This appliance allows the end user to automatically boot a Live CD from within VMware in just one step. Rather than make a new virtual machine to test out a Live CD, the user will right click the file in Windows Explorer
(or Nautilus or Konqueror) and from the menu, chose an option to start it right away. This saves a lot of time for those (like me) who test lots of Live CD's. This especially handy for those with VMware Player who want to try out a Live CD and don't want to (or know how to) modify the configuration of an existing Virtual Machine.
To install, follow the instruction in the README.txt file in the isoplayer/ folder in the .zip file. Be sure to read it before attempting to install!
When creating this, I started with a simple Virtual Machine with no hard drive, and then wrote a shell script to modify it with the appropriate CD image, and then start it up in vmware/player. As the script progressed and more options were added, I moved the .vmx file completely into the shell script itself. This was primarily to resolve an issue in which the script was called from the command line in a different directory. I had made an option to give it an alternate directory, but removed it and a few other featured when it began to become too bloated. Once it was thoroughly testing, I ported it to a Windows Batch File.
http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/374
