Create Your Own “Insert Hyperlink” Feature in Any App with AutoHotkey

If you’ve ever used Microsoft Word or Windows Live Writer, you’re probably familiar with how you can highlight some text and then use the Ctrl+K keyboard shortcut to convert that text into a hyperlink. If you’re in a text editor, it’s not quite that easy… until now.

What we’ve done is put together an AutoHotkey script that automates the process of creating a link, and we’ll demonstrate it using the WordPress post editor, though that’s not the only place you could use this technique.

Using Our New “Insert Hyperlink” Feature

First we’ll assume that you’ve already copied the URL to the clipboard, and then you will simply select some text that you want to turn into a link—assuming you are in the HTML view, of course, since you wouldn’t want to do this in the visual editor.

Now you’ll press the shortcut key that you’ve chosen—for our example, we’re using Alt+9 since that’s rarely taken by anything else…

And just like that, the text is replaced with the hyperlink including the URL you had on the clipboard.

Note: Of course, in the WordPress editor, you could always use the Alt+Shift+A shortcut key instead, which would launch a dialog allowing you to enter the link, but we’re just using this as an example—though you might note that our method requires only a single keystroke.

Creating the “Insert Hyperlink” Feature

To create the feature for yourself, either create a new AutoHotkey script, add the following to your existing script, or download the file at the bottom and run it. Naturally we’re assuming you already have AutoHotkey installed.

!9::
{
  Sleep, 100
  clipurl := clipboard
  Send ^c
  Sleep, 50
  clipurl := "<a href=""" . clipurl . """>" . clipboard . "</a>"
  SendInput {Raw}%clipurl%
  clipboard := clipurl
  clipurl =;
  Return
}

Here’s how it works… you’ll notice that we’re using Alt+9 as our keyboard shortcut, but you can customize this to anything else you’d like.

The first line inside the brackets pauses the script for 1/10th of a second to make sure that you’ve released the shortcut key, then the clipurl := clipboard line copies the current clipboard (the URL) into a variable to save for later. Once that’s done, the script automates copying the selection to the clipboard with Ctrl+C, assembles the link together, and then pastes the whole thing back into the application, replacing the current text in the process. The last step puts the clipboard back to the way it was before you ran the command.

Download the “Insert Hyperlink” AutoHotkey Script

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Group Video Chat With Family and Friends For Free

Whether it’s a graduation or new birth, there are many special occasions in life that we’d like to be present for but can’t due to distance.  When a call doesn’t cut it, here’s how to video chat with up to 20 friends or family with Tokbox.

Video Chat can be complicated to setup, especially if you want to video chat with multiple people.  There are numerous web apps that offer free, limited plans for group video chat, but they are almost all aimed at the enterprise market and are fairly complicated to use.  Whether you’re a geek or have never setup a webcam, complicated tools never make the job easier.  We were excited to find that Tokbox is very simple to use for group video chats, and worked great.  Keep reading to see how it works, and then go try it out with your family and friends!

Getting Started

First, you’ll need to get a Tokbox account.  Head over to the Tokbox website (link below), and click the Sign Up button under Video Chat.

Enter your name, age, email and password.  Agree to the terms of use, and then click Submit.

That’s all, folks; you’re all ready to make video calls.  Click the call now button at the top of the page to go ahead and invite friends to chat with you.

You may have to wait a few moments for the video interface to load.  Note that the entire TokBox interface is powered by Flash, so you’ll have to have flash installed on your computer to use it.

Once it’s loaded, Flash will ask to access your camera and microphone.  Click Allow, and if you’d rather not have to answer this again in the future, check the Remember box as well.  Now click Close to get on with your video chat.

Enter your friends’ email addresses and add an invitation message, then press Invite Contacts.

Alternately, click one of the social media icons on the right to invite your friends from Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace to your video chat.

You’ll now see your video on the left side, and blank area on the right while you’re waiting on your friend to arrive.

