Saturday, July 4, 2009

Installing Solaris 10 64 bits in VMWare Workstation 6.5.0

To install Solaris 10 64 bits, make sure your CPU is 64 bits with VT enable in BIOS.

Even you run the Processor Check for 64-Bit Compatibility and the result is compatible, it may still fail because VT is not enable in BIOS.

For my T400 laptop with Intel 9400, press F1 to goto the BIOS (Config -> CPU).

Enable the following settings
Intel (R) Virtualization Technology
Intel (R) VT-d feature

Save Settings -> Poweroff -> Startup

I have VMWare Workstation 6.5.0 installed on Vista 64 bits Business. When I install Solaris as a guest OS, it will attempt to install as 64 bits. It goes flawlessly. After installation completes and reboots, you should see it start at 64 bits. If you miss that, run isainfo -v (not uname -a).

You can see that this Solaris machine is capable of running 32-bit as well as 64-bit applications.

P.S. The media I use is Solaris 10 update 5. Please check VMWare website for OS support.