On Tuesday September 1 at 10:00 PM

I Successfully virtualised Snow Leopard client under vmware 2.0.5

Running on the Following Setup

Intel Imac

2.8GHZ

2GB Ram

500GB Hard Drive

Radeon 2600HD

Not really will be installing it normally as well.

The main reason is that No - One else has successfully done so.

Really it was a test of whether it was possible.


As a benchmark the installation took 43 minutes to complete under a default vmware configuration of 1024mb ram

So Far I have tested nearly all included programs

* DVD Player Does not function has error (-70017)
* Most Of The Screen Savers do not work.
* Front Row Loads to Black Screen
* Screen recording in Quicktime produces error (OSStatus error -108)
* Sound Does not Work Bug in all Mac os's When Virtualised
* System Profiler cannot find alot of information about the system components .


Startup time is slow under the virtual environment of 20 Seconds

Nice work, i actually thought about doing that myself, but just dived in in the end.

Is it just me or is your processor listed a little bit strangely for a 2.8ghz iMac?
2 x Core 2 Solo

Jaime, are you aware that this violates the Mac OS X Software Licence Agreement?

oh noes! not the EULA!!!111!!!1

What did you have to hack to get it to install?

I'm actually suprised so little actually 'broke' inside the VM. And now I'm curious as to what sort of differences there are in OSX Server which lets it be virtualised, and how much of that actually works properly.

\m/_ (0_o) _\m/

I am aware that this violates the EULA hence it is NOT supported to be used for educational purposes only.

Note: I have not Tested this with an IDE Virtual Drive although i expect the results would be the same.

As far as the processors are concerned that is how VMware perceives Core 2 duos in the Ecpu configuration. VMware Communities: Leopard Server under Fusion Beta 2

But the way to virtualise snow leopard/Leopard is as follows


using the client hack from leopard as is follows

sudo bash
cd "/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/isoimages"
mkdir original
mv darwin.iso tools-key.pub *.sig original
sed "s/ServerVersion.plist/SystemVersion.plist/g" < original/darwin.iso > darwin.iso
openssl genrsa -out tools-priv.pem 2048
openssl rsa -in tools-priv.pem -pubout -out tools-key.pub
openssl dgst -sha1 -sign tools-priv.pem < darwin.iso > darwin.iso.sig
for A in *.iso ; do openssl dgst -sha1 -sign tools-priv.pem < $A > $A.sig ; done
exit

This removes the check for server in vmware 2.0 or above at least that was what i have tested on with leopard client

Then to install snow leopard

If you try to install it will give an Eboot error so you need to go to the advanced install by pressing F8

Then while in there use -v -install and it should install.

you will know if it is not successful because it will do the following

1. The Processors will be shut down in the virtual machine
2 The Virtual machine will have a read error
3. Single User Mode Freezes


Note i have not tried this without the Client hack as found at rectalogic: Virtualizing Mac OS X Leopard Client

Note: The hack may stop working when vmware is updated but so far it just means that until you rerun the client hack you cannot install new Leopard/Snow Leopard Clients.


On a macbook Pro running the same hack as above booting from the snow leopard Disc worked without using the F8 advanced options method it took about 23 seconds to load to the Select language screen I will see if in about 40 minutes this was successful as well. This virtual machine is configured with two partitions created by leopard client with leopard client installed on the first partition

Installation Completed in 34 minutes

I am now testing the booting of Snow leopard off the second partition This is done by Pressing F8 at startup then selecting the partition

Snow Leopard Has Booted Successfully am running Remote Desktop update The Errors previously posted are the same on this virtual machine.

Under this configuration it boots the first partition by default after restarts so you have to press F8 to load snow leopard if you have installed on a second partition.

All Problems faced so far seem to stem from the Graphics card and sound card drivers in vmware.

Open terminal and type in the hack you can copy and paste.

Note check the advanced options while running vmware

If you can test under vmware 2.06 as i have not tested an install under that yet.