VM, you should move to that subdirectory before starting a VM. This assures that files that are created by VMware application as it runs (for example, the redo log if you have not changed its location) are also written to that directory. (See "Directories Used by VMware" for more information.)
To simply launch the VMware application product (with no associated configuration file):
The main VMware window appears.Because you did not specify a configuration file, a pop-up window also appears. It asks if you want to create a new configuration file using the VM configuration wizard or the VM configuration editor, or if you want to open an existing file. Typically at this point you would open (select) the desired VM configuration file and power on that guest operating system, but you could configure a new VM or to modify an existing VM.
If you try to press power on before you have selected a VM configuration file, you are asked if you want to configure a VM, as VMware cannot start an undefined VM.
If you have defined a VM that has no hard drive but only a floppy drive (or CD-ROM), you should insert a bootable floppy disk (or CD-ROM) before pressing Power On.
If you are using an undoable disk, you may be prompted at power on regarding whether to commit the last session's data to the disk. For more information, see "Using Undoable Disks" . You may also be prompted if you are using a File for either a serial or parallel port device.
If you wish to provide any keyboard or mouse input to the VM as it boots, you must move the cursor into the VM screen and click before the cursor will be active within the VM screen.
To start VMware and power on a VM, enter:
where config-file is the configuration file for the VM you want to use. This is the most efficient way to start a VM that is already configured. This command launches the VMware application, powers on the machine specified by the configuration file, and boots the guest operating system. Depending upon the guest operating system, the application that was running when the OS was last shut down may open too.
To "run" a configuration file to start a VM:
where config-file is a valid configuration file. The designated VM opens in a window, but it is not started.
This boots the guest operating system. Depending upon the guest operating system, the application that was running when the OS was last shut down may open too.