DOS Installation Notes
MS-DOS 6.22 can be installed inside a virtual machine using the MS-DOS
installation diskettes provided with the full version. If you have the
upgrade diskettes, you will need to install an earlier version of DOS before
you will be able to upgrade. To start installing MS-DOS 6.22, put the first
diskette in the floppy drive, power on the virtual machine, and follow the
instructions on the screen.
After installing DOS, VMware recommends that you install a CPU idle
program within the virtual machine. Most versions of DOS do not idle
the CPU when they are idle. Therefore, when you are running DOS in a
virtual machine, the virtual machine will take up CPU time on the
host even when DOS is idle. VMware Workstation relies on the guest operating
system to use the Halt instruction or advanced power management to
deschedule the virtual machine when it is idle. We have tested a
program called DOSIDLE.EXE and have found it works
successfully with VMware Workstation. It can be downloaded here.
Follow the instructions provided with the program. But be aware of the
-cpu option, which causes the idle program to access the CPU at a
low level in order to optimize performance. There is a good chance that this
will not work with some CPUs under VMware Workstation. It is suggested that you not
use it.
Windows 3.1x Installation Notes
Windows v3.1x can also be installed using the standard installation
diskettes. VMware Workstation virtual machines support the networking features found in
Windows 3.11 (or Windows for Workgroups). If you set up networking, choose
the Advanced Micro Devices PCNET Family (NDIS2/NDIS3) Ethernet driver.
Optimizing Performance
VMware Workstation for Linux users:
To get optimal, full-screen performance, be sure that the host
is configured with an appropriate X server.
Known Problems
- The current support for DOS/EMM386 is limited. We recommend that you
avoid using it for now. Be sure to comment out the entry in the
CONFIG.SYS file.
- We intermittently encounter erratic mouse behavior in virtual machines
running Windows v3.1x in window mode. This problem does not appear in the
full-screen mode and we are working on a fix for this problem.