Creating a new virtual machine for VMWare Player

VMware Player does not allow you to create a virtual machine from the scratch, only to run existing ones. In order to create new virtual machines, you can use the qemu-img.exe program that comes with QEMU.

The virtual machine consists of two files: the vmdk which you create using the qemu-img.exe program, and the vmx file which is a plain text configuration file.

The following post contains instructions of how to create these files:
http://johnbokma.com/mexit/2005/10/26/vmware-player-windows-xp.html

In his example, the author uses the guest Operating System as Windows XP. To create a virtual machine for different operating systems, simply change the value of the guestOS variable located at the vmx file. The following link contains the supported values:
http://www.ffnn.nl/pages/articles/linux/vmware-player-image-creation.php#oscodes

Running a Command Prompt Window as Administrator in Windows Vista

This post has a good tip of how to quickly open a command prompt window as administrator in Windows Vista.

1. Press the Win key
2. Type cmd. Alternatively, you can type cmd /k color 4f to get a window with different color to remind you are running as administrator.
3. Press Ctrl+Shift+Enter
4. Hit Alt+C to confirm the elevation prompt