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Is there a way to know if the machine I'am working on is virtual or physical? (I'am connecting with RDP to the machine. If it's a virtual machine it is working and handled by VMWare).

Thank you in advance.

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see also - stackoverflow.com/questions/779723/… – warren Feb 3 '10 at 13:51
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5 Answers

up vote 14 down vote accepted

If it's Windows, just have a look at the hardware screens. It'll have a billion and five VMWare-branded virtual devices.

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Agreed. Since the OP mentioned RDP, it's most likely Windows, so there you go. – mfinni Feb 3 '10 at 14:01
+1 for not assuming it's Linux like I did – Matt Simmons Feb 3 '10 at 14:21
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Looking at drivers is also works for linux. lsmod would probably return the information that you need. – Seamus Feb 3 '10 at 17:01
@Seamus: True enough! – Oli Feb 4 '10 at 11:14
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up vote 1 down vote

If it's handled by VMware, it isn't too difficult (at present moment. This could change in the future).

# dmidecode -s system-manufacturer
VMware, Inc.

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up vote 0 down vote

You could try the "Host Detection" program.

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up vote 0 down vote

If it's a Unix VM, use imvirt. It's a Perl script that detects VMWare, Xen, and several others.

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I had the same question and found that there are a lot of processes running with "VM" in the name, for example VMWareTray.exe

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Yes, but only if the VMware tools package is installed. – jscott Apr 20 at 20:30
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