Run Mac desktops virtually on PC servers
Oct 09, '08 07:30:00AM
Contributed by: Anonymous
I'm the administrator for a group of creative artists and have a number of Macs (of most all flavors) running on our network. While I love OS X Server, it remains (for me) too hard and complex to do what I need. I want an easy path to manage all my Mac users on a central server farm (preferably HP servers, since that is what our IT department has in our data center). I've heard about Mac OS X server running virtually, but only on Xserve.
My quest for running OS X virtually only led to more frustration:
- I don't really want to virtualize OS X Server.
- I don't need or want to manage two licenses (one on the server and one on the client).
- We don't have Xserves and probably never will.
Then Bingo! I found DiscCloud -- and it works perfectly, with the help of this hint, of course! Here are some tips to help get it running:
- The first mistake I made was downloading the wrong version of VMware Server. You'll need the older version, located here. Be sure to pick the right download for your system (our HP servers run Windows).
- To demo the full version of DiscCloud, you'll need an eval license. You used to have to dig around on the DiscCloud forums to find this, but now they've added it to their download page.
That did the trick. I was able to follow the video instructions (with the exception of the VMware installation bit, as mine is for Windows), and create a MacBook Air user having a one terbayte home directory! I can back up the MacBook as a virtual machine running on our HPs -- I love it!
[robg adds: To download the trial, you'll need to register for a free account. I haven't tested this one beyond verifying the download works.]
Comments (23)
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20081007065012185