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Best virtual PC software

T

TC10284

Senior member
I'm looking for virtual PC software, preferably free so that I can (easily) create PC images of various operating systems. I'm looking to use Windows and various Linux distros.

Thanks!
 
vmWare Player and Virtualbox.

Both work pretty well - vmWare has the better user interface. In terms of graphics, vmWare supports partial 3-d acceleration in Windows guests but not with Linux. Virtualbox does support graphics acceleration in Linux guests, but it has always been hit or miss for me as to getting it to work consistently. The open source version of Virtualbox also doesn't have USB support - you have to use the closed source version to get it. And, of course, with Virtualbox you also get to put up with Oracle's bs (they're doing their best to become the new SCO).

Of course, there is always XP Mode for Windows XP if you can run it. However, vmWare and Virtualbox work just as well without the artificial restrictions provided that you have a XP license.
 
VMWare is the best virtualization out there by far, VMWare Player is free and allows you to create the VMs now, it blows away all the free ones for Windows hosts.
 
Steltek said:
The open source version of Virtualbox also doesn't have USB support - you have to use the closed source version to get it.
Click to expand...

You can still use the FOSS VM software and get a free personal license for the extension pack that contains the USB support. Doesn't seem like a big difference to me.
 
While I agree esxi is kick ass for a virtual environment, I still prefer workstation for testing stuff. Linked clones, usb passthrough from my desk, drag and drop, etc are very nice.

Cant really do that with esxi unless you have a motherboard/proc that support VTd, and even then it is kinda ugly.
 
I used to use VirtualBox years ago on XP and liked it to an extent but I always thought it was buggy. Their snapshot system sucked so I would just copy the entire virtual disk file to an external drive as a backup once a month.

I just recently tried Virtualbox again this past week..version 4.0.4 on Windows 7 x64 and I thought it sucked, I was getting errors here and there and it ran XP like a dog, slow as hell. I have no idea what was up with that but I read it's a common issue with VB and XP. :| Also if I tried to delete a VM I would get a message saying that it couldn't do that because it would cause an error in Windows 7 x64 and it would be fixed in the next release. lol. It was just the same old shit I recall from years ago, they fix one issue nine more pop up in the next release.

Anyway I tried VMware Player and I really like it, I ditched VB and will stick with VMware for now on. The layout is much more organized and it seems to run much smoother, no errors it just works. There's no snapshot feature for the exception of saving a session. So I just copy the entire virtual disk to my external as a backup, same way I did it back in the day.

My vote goes to VMware Player.
 
Why does VMWare Player seem to lag at first startup ? Like the GUI ? It takes a second to load it seems. It is not a big deal but noticeable at first.

Once the program up it is fine though. Just annoying.
 
Steltek said:
Of course, there is always XP Mode for Windows XP if you can run it. However, vmWare and Virtualbox work just as well without the artificial restrictions provided that you have a XP license.
Click to expand...

I think they reduced the Processor requirement here. It used to require a processor with hardware virtualizaion. The only restriction now is that you must have Win7 Pro for "XP Mode." This shouldn't be confused with Windows Virtual PC (the actual VM software) XP Mode is simply a fully Licensed XP Virtual Client that runs under Windows Virtual PC. Any windows machine can run the VM software, It's just that the XP mode license and download is only avail to Win 7 Pro (and higher) version.

That said, the problem with Windows Virtual PC is that while free, and very cool when using XP mode, it doesn't support 64-bit Clients. If it did, I'd be tempted to say look no further.

Virtual Box has worked well for me in past. I also like the Free VMWare Server 2 a lot. I've used it with VMware vCenter Converter to convert physical machines to Virtual machines.
 
Doesn't VMWare require you to purchase a license for the virtual operating system that you'll be using?

Then again, who does that, amirite?
 
MrEgo said:
Doesn't VMWare require you to purchase a license for the virtual operating system that you'll be using?

Then again, who does that, amirite?
Click to expand...

They require you to purchase a license for a OS you already have a license for? If you're only running a copy inside the VM and it's not installed on anything else, shouldn't be an issue. I'm sure people will jump in now and start debating this for nine pages.

VMware Player doesn't require that, don't know about the other VMware products.
 
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lowrider69 said:
They require you to purchase a license for a OS you already have a license for? If you're only running a copy inside the VM and it's not installed on anything else, shouldn't be an issue. I'm sure people will jump in now and start debating this for nine pages.

VMware Player doesn't require that, don't know about the other VMware products.
Click to expand...

VMware server used to be a paid for product, but about a year and a half ago, they went free for the basic product.
 
Griffinhart said:
VMware server used to be a paid for product, but about a year and a half ago, they went free for the basic product.
Click to expand...

I misconstrued his post I guess. I thought he meant that VMware required you to purchase a license for the OS you'll be running with their software.
 
lowrider69 said:
I misconstrued his post I guess. I thought he meant that VMware required you to purchase a license for the OS you'll be running with their software.
Click to expand...

It is not Vmware requiring you to buy the licenses, it is whatever the guest OS vendor is. AKA MS/Red Hat, Sun whatever.
 
Installing an OS on a virtual drive is the same as on a regular HDD as far as licensing.

There is a gray area however, once you have an activated OS on a virtual disk, you can easily clone it as many times as you want.
 
yinan said:
It is not Vmware requiring you to buy the licenses, it is whatever the guest OS vendor is. AKA MS/Red Hat, Sun whatever.
Click to expand...

I know.

The way he worded it.... "Doesn't VMWare require you to purchase a license for the virtual operating system that you'll be using?" made me think he meant VMware required it, that made no sense to me for obvious reasons.
 
lowrider69 said:
I know.

The way he worded it.... "Doesn't VMWare require you to purchase a license for the virtual operating system that you'll be using?" made me think he meant VMware required it, that made no sense to me for obvious reasons.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I should have said "Doesn't installing VMWare mean that you'll have to purchase an additional OS license for your guest OS". Obviously VMWare doesn't care if you pirate someone else's product, but Microsoft would care if you pirated Microsoft's products.

For this reason, it's cheaper to just run Windows 7's virtual machine.
 
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I've been running a Windows XP Virtual Machine from Windows 7's built in (downloadable) support for it. I haven't had any problems with it, and I'd give it my recommendation.

Anything VMWare makes is also really good. They are the innovators of virtualization.
 
MrEgo said:
I've been running a Windows XP Virtual Machine from Windows 7's built in (downloadable) support for it. I haven't had any problems with it, and I'd give it my recommendation.
Click to expand...

The problem with Microsoft's virtualization, is that it's not available on all versions of Windows 7, and does not work on all processors.
 
Makaveli said:
Another Vote for VMware running ubuntu 10 and OSX 10.6 on my rig and performance is great.
Click to expand...

What did you use to get OSX up and running under VMware? I've got a Snow Leopard disc I bought to use to build a hackintosh sitting in my file cabinet, but haven't had time to really get started on it.
 
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