Installing UCCX 7 on VMWare

My environment:  VMWare ESXi 4.1, UCCX 7.0.1.168

One of the components in your CCIE lab is UCCX, and instead of install it on bare metal you might want to run it on VMWare so that it reduce your hardware investment.  I have just did that and would like to share some points that you need to aware when you are installing UCCX 7 on VMWare

• Ready the UCCX 7 media and license, as well as Windows 2003 server.  In my environment I am using Windows 2003 Enterprise edition, and Standard Edition will also work.
• You will need at least 2GB memory and 72GB vDisk for your UCCX 7 VM, otherwise you can’t continue the installation and the installer will prompt error.
• Don’t use thin provisioning for your VM vDisk.  Allocate all 72GB during the VM creation, otherwise again the installer will not let you to continue the installation
• Install IIS, that is required to run the UCCX appadmin pages.
• Don’t add this machine to a domain
• Add the following “String” to the Windows 2003 registry to cheat the system you are installing on a MCS
• HKLM\Software\Cisco Systems\Model
• Hardware = 7835H05
• Memory = 2048
• Speed = 2333
• Reboot the machine after finish all the above steps
• Mount the ISO with your vSphere client, then copy all the contents to a temporary folder on the UCCX VM.  Then double click CiscoUnifiedCCXAutorun.exe
• Reboot after finish installation
• Access the appadmin page http://uccx7/appadmin, where uccx7 is your hostname or IP address of the UCCX server.  The initial username and password is Administrator/ciscocisco.  Remember the “A” in “Administrator” is upper case.  If you are using lower case, it will show the error I/O AXL error.
• Ready the license and UCM credential for UCM and UCCX integration

Have fun!