Installing WA on VMware Player
From Worms Knowledge Base
If you cannot get Worms Armageddon working on your computer (due to e.g. hardware compatibility), you can install it in a Virtual machine. A virtual machine emulates an entire computer with all its hardware, separating the game from your real hardware/operating system and its problems or incompatibilities.
VMware Player is a free desktop virtualization software from VMware. The following guide describes the necessary steps to set up a Windows virtual machine in VMware Player and install Worms Armageddon on it.
Contents
Prerequisites
You will need:
- A computer powerful enough to emulate a virtual machine (at least 512MB of RAM)
- A working Internet connection
- A few gigabytes of free space on your hard drive
- A copy of either Windows 2000 or Windows XP on CD (Windows 98 or ME will not work)
Setting up VMware Player
Proceed to the VMware Player Download Page to download the latest version of VMware Player. Install the application after it has downloaded.
Creating the virtual machine
Since VMware Player does not allow creating virtual machines, you will have to create one using a 3rd-party tool. EasyVMX! is a free online virtual machine generator.
Proceed to the Create Virtual Machine page, and select the following options:
- Virtual Machine Name: enter one to your liking.
- GuestOS: select the guest operating system which you will be installing. (Select Windows Vista for Windows 7.)
- Memory Size: select how much memory you would like to allocate to your virtual machine. Recommended sizes are 192 MB for Windows 2000, 256 MB for Windows XP pre-SP2 and 320 MB for Windows XP SP2.
- Network Interface Cards - Ethernet0: set VirtualDevice to vlance
- Floppy Disk Drive: if your CD is not bootable, enable this
- CDROM Drives - CDROM #2: check Enabled, and enter C:\windows.iso in the File name field (this is for VMware Tools, see below)
- Leave other options at their defaults.
Click the Create Virtual Machine button at the bottom to generate your virtual machine. On the opened page, click the download link to download a ZIP file containing your empty VM files. Unpack this ZIP file somewhere on your hard drive (for your convenience, VMware Player creates a "My Virtual Machines" folder under "My Documents").
Setting up the guest operating system
First, insert your Windows operating system installation CD in your CD drive. If you have multiple drives (including virtual drives), insert it in the first one by drive letter.
If your CD is not bootable, you will also need to insert an MS-DOS boot floppy disk with CD-ROM support. You can create one on a computer running Windows 98 or ME. If one is not available or if it is not working properly, you can download a self-writing boot disk image from here.
Start VMware Player and open the virtual machine you created.
If your CD is bootable, the virtual machine will boot from the CD and Windows Setup should start.
If your CD is not bootable, the virtual machine will boot from the floppy drive and an MS-DOS command prompt will appear. Follow these steps to start Setup manually:
- type D: to switch to your CD-ROM drive
- Note: some bootdisks may mount the CD-ROM drive to other letters than D: (for example X:). If entering the command above gives an error, try other drive letters.
- type CD I386 to change the current directory to D:\i386
- type WINNT to start the DOS-based installer
Installing Windows onto the virtual machine should be fairly straight-forward. If you are unsure about something, select the default option. If you encounter difficulties, please consult your operating system installation guide.
Note: all changes are being done inside your virtual machine, and do not affect your computer. The Windows installation will format your virtual hard drive, not your real one. From your computer's point of view, all changes will be made to the virtual machine files.
Follow the setup process until the virtual machine starts to your Windows desktop.
Installing VMware Tools
Worms Armageddon requires VMware Tools to run. However, VMware Tools is not distributed with VMware Player. To install VMware Tools, follow these steps:
- Go to the VMware Workstation download page and download the Workstation for Linux 32-bit TAR package.
- Extract the file vmware-distrib\lib\isoimages\windows.iso to the root folder of your C: drive so that its full path would be C:\windows.iso. Use 7-Zip if you don't have a program capable of extracting .tar.gz archives.
- Click the CD-ROM (IDE 1:1) button on the VMware Player toolbar. Your virtual Windows should detect the new CD-ROM drive. If it does not, restart Windows, then double-click the drive from My Computer.
- The VMware Tools installation should start.
- On the 2nd page, select Custom.
- On the 3rd page, expand the VMware Device Drivers option and remove the Mouse Driver option. This step is necessary because mouse pointer integration is not compatible with W:A, and VMware Player does not have an option to disable it.
- Restart your virtual machine when prompted.
Installing Worms Armageddon
Take out your Windows installation CD and insert your Worms Armageddon CD. W:A installation should start; install the game in your virtual machine as you would do normally.
After the game is installed, you will need to update it. In your virtual machine, open Internet Explorer and go to wa.team17.com. Click the Update button in the corner, and download and install the latest Beta update. Agree to download and install any required intermediate updates.
If you encounter difficulties, please consult the more detailed installation guides available here.
Notes
If the in-game graphics appears skewed or corrupted, please make sure to use a display resolution with a width divisible by 8. If the graphics is flickering, try lowering the hardware graphics acceleration level (in Windows XP, you can do it on the "Troubleshoot" tab of the "Advanced" dialog under "Display Properties").
If you attempt to resize the VM window during the game, W:A might crash or display a black screen. If you get a black screen, you can try to minimize W:A by pressing the Shift+Escape minimize hotkey.
You can enter full-screen mode by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Return.
If something in this guide does not work for you, you can also try other free virtualization software:
