6.5.1

Table Of Contents
Only host versions that are in your environment appear in the Compatible with drop-down menu. For
information about choices and compatibility strategies, see Virtual Machine Compatibility.
Procedure
u
Select the compatibility from the drop-down menu and click Next.
Select a Guest Operating System
The guest operating system that you select affects the supported devices and number of virtual CPUs
available for the virtual machine. The New Virtual Machine wizard does not install the guest operating
system. The wizard uses this information to select appropriate default values, such as the amount of
memory needed.
For details, see the VMware Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.
When you select a guest operating system, BIOS or Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) is selected by
default, depending on the firmware supported by the operating system. Mac OS X Server guest operating
systems support only EFI. If the operating system supports BIOS and EFI, you can change the default
from the Options tab of the Virtual Machine Properties editor after you create the virtual machine and
before you install the guest operating system. If you select EFI, you cannot boot an operating system that
supports only BIOS, and the reverse.
Important Do not change the firmware after the guest operating system is installed. The guest operating
system installer partitions the disk in a particular format, depending on which firmware the installer was
booted from. If you change the firmware, you will not be able to boot the guest.
The Mac OS X Server must run on Apple hardware. You cannot power on a Mac OS X Server if it is
running on other hardware.
Procedure
1 Select the guest operating system family from the Guest OS Family drop-down menu.
2 Select a guest operating system version from the Guest OS Version drop-down menu.
3 If you selected Other as the guest operating system family, and Other (32-bit) or Other (64-bit) for
the version, type a name for the operating system in the text box.
4 Click Next.
Customize Virtual Machine Hardware
Before you deploy a new virtual machine, you can choose to configure the virtual hardware. When you
create a virtual machine, the virtual disk is selected by default. You can use the New device drop-down
menu on the Customize Hardware page to add a new hard disk, select an existing disk, or add an RDM
disk.
For information about virtual disk configuration, including instructions for adding different types of disks,
see Add a Hard Disk to a Virtual Machine.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration
VMware, Inc. 21