You may see some tips for things to do to help your experience, but generally everything just worked in our test without tweaking.

Joining a Video Chat

If you’ve been invited to a TokBox chat, you’ll receive a link in an email or social network message.  Click the link to join your friend’s chat.

Click Allow to let TokBox access your camera and microphone so your friend can see and hear you in the chat.

Finally, enter your name and click Enter video chat now.

After a few moments, you and your friend will be chatting together with live audio and video.  You can see information about your internet connection by hovering over the video.  Up to 20 people can chat at once, so if there are more participants the video windows will resize to fit all of the videos.

Alternately, if your computer doesn’t have a webcam, your video box will show a mic icon and say Voice only.  You can still see your friends’ videos, but they won’t be able to see you.

You can also text chat with your family and friends from the text box underneath the video chat. This will help you troubleshoot issues with audio or video. 

Extra Features

Tokbox also makes it easy for you to share videos and pictures with your friends.  Click the TV icon on the top of the chat window to add a video from YouTube or a picture from Flickr or Picasa to show everyone in your chat.

Once you’ve exited a video call, you can see your recent calls on the dashboard, and can even easily call someone back.

You’ll see a countdown timer before the call starts, so if you accidently clicked call you can always cancel before your video call starts.

You can add your contacts from social networks to quickly invite them to a video call from the dashboard as well.

Or, if one of your friends calls you while you’re logged into TokBox, you’ll see a nice preview asking if you want to accept or ignore the call.  Click Accept to start video chatting with the caller.

Or, you can change Tokbox settings if you like.  Click the Account link on the top right, and then select Edit my profile.

Here you can add personal info, as well as change your TokBox username.  You can share your username with friends and family so they can quickly call you anytime by visiting tokbox.com/your_name.

Conclusion

While Skype is a great service for making voice and video calls to individual people, it’s currently difficult or impossible to video chat with several people at once.  TokBox makes it incredibly simply to video chat with your family and friends, and since up to 20 people can chat together they all can join in at the same time.  Whether you want to discus reunion plans or simply have an online reunion, you can quickly get your family in the same “room” with TokBox even if they’re not tech savvy. This might come in handy if you have a loved one stationed overseas who aren’t tech savvy.  We’ve tried many different services, but few were as easy to use as Tokbox.  Give it a try, and let us know how it worked for you!

Link

Signup for Tokbox

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Desktop Customization: Introduction to GeekTool for OS X

Something we like to do as geeks is add customizations to our desktops, whether with themes or wallpapers. Today we take a look at GeekTool for OS X that will let you add different types of data to your desktop.

GeekTool for OS X is capable of many things from showing the weather outside to what’s playing on iTunes and more. It can display both static and dynamic information.

Getting Started

We will look at adding a clock and a basic calendar to your desktop. Once you have GeekTool installed, you will find it in System Preferences. We have three options for the type of tool to place on your desktop. File will be typically used when you download eeklets. Image can be used to have a dynamic picture updated from a URL (such as weather images) or rotate though a folder on your computer. Shell, which will be looking into with today, can be used with terminal commands.

NOTE: If you plan on experimenting with the commands you can use, be careful that you do not use a command that has no termination (Ping for example).

The end result of what we are working on today will look like the following. You can place the info how ever you find appealing and functional, This is just a starting point.

Adding Information to the Desktop

To start you will drag a Shell onto the desktop and place it in the approximate location you want the information to be.

For the static texts, Today is: and The time is:, you will use the Override text section. To change the font styles use the Click here to set font & color. For this example we are using the default font face, black and white, with a font size of 45 for everything except the day of the week which is at 50.

Each of the sections is a different Shell using the date command. There are many options that can be used with this command. You can use date /? in the terminal to see all of the options available. The different sections we are interested in for this example will be:

date +%A – for the full day of the week

date +%b – for the three letter month

date +%d – for the day of the month

date +%Y – for the four digit year

date +%X – for the locale formatted hour, minute, and second

Once you have laid out all of your pieces, you can align them anyway you like. For this example we did a block format and resized the date areas to be closer to the text they held.

