Step-by-step process

Converting an installation disk image

If your installation disk image is in DMG format, then you need to convert it to ISO. I am aware of the only suitable for this Windows program called dmg2img. Download it, unpack it and convert your DMG:

dmg2img "Mac OS X Install DVD.dmg" "Mac OS X Install DVD.iso"

If your disk is DVD and you have a DVD reader, then you may do nothing (although installing from image is faster).

Unpacking boot CD

Prasys "supplies" files as tar.bz2. If you don’t have tar or bzip2 in Windows, don’t bother and take 7-zip, it can do the job.

After unpacking you get the following structure of directories:

Snowy_VM/"Mac OS X Server 10.6 (experimental).vmwarevm"

Snowy_VM contains file darwin_snow.iso – this file contains boot code and VMWare Tools.

Configuring Virtual Machine

Open file containing virtual machine

Snowy_VM/"Mac OS X Server 10.6 (experimental).vmwarevm"/"Mac OS X Server 10.6 (experimental).vmx"
edit to taste in VMWare.

Indicate darwin_snow.iso with obligatory option Connect at power on as a CD.

Booting and installation

Power On the virtual machine. It will go into one of the following conditions quite fast (after reading boot CD image):

• suggest to insert a DVD
• repeated read error
• boot option menu

All the three options suit us. Go to virtual machine settings (don’t turn it off) and in CD/DVD section connect your installation disk (either as physical device or as disk image) and tick mark the 'Connected' (because it will be off).

In the event there was a boot menu on the screen, press 'c', in other cases it will start itself and display a waiting line (press any key to enter boot parameters) and some time after a Snow Leopard installation screen will show up (installer language option).

Possible problems

If you were not prompted to select the language then I don’t know what to do. The only problem I faced was an incorrectly converted ISO image, but when dmg2img everything should be smooth.

Another possible problem source is unsupported processor (old P4 or AMD). I am really not sure how to cure this problem, but I can suggest to go to forums and learn. Who knows, maybe it will help. It looks like it is not possible to launch a standard kernel on AMD.

Installation process

If you used hard drive image that was in original archive Prasys, then everything is clear, installer will see it immediately. If hard drive was configured by you, then your path goes to Utilities (upper menu of installer) - Disk Utility, then a handful of internet manuals (you need to create a partition with size of an entire disk with GUID Partition table).

Restart

Unfortunately restart doesn’t work. Upon every attempt of virtual machine to restart you will get the message 'You need to restart your computer' and you’ll have to restart/power off using VMWare tools.

Before restarting put darwin_snow.iso back as СD/DVD – it contains boot code and you will be able to boot only with the help of this CD image. There is no inconvenience in it, this image is required only during booting.

In addition to that, you might have to set booting from CD before doing it from HDD in virtual machine’s BIOS settings (press F2 several times after the virtual power supply is on).

Finishing installation

Finishing installation is quite clear, country, time zone, network settings and you have a working Snow Leopard 10.6.0

VMWare Tools

VMWare Tools of some version are stored on darwin_snow.iso. You need to connect it (put a tick ‘Connected’ in virtual machine settings), you will get an icon with VMware tools disk, click on it, click on installer, agree to whatever is there, mount and restart.

After installation and restart you can change the screen resolution to another. I did not modify sound settings.

Updates

Updates up to 10.6.1 and 10.6.2 are OK, lets see how it gets further.

Problems

After installing 10.6.2 the virtual machine started booting too slow, just like Windows Vista: desktop appears fast enough but you have to wait up to several minutes until the first reaction to mouse-keyboard. Then everything is fine. Although there is no regularity, the problem appears and then disappears. Since the virtual machine is shut down very rarely (Suspend is faster), therefore the problem is not essential.

If the Energy Saving settings and similar are on (in the virtual Mac OS X), the system can try to hibernate and in the process can lose mouse or keyboard. It is cured by turning off all such settings (set all to Never).

From time to time VMWare plays tricks, something like your Snow Leopard Server is not installed. You can solve it with standard tools.