Posted on 08/14/2007 2:58:55 PM PDT by ShadowAce
On a Mac with Fusion, you have have EVERY OS as a guest.
On a PC, you can have everything EXCEPT Mac OS X.
So it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that Mac hardware PLUS VMware Fusion is the perfect combination to have it all. Hence Dell's brilliant but utterly transparent move to counter the threat from Apple.
Cygwin's cool, I use it daily on my Windows boxes. But it ain't the same as a virtual machine, by any stretch of the imagination.
Exactly. While I do have Cygwin installed on this WinXP box, I'm also running a Windows 2000 Server, Suse Linux Enterprise Server, and NetWare 6.0 at the same time, on this very box...
Mark
I just checked the license at Microsoft's site (PDF), and it still says you can't virtualize Basic or Premium. Do I have an old version?
Quite so.
I've used VMware for about two years on a variety of host hardware and OSes, running all manner of guest OSes, with nearly perfect results. I currently am running Mac hardware (MacBook) with Fusion, and gave an identical setup to my 14-yr old daughter who likewise is doing fine with it.
I don't know of any other competing product with that breadth of coverage, or high success rate. So I'm something of a VMware fanboy at the moment. No connection with Vmware itself, of course. Just a happy customer.
Looks like a likely solution to my Vista problems...
Does one create a virtual machine and then install the operating system onto that virtual machine? So I need to either go purchase XP to install on the virtual machine or use the Win2k that I already own.
How bad is the performance hit? Do you have to have drivers for the virtual machine OS that support the actual hardware or does it use the existing Vista drivers?
I'm excited. Perhaps I can continue to use some of my old engineering tools without rewriting them all.
> I just checked the license at Microsoft's site (PDF), and it still says you can't virtualize Basic or Premium. Do I have an old version?
Maybe. I'll have to dig out the article I saw a couple weeks ago that mentioned that Microsoft was removing their limitations on the lower-end versions, due to vendor and customer demand. Might even have been an FR thread on it. Sorry I don't have it at my fingertips yet...
I tend to see XEN where the PERFORMANCE of the OS instance is the primary concern or where there are limited funds for the virtualization software. Mostly schools and medium sized business.
Interestingly, though I’m not sure of the impact, I see more hosting companies leaving VMware and migrating to Virtuozzo or XEN.
You can run afoul of Microsoft licensing as you'll need a license for each MS OS installed in the virtual machine.
My main virtual machine host is an AMD 4800+ and while none of the virtual machines run as fast as they would if they were on a dedicated machine they aren't so slow that they can't be easily tolerated.
I'm not married to Virtual PC over any of the others for any other reason than I used it before Connectix sold out to MS and since it's now free updates are cheap. I don't know if it'd solve your problem but other than a bit of download time it wouldn't hurt to try if you still have a copy of XP you can virtualize.
Might be. I certainly won't install Vista or any other Windows, native on the hardware, ever again.
> Does one create a virtual machine and then install the operating system onto that virtual machine? So I need to either go purchase XP to install on the virtual machine or use the Win2k that I already own.
Correct. One creates a VM, using VMware's tools, and then boot that just like you'd boot a desktop with a blank hard drive. Insert your OS CD and install just like on a desktop.
>How bad is the performance hit?
Unnoticeable in general, because it's running in native x86 code. There may be a small hit for access to virtualized peripherals, but I haven't seen anything more than 5% or so even at the worst.
> Do you have to have drivers for the virtual machine OS that support the actual hardware or does it use the existing Vista drivers?
I don't know about Vista as a guest, haven't done that one yet. But in general, the hardware is virtualized by the host VMware software, so that the guest OS only sees what it is shown by VMware's layer.
There's a "VMware Tools" package that installs into the guest OS that takes care of a lot of handy things like dynamic resizing of the desktop space, etc.
> I'm excited. Perhaps I can continue to use some of my old engineering tools without rewriting them all.
That's a good thought. I'm a happy VMware customer, but as others have pointed out, there are competing products worth checking out too.
I run a virtual Windows 2000 Pro installation using VirtualBox on my Dell Latitude laptop, with Mepis Linux as the host OS.
It can be either. Or if you prefer software fine, but even the microcode in the CPU is a form of software, just hard coded into the chip. In that same light, they are working on Virtualization that is in the hardware. In fact some of VM's offerings actually require specific CPU instruction sets to properly work. If your CPU doesn't, you're out of luck.
I suspect what Dell is offering is a combination of both. Intel's optimized VM chips with the appropriate software.
Could be. I'm using VMware both as an individual, and as the System Admin for a small (<100 users) company where VMs are running on our servers and on our users' notebooks. I'm aware that there are big companies doing huge VM hosting applications; that's not my bag at present.
Indeed. Macs have done it for at least 15 years.
I used a PowerPC running SoftWindows for 68k running an Apple II emulator program for MS DOS in 1994 (just for the heck of it).
Same here. I found that all my very old applications will run on Vista and all my old MS aplications will run. Just need to check the compatibility box to XP.
What I’m having trouble with are licensed technical applications written in the last 3 years. The program installs, but won’t register/license itself correctly. The companies won’t provide a simple patch and require buying an upgrade. I guess I don’t blame them for wanting to make money off of this.
I do however really, really like Vista.
Don’t let the consultants fool you. Doing a 6,000+ application, storage and server optimization is no walk in the park. It takes a LOT of expertise and experience to make it happen without a disaster.
... Contrary to what I hear all the sales people say ....
I used that a lot too, and liked it, until I started using VMWare. Then I realized this is one of those cases where you get what you pay for. VMWare lets the guest have access to more than one processor/core, lets you run applications on the guest without the rest of the OS screen showing (looks like I have a Windows app running in OS X), emulates DirectX (8.1, but expect it to improve), can support 64-bit guests, and can give up to 8 GB of RAM to the guest (VPC max is 3.6).
It is certified to run all Windows versions down to 3.1, DOS, all major Linux distributions, Solaris and BSD. Virtual PC only officially supports Windows 98 and later, and OS/2. You can run others and Linux, but don't ask for help if it doesn't work. You can't even try to virtualize Home Basic or Premium because VirtualPC checks for that.
And it was only $60 ($190 for the Windows version). I'd suggest VMWare if you're doing anything more than playing around.
In other news, manufacturers developing shovels that will work on dirt, gravel, or both simultaneously!
What do you mean, “They had to”? Did the government or someone make them do so?
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