Click 'Next' on the next add a CD/DVD Drive.Click 'Add.' toward the bottom of the hardware settings window.When you reach the final screen in the virtual machine setup wizard, click 'Customize Hardware.' to open the VM's hardware settings (you can also reach this menu afterward via Player > Manager > Virtual Machine Settings). How to boot off a USB drive in VMware Player.ĭownload Plop Boot Manager and extract the zipped contents. In the event that your copy of Windows 10 is on a bootable USB drive instead of being an ISO, VMware Player doesn't provide native support for booting off USB devices, but it's easy to add this functionality when you reach the hardware configuration screen at end of the setup prompts. With VMware Player installed and open, you can begin setting up a new virtual machine from an ISO file or bootable CD/DVD by going to the 'Player' menu on the top left > New Virtual Machine and the first window will let you select an ISO file or installation CD (or to proceed without either).

Setting up a Windows 10 virtual machine in VMware Player Both VMware and VirtualBox support Linux. Meanwhile, VirtualBox is also worth a mention as it can be run on macOS. VMware Player 14 has new features and improved support for more modern hardware, and will be the focus of our guide today. We've used VMware Player extensively for years and for this guide we worked with our current installation of an older version that supports older processors.

Running an OS within an OS is surprisingly easy to do courtesy of free software from VMware and VirtualBox, both of which we'll show you how to install and configure, albeit with more of an emphasis on VMware Player.ĭownload: VMware Player | VirtualBox | Microsoft Windows & Office ISO Download Tool A virtual machine can also help you to run older software that doesn't work with your new operating system, or simply exploring a new operating system altogether.įor instance, you could have a fully working copy of Linux while being logged into Windows, or an installation of Windows XP inside Windows 10, etc. Having a virtual machine on-hand can be useful for a variety of purposes, such as testing software or tweaks in a sandboxed environment that is separate from your primary operating system.

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