There are a lot of different Geeklets available that you can find at the link below. Here is an example of our desktop running several different Geeklets for iTunes, IP info, iCal, Weather – which pulls weather data from Yahoo, and the Time and Date we looked at above.

Conclusion

This simple tool can be used to add a wide range of customizations. In later posts we will look at other tasks that can be used with GeekTool and also some of the pre-made tools that can be downloaded A.K.A. Geeklets.

Downloads

Download GeekTool 3.0
Download fun Geeklets to Customize Your OS X Desktop

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Friday Fun: Assault Fleet

After a long week it is time to relax for a bit while waiting for quitting time to arrive. Today we have a great way to relieve some of this week’s stress by engaging in some planetary destruction.

Assault Fleet

The object of the game is to blow up a series of planets using the resources that you have available when you enter each star system.

Once you start your campaign of destruction you will arrive at each planet with resources to build ships (upper left corner) and the type of ships (with resource cost) that you can build shown on the left side. To start creating your invasion fleet just click in the blue ring area. Once you have created the ships they will automatically start attacking leaving you free to monitor the battle and create additional ships as needed.

Once you have defeated the defense fleet your ships will start raining destruction down onto the planet until it blows up.

Kaboom!

As you attack additional planets you will encounter stronger defense fleets as seen here. The trick is balancing out the number of ships necessary to destroy the planet without wasting too many resources.

As you progress from planet to planet you will have the opportunity to upgrade your scout ships or gain access to additional ship types. Each upgrade or new ship type accessed will cost resources, so be careful how you use them.

Once you have new ship types available to build you can click on the desired type on the left side and then create them in the blue ring.

Time to finish conquering the galaxy!

If you are looking for a fun way to waste time during your Friday at work, Assault Fleet is a good way to do it.

Play Assault Fleet

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[MINI HOW-TO] Screenshot Tour: Windows Home Server Beta “Vail” Install Process

The newest version of Windows Home Server code named “Vail” is available for the public to test through Microsoft Connect. Here we take a screenshot tour of the install process on a VM or physical machine.

This week we covered how to setup and install WHS Beta “Vail” on VMware Workstation and the free VMware Server. However, we haven’t gone through the actual installation process of the server. The installation process is pretty straight-forward and here we take a look at the steps.

Install WHS Vail

The install process is the same whether you’re running it on a VM or physical machine. The Install Wizard starts click on New Installation.

Select the disk you want to install it on. You will need to make sure to have a minimum of 160GB allocated for the install, preferably a fresh and clean formatted drive. Check I understand that if I click Install, all files and folders on my primary hard drive will be deleted then click the Install button.

The install process kicks off and your machine will restart several times during the process.

After a few restarts, you’ll be presented with the screen to select your Region or Country Settings.

Agree to the Terms of Service and the EULA.

Enter in your product key. A key wasn’t needed when the beta first came out, but they now offer them through Windows Connect so we went ahead and entered it in.

When you get to the Personalize your server screen enter in the name for your server, password, and PW hint.

Select how you want to keep your server up-to-date, this is completely up to you on what setting to use and you can change them later in the Vail Dashboard.

Now installation will continue with updating and preparing the server. In our tests it actually did take about 30 minutes to fully complete.

Again you will notice it restart a few times before it’s ready to use.

Success! Vail has been successfully installed and is ready to use. Close out of this message and you’ll be taken to the Vail desktop and can start setting it up.

That is all there is to it! You can then get started by installing the latest updates, connecting machines on your network, schedule backups…etc. If you don’t have an extra machine to test Vail, make sure to check out our articles on installing it on VMware Workstation and VMware Server.

Just remember that if you already have Windows Home Server Version 1, don’t replace it with Vail because it’s still in Beta and isn’t as stable as the Windows 7 Beta was. There is also news that Vail Beta 2 should be released in the next few weeks…hopefully.

