Impact of wrong OS type for VMs

Someone asked me what the impact would be if a VM is installed with the wrong OS type.

My first thought was that this probably would introduce some performance issues, but then it hit me that this would cause the incorrect VMware Tools to get installed in the VM, leading to all sorts of unintended behaviors. Even worse, if the correct MCA/MCE architecture is not presented to the guest during boot I don’t think it will start at all. We use guest OS type to get this info (it only matters during boot as far as I know).

How to fix it:

  1. Power off the VM.
  2. Modify via GUI option General of the properties of your VM.
  3. Power on the VM.
  4. Reinstall the correct VMware Tools.

Anybody know of any more gotchas associated with having the wrong OS type specified for your VM?

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Fusion, VMware, VMware ESX, Workstation, vSphere VMwarewolf December 30th. 2009, 1:34pm
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3 Responses to “Impact of wrong OS type for VMs”

  1. Jim Bodkin Says:
    December 31st, 2009 at 10:40 am

    I did this a few weeks ago when building a VM. I selected W2008 instead of W2003. The VM installation went fine until the reboot then the VM just hung with a black screen. I actually had to delete & rebuild the VM.

  2. Dan Deane Says:
    December 31st, 2009 at 12:28 pm

    I am guessing that a reinstall of the vmware tools is most likely in order as well when fixing the issue?

  3. VMwarewolf Says:
    December 31st, 2009 at 1:04 pm

    Yes, of course. Let me add that in. Thanks!

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