Mac OS X Lion Server For Dummies®

Installing an OS in a Virtual Machine

Installing an operating system in a virtual machine is similar to installing an OS on a physical computer but with a few extra steps at the beginning to create the virtual machine in which you'll install the OS.

Virtualization software won't let you use the remote Lion Server installation procedure that I describe in Chapter 3. With Parallels Server, however, you can create a virtual machine on a machine remotely from another computer on the network.

The following sections look at some of the issues with a desktop virtualization application as well as with Parallels Server.

Immediately after creating a new virtual machine, take a snapshot of the brand-new installation. In the event that you mess things up, this snapshot enables you to quickly revert to a clean, fresh install without having to reinstall the operating system. The Snapshot feature is usually available in the Virtual Machine menu of your virtualization software.

Each virtual machine can run it its own window (as in Figure 4-1) or full-screen. You can run a multiple virtual machine in full-screen mode at the same time by putting each in one of Mac OS X's Spaces. Virtualization software also includes view modes that hide the desktop of the guest OS and display only windows, enabling you to intermingle windows from the host Mac and the guest OS.

Getting the right version of virtualization ...