Download Windows Home Server Code Named Vail from Microsoft Connect

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FluentNotepad Adds the Office Ribbon UI to Notepad

The Ribbon UI is being incorporated into several applications these days in MS Office and other third party apps. Today we take a look at FluentNotepad which includes the Ribbon UI in a Notepad environment.

Fluent Notepad

There is no installation required so you can run it from a flash drive as well. Download the zip file and extract it to a directory such as Program Files then run the executable.

When it launches you will immediately see the difference in the UI compared to the traditional look of Notepad.

From the Ribbon UI you can easily customize the fonts for your text.

it operates just like the Ribbon UI in new versions of MS Office. You can show the Quick Access Toolbar below the Ribbon.

You can also hide it easily if you want it out of the way while jotting down your text.

If you go to the file tab you can explore the different options there. Since it’s still in beta, not everything was available to customize. But you can send the author feedback on their project while in FluentNotepad and make suggestions.

Of course you can still open files you created in FluentNotepad in the standard version as well.

The Ribbon UI seems to becoming a standard in many applications these days including MS WordPad and Paint in Windows 7. If you have become accustomed to the Ribbon UI introduced in MS Office 2007 and would like the functionality in a Notepad environment, FluentNotepad is worth a look.

Download FluentNotepad Beta

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Integrate Your Tumblr Blog With Social Networks

Blogging is not much fun without an audience, but how can you get people to visit your new Tumblr blog?  Many of us already use social networks like Facebook and Twitter, so here’s how you can integrate your Tumblr blog with other networks.

Share Your Tumblr Posts on Facebook

Would you like all of your family and friends on Facebook to know all the witty things you post on Tumblr?  It can automatically post to your Facebook wall whenever you publish something on your Tumblr blog.  To activate this, go to your Customize page at tumblr.com/customize and select the Services tab.  Click Setup in the Facebook box to start adding it to your Facebook account.

Sign into your Facebook account if you’re not already signed in, and click the Allow button to grant accesses to the Tumblr application on your account.

Enter your Tumblr blog’s address, and then click Start importing this blog.  If you’re using the default free address, enter your_blog’s_name.tumblr.com; alternately, if you’re using your own custom domain, enter your domain as normal.

Click Allow Publishing to approve Tumblr posting on your Facebook wall.

Tumblr will ask to access your news feed and wall also; click Allow Access so it can use Facebook services directly in your Tumblr dashboard.

Finally, click Allow to let the Tumblr Facebook app remember you so you won’t have to re-approve it every time.

Once you’re done, you’ll be informed that your Tumblr posts will automatically be imported to Facebook.  If you need to change one of the configurations, click Disable and reconfigure; otherwise, you’re good to go!

Now, whenever you post something on Tumblr, it’ll be posted on your Facebook wall also for all of your friends to see.  Short posts such as link and quote posts usually show the entire post on Facebook, but longer posts will only show the title and opening sentences, and then you’ll have to click View post to see the rest.

The update will change depending on your post style.  Here we’ve posted an mp3 on Tumblr, and it showed up with a play button on Facebook.  The “button” is actually just a link to our Tumblr post, so your friends will still have to head over to your Tumblr blog to listen to audio or view other multimedia content you may post.

Unfortunately, Tumblr cannot automatically post to fan pages; it can only post to your personal wall.  If you’re using Tumblr for a company or publicity blog and want to put your posts on your Fan page, you’ll need to post them manually or use an alternative service such as twitterfeed which can also post to Facebook.

Add Twitter to Tumblr

While Facebook is great for communicating with family and friends, you might want to spread your posts to a bit broader audience.  Twitter’s openness makes it a great way for others to discover your posts, and we increasingly find Twitter our social network of choice.  Tumblr works great with Twitter; to add it to your Tumblr, open the Customize page and select Services as above.  This time, check the Send my Tumblr posts to Twitter box and click the Sign in with Twitter button.

