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Pre-release Microsoft OS/2 2.0 on ESXi

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While catching up on my RSS news feed over the weekend, I came across an interesting article titled: Ancient pre-release version of OS/2 2.0 discovered, released in VM-friendly packages and of course the VM-friendly packages caught my attention but I had never heard of or used OS/2 before.

From the article, a software archaeologist known as Neozeed shared a pretty unique experience of installing a pre-release version of Microsoft and IBM OS/2 2.0 ...

A software archaeologist known as Neozeed recently shared a pre-release version of OS/2 2.0, an ambitious PC operating system that Microsoft and IBM were developing together in the 1990s before the former decided to pursue the Windows route.

and this was made possible with the use of the free version of VMware Workstation Player, where they had attributed to the speed of Workstation Player:

VMware is incredibly fast, it's the #1 reason why I had done this.

which I thought was a really cool shoutout for VMware Desktop Hypervisor team!

Neozeed also published a complete video for installing and configuring Microsoft OS/2 using Workstation Player for those intersted:

While I do use VMware Fusion for my macOS desktop, I was curious if the OS/2 VM could also run in ESXi (hint: it does) and wanted to see what the steps would be to run this piece of history on the latest ESXi 8.0 Update 2b release 🙂

Step 1 - Download the Internet Archive OS/2 Workstation VM image that was created by Neozeed

Step 2 - Create a new MSoS2-6.78 directory under your ESXi datastore and upload all files (except for the VMDK, it may fail if you are using vSAN storage like I am)

Step 3 - SCP the MSOS2-6.78.vmdk into the same directory where the rest of the configuration files

Step 4 - Next, we need convert the desktop hypervisor VMDK format to one that ESXi by running the following command in the ESXi Shell:

vmkfstools -i MSOS2-6.78.vmdk -d thin MSOS2-6.78-NEW.vmdk

Step 5 - Register the OS/2 VMX file and then attach the newly created VMDK and finally power on the VM!


Note: For the best desktop experience, connect to OS/2 VM using the Standalone VMRC Client.

Quick Tip - Using ESXCLI to upgrade ESXi 8.x throws MemoryError or Got no data from process

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Several users in the community have reported running into a memory error issue when attempting to upgrade their standalone ESXi hosts using this ESXCLI trick, which has been possible since ESXi 5.1 back in 2012.

[MemoryError]
Please refer to the log file for more details.


Initially, I was not able to reproduce in my lab environment at work, which was running ESXi 8.0 Update 2, but I still got an error message but it was different:

Got no data from process.
Command "LANG=en_US.UTF-8 /usr/lib/vmware/esxcli-software sources.profile.list -d "https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/vmw-depot-index.xml" "
еxited with error code: 1


After checking my homelab environment which was also running ESXi 8.0 Update 2, I did see the same MemoryError message as reported by the community when using ESXCLI to list the available ESXi Image Profiles from VMware's online patch repository.

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Quick Tip - ESXi 8.0 Update 2b resolves not detecting Apple NVMe

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There was an issue that was reported last November where ESXi 8.0 Update 2 was not detecting the onboard Apple NVMe device during an upgrade and I am happy to share the mentioned fix will be available as part of the pending release of ESXi 8.0 Update 2b release, which is schedule for today (02/29/24)!


When you boot into the ESXi 8.0 Update 2b installer, you should now see the Apple NVMe device, which may also contain your ESXi installation and you will be able to select it and upgrade!


Disclaimer: Support for ESXi on Apple Hardware (Mac Pro and Mac Mini) has officially concluded with ESXi 7.x, so this is purely for informational and/or for homelab use purposes.