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Thanks for the info. Is it the same deal with XP? I plan to stick with it for the foreseeable future just to avoid having to learn a new OS and in case it doesn't play well with any of our existing software.

When I try virtualization, it will probably be on an XP Pro machine with 3 or 4 virtual machines also running XP Pro. I could probably save one of those licenses by using Linux for the file server, but I'd have to learn Linux (and choose one of the way-too-many versions of it) and I don't know if or how I can set it up to share files over my network. I'd probably rather spend an extra $150 on an extra license than spend a month of Saturdays picking a distro and teaching myself how to use it.

When I try virtualization, it will probably be on an XP Pro machine with 3 or 4 virtual machines also running XP Pro.

That's how many people including my shop setup our workstations for testing. You can do a "snapshot" backup of a VM, then test something on it, and revert back to the snapshot if the results aren't good.

I'd probably rather spend an extra $150 on an extra license than spend a month of Saturdays picking a distro and teaching myself how to use it.

I totally agree on that. When it comes to Linux, don't believe the hype.