Sign in to you Twitter account if you’re not already, and then click Allow to add the Tumblr application to your Twitter account.  Now Tumblr will automatically post a tweet whenever you publish a new post.

Here’s how one of our articles showed up on Twitter.  Note that it says it was tweeted from Tumblr, and also uses a special Tumblr.com short URL.

Sometimes you might like to write something on Tumblr but not share it on Twitter.  If so, just uncheck the Send to Twitter box when composing a new post.

Or, if you’d rather just change Tumblr tweets when your post goes live, click the Edit link and add your own text.  Leave the [URL] in, as this will be replaced with the link to your post.

Use Twitter From Your Tumblr Dashboard

Once you’ve added a Twitter account to Tumblr as above, you can integrate Twitter with Tumblr very nicely.  From your Preferences page at tumblr.com/preferences, you can select to show Twitter updates in your main dashboard feed.  Do note that if you follow many people on Twitter, it may be hard to keep up with on the Dashboard.

Or, you can just access your twitter feed from the drop-down menu on your Dashboard.  Click the arrow beside your blog’s name, and then select your Twitter name.

Now you can view use Tumblr as a Twitter app.  You can view and post tweets, or even reblog a tweet on your Tumblr blog.

Conclusion

Although social networks have taken the place of blogs for many people, Tumblr makes it easy to bring the best of both worlds together.  This is a great way to post a picture, quote, or more, and immediately share it with your Tumblr and Twitter followers and Facebook friends in one click.  We especially liked the way we could customize the Twitter post, and wish you could customize what was posted on Facebook the same way.  If you need to share your Tumblr posts with more friends, you can often use your Tumblr’s RSS feed to post to other networks such as Google Buzz.  Let us know what networks you share your Tumblr posts on, or if the Tumblr ecosystem has replaced other social networks for you!

If you’re just getting started with Tumblr, don’t forget to check our other Tumblr tutorials, including:

• Create a Beautiful & Easy to Update Blog With Tumblr
• Add Your Own Domain to Your Tumblr Blog
• Add Traditional Comments to Tumblr Blogs With Disqus
• and more!

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Beginners: Connect Your iPhone, iPod Touch, or Android Phone to a Wi-Fi Network

Have you ever wanted to connect your phone or mobile device to a Wi-Fi network at home or your favorite coffee shop but aren’t sure how? Today we’ll take a look at how to connect to Wi-Fi on an iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android devices.

iPhone / iPod Touch

Note: We are using version 4.0 of the iPhone OS

Find and select the Settings icon on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Select Wi-Fi from the Settings menu.

If your Wi-Fi setting currently set to Off, tap it to toggle On the Wi-Fi access.

 

Once your Wi-Fi is enabled you should see available networks appear below. Encrypted networks will show a padlock to the right of the name while “open” networks will not. Tap to select the network to join.

If you choose a network that requires a password, you’ll be prompted to enter it. Type in your password and select Join.

 

When connected, your network SSID will be indicated in blue with a check mark beside it.

To connect to a network with a hidden SSID, select Other.

You’ll need to know the SSID, Security type, and password. Enter that information and select Join.

  

Now you can browse to all your favorite websites and connect to other devices on your Wi-Fi network.

Android

Note: We are using Android 2.1 for our examples.

On your Android device, select the Settings icon.

 

Under Settings, choose Wireless & networks.

Next, select Wi-Fi settings.

If Wi-Fi is not already turned on, tap the check mark by Wi-Fi to turn it on. When Wi-Fi is enabled, available SSID’s will appear below. Encrypted networks will by indicated with a padlock icon. Select the network to which you’d like to connect.

If password protected, type in your password and select Connect.

You should now see that you are connected to the network.

To connect to a Wi-Fi network with a hidden SSID, select Add Wi-Fi network from the settings.

Then manually type in your SSID and password, and select your network security type. Select Save when finished.

