Setting up an old Proliant for virtualization

I'm configuring an old DL580 G3 for virtualisation - both MS and VMWare. I blithely assumed it would have hardware virtualization, so I installed Windows Server 2008 with a view to using Hyper-V. Unfortunately I couldn't add the role.

Hyper-V cannot be installed. Server Manager has detected that the processor on this computer is not compatible with Hyper-V. To install this role, the processor must have a supported version of hardware-assisted virtualisation, and the feature must be turned on in the BIOS.

I had enabled VT ("Intel Hardware Virtualization") and XD Bit ("In-Memory Execution Prevention" in Advanced Settings) in the bios and powered down fully. (note to self: Ctrl-S followed by F9 to get to bios)

Securable, Intel Processor Identification Utility & VMWare Processor Checker all gave the thumbs down on hardware virtualisation support for the aging Xeons. Desperate for a positive answer, I almost went into the server room with vt.iso burnt onto a cd but decided I had to give it up as I had plenty enough expert opinions.

What now?

• XenServer also requires VT.
• VMWare ESX does not, but I want to use MS as well.

So I installed

• Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 - 64 bit
• VMWare Server 2.0 RC1 - unspecified, claims to support 64 bit VMs but installed to Program Files (x86) so guessing it's not

I followed Virtual PC Guy's instructions for setting up IIS, and after this Virtual Server installed with no problems.

VMWare Server had trouble with the url for opening up remote consoles. This is because the host server isn't part of the domain I'm on, so the hostname wasn't always available. This situation was easily worked around by using the ip address in the url (https://a.b.c.d:8333/ui) to login to VMWare Infrastructure Web Access.