——————-how to install CCM on Vmware machine———————–
First, create a VM, tell it you want Windows 2000 Server, make the
disk partition 20GB and SCSI, give it 1024 MB of RAM for CCM 4.x.  The tip is you can reduce it down to 512 once you installed the CCM. Personally I used a breeded version of Vmware called ESX 3.x

Step1:
Install WIndows 2000 Server, make sure you install terminal services and SNMP.

Step2:

Turn your Generic hardware into Cisco approved MCS. You just need to do some registry twicks and yes this works on every hardware. Personally i installed this in my laptop (runs 3 gigs of memory) and on my HP- ML-580 server (Xeon-dual, 4 gig ram).

Copy the following registry in a notepad and save it with  extension to .reg.  Must be 2 different files ccmreg1.reg and ccmreg2.reg. Double click on them (one by one) and say yes, you want to merge it into the registry.

ccmreg1.reg

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Cisco Systems\Model]
“Hardware”=”MCS7825H02″
“Speed”=”2268″
“Memory”=”2048″

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Spirian\System Info\OS Image]
“Version”=”2000.2.6″

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Spirian\System Info\OS Service Release]
“Version”=”2000.2.6sr5″

ccmreg2.reg
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Cisco Systems\Model]
“Hardware”=”MCS7825H02″
“Speed”=”2268″
“Memory”=”2048″

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Cisco Systems\Spirian]
“ProductKey”=”BTOOVQESCCJUIEBI”
“Deployed”=”0000000000000000″

9. Install CallManager 4.1(3)
ccmsetup.exe
So, here you go congratulations, you just turned your VMWare box into a Cisco-approved MCS.

Step3:

Create a folder in your C:\ called “utilis” and copy a shutdown.exe file into it. You can get shutdown.exe file from windows XP machine. Just search it and copy to C:\utils folder. Reboot your machine.

Step-4

Now run the OSupgrade cd  win-OS-Upgrade-K9.2000-2-7.exe (reboot)

Step-5

Pop-in Cisco CCM 4.1.x cd#1 into your vmware server. Run the setup and sit back and relex -  It will take around  2-3 hours , depends on your hardware too.

I tried the CCM5 as well it is a bit trickier… You need to follow these instructions carefully:
http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=41743&tstart=0&messageID=407547

Step 5
Once installation finished, you need to update the license file. Don’t ask me how can you get a lic file.
For educational purpose you may contact your cisco  account manager and see if he can give it to you.
Just a side note , if you managed to get a license file and you just change the MAC address in
Windows 2000 to match your license file.

well, since you can’t get into the Linux side, you have to do it from VMWare, and VMWare will
only let you change the last two octets of the MAC address (unlikely to get a match from Cisco).

Hope this will help to some folk.
Pushkar Bhatkoti
CCIE# 21569 (voice)