 

Now you can browse the web through your Wi-Fi router or connect to other network devices.

 

Conclusion

Whether you want to connect to Wi-Fi to communicate to other devices or just save on your phone’s data usage, it’s pretty easy to do on your iPhone, iPod Touch, or Android phone.

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Import OneNote 2010 Notebooks Into Evernote

Would you like to move your notes from OneNote 2010 into Evernote?  There’s no official way to import OneNote 2010 notes into Evernote, but here’s a solution that can help you get most of your notes transferred.

If you’ve been using OneNote 2010 and tried to import your notebooks into Evernote, you may have been disappointed and frustrated to be informed that Evernote only imports from OneNote 2007.  Even if you’ve converted your notebooks into OneNote 2007 format, you cannot import OneNote notes into Evernote 3.5 without having OneNote 2007 installed.  The Evernote team has mentioned on their support forum that they’re working on adding OneNote 2010 import, but for now, here’s a workaround to get OneNote 2010 notes into Evernote.

There are 2 great ways to import your OneNote 2010 data into Evernote.  First, you can just directly copy the content of your notebook sections, and then paste it directly into Evernote.  You’ll maintain most of your OneNote content and formatting this way, and can still edit and add to the notes.  Or, you can export whole notebooks as PDF, and then add the PDF files to Evernote.  This works good too, but you won’t be able to edit the notes in Evernote.  Let’s look at both options.

Copy OneNote 2010 Sections Into Evernote

Thankfully, copy and paste from OneNote into Evernote works great.  You can select everything on your note by pressing Ctrl+A, and then copy it and paste it into Evernote.  Here’s our notebook in OneNote:

Create a new note in Evernote, and paste the content from OneNote in it.

Here it is after we pasted it into Evernote.  It looks almost the same, but it didn’t copy the title correctly so you may want to copy that separately.  While you’re importing it into Evernote anyhow, you should add tags too so you can easily find your content.

Copying and pasting your data from each note could take forever if you have lots of notes, so instead you could copy a whole section at a time.  To do this, select all of your pages on the right side, right-click, and select Copy.  You can select all of the pages by selecting the first page, then holding the shift key down and selecting the last one.

Now, once again, paste it into a new note in Evernote.  This time, your note will be rather long, as it will contain all of the content from all the pages in that section.  It may take a minute for Evernote to display all of the data, but it should paste in with almost the same formatting as your OneNote Notebook had.  This is a much quicker way to get your OneNote data into Evernote, but still it may take a while if you have many Notebook sections.

Convert OneNote 2010 Notebooks to PDF

If you have lots of notebook sections in OneNote, it may be too difficult or time consuming to copy and paste them all into Evernote.  If so, the quickest way to import the notes into Evernote would be to export your notebooks as PDF.  This would let you get all the sections and pages from that notebook into Evernote directly, but you won’t be able to edit or add to the notes in Evernote.  Additionally, if you’re not a premium subscriber, you may not be able to search inside the PDFs as well.

To convert a notebook to PDF, right-click on the notebook in the left side of OneNote and select Save As.

Select PDF in the available file types, and make sure to select Current Notebook in the page range.

The conversion may take a few moments, depending on how many sections and pages you had in the notebook.

Once it’s finished, right-click the PDF in Explorer and select Send to Evernote.  Alternately you can copy and paste the PDF file into a new or existing Evernote note.

Do note that PDF files can be large.  One of our notebooks had over 150 pages with several images in most pages, and the final PDF was around 5Mb.  Free Evernote accounts can only upload 40Mb of data per month, so make sure you have enough upload space to add your notes all at once.

Once your PDF is in Evernote, you can browse thorough the pages directly in Evernote or double-click on the document to open it in your default PDF reader.  Note that each individual page from OneNote will be at least one page in your PDF, depending on how long your notes were.

If you want to save in other formats, check out our beginners article on how to save OneNote 2010 Notes to Different File Formats.

