Thought I'd post this as I am sure the virtualisation post started by Neil will have got a lot of people thinking about doing similar to some degree.
Long term I'll do similar to what Neil Spelling described - clean upgraded OS, USB based PCU to connect Idranet etc,.
However, in the short term I wanted to get my existing install "lifted & shifted" onto my ESXi host so that I can power off the old dedicated machine.
I used VMWare Converter to import the old XP installation direct into ESXi - having had mixed success of this at work, I was pleased to find it "just worked". Needed a few tweaks to update network drivers and to install VMWare tools. But no more than 30 minutes work once the import had finished.
For getting Idranet's PCD connection into the new VM, I've used a USB-Serial adpater between the PCD and the HP Server's USB socket, selected in ESXi for the VM to have a virtual USB Host and the USB device. The VM now seems COM3 from the PCD. The last trick is to change the selection in Cortex's Setup/RS232 Comms option - first to select the correct COM port, second to select that it's a PCU not a PCD.
And it seems to be working!
Long term I'll do similar to what Neil Spelling described - clean upgraded OS, USB based PCU to connect Idranet etc,.
However, in the short term I wanted to get my existing install "lifted & shifted" onto my ESXi host so that I can power off the old dedicated machine.
I used VMWare Converter to import the old XP installation direct into ESXi - having had mixed success of this at work, I was pleased to find it "just worked". Needed a few tweaks to update network drivers and to install VMWare tools. But no more than 30 minutes work once the import had finished.
For getting Idranet's PCD connection into the new VM, I've used a USB-Serial adpater between the PCD and the HP Server's USB socket, selected in ESXi for the VM to have a virtual USB Host and the USB device. The VM now seems COM3 from the PCD. The last trick is to change the selection in Cortex's Setup/RS232 Comms option - first to select the correct COM port, second to select that it's a PCU not a PCD.
And it seems to be working!
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