原文地址：http://zealsoft.cnblogs.com/archive/2006/02/04/325166.aspx

昨天晚上有点空闲时间，就在VMWare 5.5上安装了Windows Vista Beta(December CTP)。VMWare支持Windows Vista Beta，它会推荐16G硬盘空间，不过刚开始安装后，到了硬盘分区那部分就过不去了。VMWare 5.5的在线帮助中对于Windows Vista Beta的介绍是过时的，实际上在VMWare上找到一篇更新的介绍：http://www.vmware.com/support/guestnotes/doc/guestos_winvista.html
主要内容如下，重点是第4到第8步。

1. Insert the Windows Vista CD in the CD-ROM drive.

2. Power on the virtual machine to start installing Windows Vista.

3. If using a blank hard disk: When the Windows Vista installer menu appears, choose the first option, Install Now.

If installing over an existing guest operating system: Skip to step 9.

4. Press Shift-F10 to open a command prompt.

5. Start the disk partitioning utility.

diskpart

6. Enter the following commands to partition the hard disk:

select disk 0
create partition primary

7. When the partitioning process is complete, click the Reset button to reboot the virtual machine.

8. As the virtual machine begins to reboot, while the VMware logo appears on the screen, click inside the virtual machine window, then press Esc to get to the BIOS boot menu. Choose CD-ROM Drive as the boot device, then continue installing Windows Vista beta.

9. In certain Windows Vista builds, the installer chooses an incorrect default in the screen titled Choose your installation destination. It shows a partition with 0 MB free and makes that partition the default destination.

At that screen, you must change the choice to the disk (instead of the partition), then click Continue.

10. Follow the remaining installation steps as you would for a physical machine.

经过这样操作后就可以继续安装了，安装的时间真长，而且没有进度提示，经过了不知多长时间，终于完成了安装，整个过程倒是自动的，用不着你在机器前等。 只是安装过程都是在16色模式下执行的，很难看。再安装VMWare Tools，就一切正常了，界面确实不错，过几天把自己的软件都在上面试试。

如果你已经有一个XP虚拟机，也可以在其上升级，这样就没有上面说的那些步骤了。