Thursday, December 13, 2007

How to enable sound in VMware Server

Now that you have your Host Linux and Guest Windows OS running, you can now run your M$ Windows applications. And, improve your virtual OS experience by adding sound so that you can listen to music, watch videos, play games, etc. By default sound is disabled in VMware Server for the Guest OS, the following steps will show you how to enable sound.


1. Launch VMware as root: [sudo vmware]
2. Open the virtual machine you want to add sound to (the machine should not be powered on, if it is, shut down).
3. Click “Edit virtual machine settings.
4. Under the Hardware tab click “+ Add”.
5. Choose “Sound Adapter” and click Next.
6. Select Auto Detect from the drop down menu.
7. Make sure “Connect at power on” is enabled.
8. Click Finish.

Power on your machine and login. If you have VMware Tools installed, Windows should automatically detect your virtual audio drivers. You should now be able to hear audio and system beeps. You can also control the volume using both Windows’ volume control and any hardware volume control buttons you have. Keep in mind that the volume in your Guest OS is dependant on your Host OS. That means if your volume is muted in Linux, you will not hear anything in Windows even if you set Windows’ volume to max. Also, if your volume in Linux is only set to halfway, the loudest you can hear anything in Windows will also be halfway.

Additionally, if you want to enable the use of USB devices in your Guest OS, follow the same method as above and choose USB controller instead.

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