Modifying general virtual machine properties

Modifying general virtual machine properties

You can modify virtual machine properties when the virtual machine is turned off. If the virtual machine is paused or in a saved state, you must resume or restore it first and then turn it off. The following table describes the general virtual machine properties and the modifications you can make.

Property	Description
Virtual machine name	The name of the virtual machine, which is also the name of the virtual machine configuration file. When you change the name of a virtual machine, Virtual Server also changes the name of the virtual machine configuration (.vmc) file. However, the name of the folder that stores the virtual machine configuration file does not change. You can change the folder name by using a file management utility such as Windows Explorer. If you want to change the folder name, you must first remove the virtual machine from Virtual Server, change the folder name, and then add the virtual machine back to Virtual Server so that the new folder name is recognized. A virtual machine name cannot contain any of the following characters:*?:<>/|\" If you are using the default location to store the virtual machine configuration file, (for example, C:\documents and settings\all users\application data\microsoft\virtual server\virtual machines\name.vmc) this default location effectively limits the file name to approximately 150 characters. The file name including the fully qualified path cannot be more than 256 characters. Warning    Use Virtual Server to rename a virtual machine. If you manually rename a virtual machine file in Windows Explorer, Virtual Server cannot locate the virtual machine. To correct this problem, either use Windows Explorer to rename the file back to its original name, or use the Administration Website to add the virtual machine with the new name.
Run virtual machine under the following user account	The account that the virtual machine runs under, either the account of the user who started the virtual machine, or a different user account that you specify. You must specify a user account when you want to start the virtual machine automatically and when you want Virtual Server to automatically run scripts based on virtual machine events. For more information about virtual machine scripts, see Configuring virtual machine scripts. For enhanced security, you can create a special account for this purpose that has a low level of permissions. The minimum permissions required for this account are as follows: On the .vmc file: Read Data, Write Data and Execute File On the .vhd file: Read Data, Read Attributes, Read Extended Attributes, and Write Data On the .vnc file if a virtual machine is connected to a virtual network: Execute File, Read Data, Read Attributes and Read Permissions On the folder containing the .vmc file, for a virtual machine to have the ability to save state: List Folder and Write/Create File For more information about virtual machine file security, see Configuring virtual machine security. Important If you do not specify a user account, the virtual machine will run under the account of the user who started the virtual machine and you cannot run scripts on the virtual machine.
User name	The user name of the account that runs the virtual machine. If the default account runs the virtual machine, this field is blank.
Password	The password of the user account that runs the virtual machine.
Seconds to delay automatically starting a virtual machine	The number of seconds to wait after the Virtual Server service is started before this virtual machine is started automatically when Virtual Server starts. This setting is useful when multiple virtual machines are configured to start automatically because you can stagger the startup. This helps reduce the demand on the physical computer’s resources that occur when multiple virtual machines start at the same time. The amount of time that you should specify depends on your hardware; however, a typical setting would be 30 to 60 seconds. The maximum amount of time you can specify is 86,400 seconds, which is 24 hours.
Action when Virtual Server service starts	Setting that determines whether the virtual machine is started automatically when the Virtual Server service starts. Important To enable an option that automatically turns on a virtual machine, you must also configure the setting Run virtual machine under the following user account and specify an account with appropriate permissions. If you do not specify a user account, this setting reverts to Never automatically turn on virtual machine.
Action when Virtual Server service stops	Setting that determines the state to place the virtual machine in when the Virtual Server service stops.
Notes	An area you can use to document additional information about the virtual machine.
Files Associated with	Section that lists the configuration and virtual hard disk files associated with the virtual machine.

Note

Each virtual machine also has a specific property for each component you can configure. For more information, see Configuring Virtual Machines.