===VMWare Virtual Machine===
A ready to go linux server for you to test web erp

VMWare ( [[http://www.vmware.com]] ) is a way of running another operation system 
on top of your existing operating system.  It is a Virtual Machine 
programme, I gather similar to Xen and others but I haven't tried 
those.  It lets you run a full Linux server as a virtual machine on your 
regular windows computer. It's great for testing network server software without
having to get new server hardware.

Using this Virtual Machine (VM) will enable you to skip the 
"install a network server" phase, and go straight into installing 
web-erp without having to worry about things like "is the PHP mysql.so 
module installed and working?".  Web-erp is not contained in the VM and
will need to be installed. Although you could have a full ready 
to roll web-erp system there is already a web based demo for the 
initially curious, this is for users who want to start poking around in 
more detail but don't have spare hardware and/or time to go though a 
full server install.  Installing web-erp onto a suitable server takes minutes
and will ensure you are using the latest version.

It is NOT suitable for using as a production server.  Virtual 
Machines can be, but this particular one I have created is not set up to 
be suitable.  You can find our more about using Virtual Machines in production
at [[http://www.vmware.com]].

To use the virtual machine, you will need:
   *The free "VMWare Player" from  [[http://www.vmware.com]] - or one of their other products that can run virtual machines. This is about a 30mb download.
   *The Virtual Machine I created [[http://www.steveroot.co.uk/archives/2007/02/weberp_virtual.html]] (84mb)

The VM is a folder that has been compressed (.zip).  Reading the small .txt notes contained within the folder will make your life much easier (it tells you the VM's user name and password as well as a neat way of downloading the weberp files to the VM).
Any questions, try the following:
*post a comment to my blog page where you downloaded the VM from
*email a question to the weberp user group AND to me at steve@rootskitchens.co.uk. (Although I watch the newsgroup, I may miss the post if I am busy with work. Sending the message to me as well as the group will increase the chances I notice it)