Conclusion

Although Evernote doesn’t currently support importing notes from OneNote 2010, it’s still not too difficult to get your notes imported.  Even if you prefer OneNote, this could be a way you could take your notes on your mobile device, as Evernote supports far more devices than OneNote.  We’ll be watching out for an Evernote update that adds support for OneNote 2010, and if one comes, we’ll be sure to let you know!

Links

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Install Windows Home Server “Vail” on VMware Server

If you’re a Windows Home Server enthusiast, you’re more than likely aware of the new Beta code named “Vail”. If you want to test it out without worrying about having an extra machine, we can install and use it free in VMware Server.

Previously we showed you how to install WHS Vail on VMware Workstation. Today we’ll take a look at how to install it completely free using VMware Server 2 and the free Vail Beta ISO.

Getting Started

You’ll need the following items to get started.

• VMware Server 2 – Registration required
• WHS Vail Beta ISO – Via Microsoft Connect
• Computer Capable of Hardware Virtualization running a 64-bit version of Windows
• Enough Hard Drive space on the Host computer to create a 160GB virtual hard drive which is the minimum system requirement
• At least 2GB of RAM or more on the Host computer – The minimum amount of RAM to allocate for Vail is 1GB

For this article we used a machine with a Core i3 processor and 6GB of RAM  running Windows 7 Ultimate x64 and VMware Server 2

Verify Hardware Virtualization

In our last article we showed you the easy to use free utility SecurAble to determine if your computer is capable of Hardware Virtualization.

There is also another free utility from Microsoft that does the same thing called Microsoft Hardware-Assisted Virtualization Detection Tool (link below). Like SecurAble it doesn’t require installation, just run the executable as Administrator.

You’ll be prompted to agree to the EULA and after that you’ll receive a message like the ones below. Showing either that you’re machine is capable of Hardware Virtualation or not.

If it doesn’t support Hardware Virtualization, a lot of times the feature is locked and you’ll need to carefully dig through your BIOS to find a setting to turn it on. If that doesn’t work, make sure you have the latest update for your BIOS.

Download and Install VMware Server

If you don’t already have it, you’ll need to download and install VMware server. It’s free, but registration is required (link below).

Note: Before you start installation be aware that if you have VMware Workstation already installed, you’ll be prompted to uninstall it first.

Once you have the file downloaded, start installation as normal where you should be able to go with the defaults.

After you registered they sent an email to activate your license and download the server, from that page enter in the serial number they provided.

Now you’ll be able to access VMware Server from the Start Menu along with other tools it provides. To launch it, click on VMware Server Home Page which will launch locally in your default browser.

This next step is pretty important. You’ll notice that during the installation you were never asked to enter in user credentials. By default it uses the login information for the machine you’re running it on. Not your VMware login information. This was a bit confusing at first so, just keep that in mind when you want to log in.

Once logged in  you will be presented with the summary page. Now we’re ready to install Windows Home Server “Vail”!

Create Virtual Machine

Ok, now that we have VMware server installed and are logged in, we want to create a new virtual machine to run Vail on. Click on Virtual Machine \ Create Virtual machine.

The Create Virtual Machine wizard starts and first you want to give it a name.

Next we need to select the Guest Operating System. From the Version dropdown field select Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (64-bit).

Now select the amount of memory you want the server to use. Remember this will be using your Host’s RAM so depending on how much you have, you might want to go with the Recommended Size of 1GB. Since our machine has extra memory, we bumped it up to 2GB. You can change these settings at any time later after the machine is created too.

In the next step we need to Create a new Virtual Disk.

Now we need to assign its capacity. The minimum size for Vail is 160GB so we will just go with that. In our testing we’ve had best result by checking Allocate all disk space now.

Next under Network Adapter click on Add a Network Adapter…

Under Properties you’ll have best results if you use a Bridged Network Connection. This way the virtual server will be assigned its own IP address and will operate like a separate physical machine on your network.

