How to Connect to a Virtual Machine

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Applies To: Virtual Machine Manager 2008, Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2, Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 SP1

Use the following procedure to connect to a virtual machine in Virtual Machines view. The virtual machine must be running, stopped, paused, or in a saved state in order to connect and view the virtual machine.

To connect to a virtual machine, the following requirements must be met:

  • Credentials must be provided to log on to the virtual machine. Local administrator credentials can be set automatically during virtual machine creation. For more information, see Sources for Virtual Machine Templates.

  • To connect to a virtual machine on a perimeter network, credentials must be provided manually.

  • For Virtual Server, you must have specified the port on the VMM server to use for remote control. Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) must be enabled on the virtual machine host. For more information, see How to Configure Remote Access to Virtual Machines.

To connect to a virtual machine

  1. In Virtual Machines view, expand All Hosts in the navigation pane, and navigate to the host on which the virtual machine is deployed.

  2. In the results pane, click the virtual machine.

  3. To start the virtual machine if it is not already running, in the Actions pane, under Virtual Machine, click Start. VMM automatically attempts to connect to any running virtual machine that you select in the results pane and adds a thumbnail of this connection, the desktop of the virtual machine, to the virtual machine details.

    Note

    VMware thumbnails are not available on the 64-bit VMM clients. Also, thumbnails are not visible for Virtual Server virtual machines that are on a host in a perimeter network or in a nontrusted domain.

  4. To launch a larger connection window so that you can log on to the virtual machine, take one of the following actions:

    • Double-click the thumbnail.

    • In the Actions pane, under Virtual Machine, click Connect to virtual machine.

    Note

    If your connection to a virtual machine fails because the certificate is not valid for a Virtual Server host on a perimeter network, open the Virtual Server administration website, go to Server Properties, and then select NTLM from the Authentication drop-down list.

  5. In the Virtual Machine Viewer dialog box, click Remote Control, click Special Keys, and then click Send Ctrl+Alt+Delete to display the logon prompt for the guest operating system running in the virtual machine.

  6. Log on to the virtual machine.

See Also

Concepts

About Virtual Machine Remote Control
Managing Virtual Machines