Warning! Since Microsoft Windows 7 RC is still pre-release software, and the fact that officially VMware Fusion doesn’t support Windows 7 yet, install at your own risk!. As always, backup first.

Without further ado, let’s begin!

Downloading Windows 7 RC

Microsoft Windows 7 Release Candidate can be downloaded for free at:

www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx

Don’t forget to actually read the instructions and information provided on this page. It’s actually very helpful and informative. Also please note that you’ll need a Windows Live ID if you want to download Windows 7 RC. If you have a Hotmail, MSN or Live.com email address, you already have a Windows Live ID. Otherwise, sign up for one for free.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and choose whether you want to test drive the 32 bit or 64 bit version and pick your preferred language.

After logging in with your Windows Live ID you’ll eventually get to a screen with a big ‘Download‘ button. More importanly, this page also displays your product key. You’ll need this key to install Windows 7 RC so WRITE IT DOWN!

When the download finishes, you are left with an iso disk image file. You can burn this disk image to a DVD-R, but since VMware Fusion also allows you to mount an iso file and use it like regular DVD media, we will do just that.

Setting up your VMware Fusion virtual machine

Select File > New from the menu to create a new virtual machine.

If you (like me) are installing Windows 7 RC directly from the .iso file you downloaded, choose ‘Continue without disk‘.

If you are installing Windows 7 RC from a DVD, choose ‘Use operating system installation disk‘ and select the correct DVD drive.

If you are installing Windows 7 RC from a .iso disk image file, Choose ‘Use operating system installation disk image file‘ and choose the Windows 7 RC disk image you downloaded.

Although Windows 7 RC isn’t yet supported by VMware Fusion, choosing ‘Windows Server 2008‘ as the operating system you will be installing works fine for installing Windows 7 RC. Of course, choose the 64 bit version of Windows Server 2008 from the list if you downloaded the 64 bit version of Windows 7 RC.

Enter the account name and password you like to use and enter the Windows product key you received during downloading Windows 7 RC.

Before Windows 7 RC will install, VMware Fusion will present you with a confirmation window. If you like to change some settings, like the amount of memory Windows 7 RC is allowed to use, choose the ‘Customize Settings‘.

Choose the filename for the virtual machine. In my case, ‘Windows 7 RC‘ is descriptive enough.

Installing Windows…

Since we chose the VMware Fusion Easy Install option, and provided VMware Fusion with all the details it needs, there’s no need to enter any data during installation.

Depending on your system the installation will take 30 to 60 minutes. Also your virtual machine will reboot a few times. Don’t worry, this is normal.

Log in for the first time

At this point, Windows 7 RC is done installing. All we need to do now is log in with the credentials you entered earlier while creating the virtual machine.

Installing VMware Tools

Immediately after your first log in, VMware Tools will start installing. Just let it run because it will install some drivers needed for Windows 7 RC to operate correctly within VMware Fusion . Your virtual machine will reboot one more time after VMware Tools is installed.

Congratulations… Enjoy Windows 7 RC!

Log in again and you’re all done… At least, until Windows 7 RC will expire on June 1, 2010 :-)

If you still have any questions, please post them in the comments.

In case you haven’t heard of Parallels before; it allows you to run Windows (or another OS like Linux) side-by side with MacOS X on your Mac. There’s no need to reboot like BootCamp. Check out the Parallels website for more information.

One thing you might run into (like I did) is that the virtual hard disk you created becomes to small, which is why I wrote this little howto. I’ll show you how I resized my virtual hard disk from 64GB to 80GB and how I used a free open source tool called GParted to resize the actual Windows XP partition contained on the virtual hard disk.

Warning: Please backup your virtual machine before continuing!

Resizing your virtual hard disk with Parallels Image Tools

We’ll begin by resizing the virtual hard disk image file on which the Windows XP partition resides. Luckily, Parallels comes with a handy tool called Parallels Image Tools which allows you to do just that.

Before we begin, make sure your Windows XP virtual machine isn’t running. Then go to your Parallels folder under Applications and open Parallels Image Tools. The following window will appear.

Click on Continue. In the next screen we’ll select the virtual hard disk image file which contains the Windows XP installation. Usually this file resides in the following folder:

/Users/YourAccountName/Documents/Parallels/YourVMName/

Replace YourAccountName and YourVMName with your system account name and the name of your Parallels virtual machine. The image file is the file in this folder which has a .hdd file extension.

Next we need to tell Parallels Image Tools what action we like to perform on the selected disk image. Choose the Increase the disk capacity option.

In the next window we specify the new size of the virtual hard disk. In this case I choose 80GB.

That’s all we need to do to resize the virtual hard disk. Press Start. Hopefully you aren’t in a hurry because this will take a while.

Once you’re done resizing the virtual hard disk, we still need to enlarge the Windows XP partition (which resides on the virtual hard disk) because unfortunately, it won’t use the newly added space automatically. For this we’ll use a free open source tool called GParted.

Using GParted to resize the Windows XP partition

GParted (short for Gnome Partition Editor) is a handy tool which allows you to perform various filesystem related actions on lots of filesystem types. Because GParted requires Linux, we can’t use it just by downloading and installing the application. Luckily, there’s a bootable Live CD available for download which we’ll use. You can download the Live CD from :

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php

The Live CD is available as an iso file which you can burn with MacOS X’s Disk Utility, but this is not necessary since Parallels allows you to mount an iso file directly as a CD and boot from it on your virtual machine. You just need to tell your Windows XP virtual machine to boot from CD and specify the iso file from which it should boot. To do this, go to your virtual machine configuration under Parallels.

First select the Options resource in the left pane and click on the Booting tab. Choose the CD-ROM, Hard Disk, Floppy option under Boot Sequence.

Then select the CD-ROM resource and check the Use image file radio button under Emulation. Under Image File, pick the GParted iso file you downloaded.

Save the settings and boot up your Windows XP virtual machine. If all goes well, your virtual machine should boot up the GParted Live CD. You’ll get something like the screen below. Just pick the first option and press enter.

Next, it might ask you some questions about what keymap and language settings you like to use. If you’re unsure, just press enter. Once it’s loaded, press the Resize/Move button.

Next we’ll tell GParted that the Windows XP partition should be resized so it will use the full space of the virtual hard disk file. We do this by resizing the rectangle until the amount in the New Size textbox equals the amount under Maximum Size (under the rectangle).

Click the Resize/Move button followed by the Apply button and GParted will resize your Windows XP partition. It’s a fairly quick operation which will take a few seconds.

Once GParted is done, you can shutdown your virtual machine. Before booting into Windows XP, don’t forget to undo the changes you made under the Parallels configuration for your Virtual Machine.

Almost done

Now with your virtual hard disk image and the Windows XP partition on it resized, you’re almost done. On the first boot, Windows will detect a disk change and will check the disk for errors. Just let Windows do it’s stuff. That’s it.

If you want to check if your disk size is indeed increased, click the Start button, select Run and enter the following command :

diskmgmt.msc

This will start up Windows Disk Management tool which will show you your disk partitions and sizes.

Hopefully this howto was useful for you. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.