Now you need to copy the Vail Install DVD, Restore CD, and SrvRecovery ISO files to C:\Virtual Machines so VMware server can see it when we go to load it. The browse feature in VMware Server doesn’t allow browsing to you local directories like Workstation or Player.

For the CD/DVD Drive select Use an ISO Image (which is the format Vail downloads as). You don’t need to burn it to disc first…unless you want to for some reason. Of course you’ll want to burn it to disc if you were installing it on an actual machine.

Click on the Browse button…

Now we can select VailInstallDVD.iso and click OK.

Then back at the Properties screen make sure to check Yes to Connect at Power On and click Next.

Click on Don’t Add a Floppy Drive unless you want to for some reason…

For USB Controller you can add support for it or not, it’s up to you. For our testing purposes we’re going to go ahead and click Add a USB Controller.

Now we’re done setting up the VM. Check out the overview and verify it’s configured correctly. If not you can go back at this point and make adjustments. You can also add more hardware at this point if you want, but everything is configured now to get Vail installed, so we’ll just keep what we have. Remember we can change the settings after Vail is install as well.

Check Power on your new virtual machine now and click the Finish button.

Now wait while your new Virtual Server will be built. The length of time it takes will vary based on the type of hardware your machine has. On our system it took around 30 minutes to create the virtual HD.

After the drive has been successfully created and the VM machine powered on, under Inventory click on the Vail VM then the Console tab.

You’ll see a message that you need to install the VMware Remote Console Plug-in…just click to install it.

At first we were running VMware server through Firefox, and after installing the plugin we ran into some problems.

After installing the Plug-in you need to restart Firefox. When we came back, we weren’t able to launch the console. It probably has something to do with an Addon or some caching issue. We will figure out a fix and post an article about it later.

We want to get Vail installed so we ran the VMware Server in Internet Explorer 8 instead. Again, you’ll need to install the Remote Console Plug-in.

Installation for IE is straight-forward following the install wizard.

When you first go to your server in IE you’ll get a warning about the security certificate, click Continue to this website. 

After you log in…select Run Add-on when the security bar shows up to start the Remote Console Plug-in.

Install WHS Vail

From the VMware Server Web Homepage select the Vail Server and click on the Console tab to open the VMware Remote Console.

The VMware Remote Console opens up and you can now begin your Vail installation. On our system, installation took around 45 minutes to complete.

During the install, the Remote Console will restart several times.

After a long wait and entering some of the information it asks for during installation, we have our new WHS Vail Virtual Server!

Install VMware Tools

Once installation of Vail is complete, we need to add VMware Tools for a more fluid experience. From the Web Interface in the Status field click on Install VMware Tools

A message explaining VMware Tools will pop up, click the Install button.

Over in the Remote Console you’ll see AutoPlay pop up…click on Run setup.exe.

Then run the the install wizard accepting the defaults.

A restart of the VM Server will be required to complete the install process.

After you restart the VM you’ll see the Ctrl+Alt+Del screen.

Click on VMware Remote Console \ Troubleshoot \ Send Ctrl+Alt+Del.

Then log into your WHS Vail virtual server.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a way to test out the new Windows Home Server “Vail” Beta, using VMware Server is a great way to get it done for free. You will be able to RDP into it just like it was a separate physical machine on your network. To test out connecting machines to it and using new features like Dashboard or Launchpad, you can create a Windows VM, or connect an extra machine on your network. Make sure that machine doesn’t already have WHS Version 1 Connector software installed as you can’t have both installed on a the same machine.

 

If you’re currently running WHS Version 1, you don’t want to replace it with the Vail beta. There are still several quirks that need to be worked out with it first. This isn’t the same as the Windows 7 Beta where you could install it on your machine and have little to no problems. At least you’ll be able to explore Vail and see what you can expect when the final version is released.

Download VMware Server – Registration Required

Download Microsoft Hardware-Assisted Virtual Detection Tool

Download Windows Home server Beta Code Named Vail from Microsoft Connect

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