Which app is better for managing different OSs on 1 PC?

[Fatherof3]

I am using HyperOS and it's ok.

I hear that others are good as well.

Are they better? Much better?

Anyone who used 2 out of these 3 apps (or even 3/3 !)
please share your experience.

 

[TonyRic]

I use virtual pc (because I still run OS/2 from time to time for nostalgia) and VMware. Overall VMware is the better product, it is much faster than Virtual PC and in my opinion is more stable and requires fewer system resources. ALSO, VMware has clients for both windows and linux, virtual pc is windows only (for intel platforms) since MS bought connectix. I just wish VMware would incorporate OS/2 compatibility. But, I don't see that happening, they dropped it in v3.

I have not tried HyperOS. Does it work similarly in that miltiple OS' are easily switched between? Although it appears to be context switching, not actually running the OS'? Or is rebooting required, making it a very expensive boot manager.

 

[Pirotech]

Actually, these are thre different programs. Well I use 2 of of them (VMware and Acronis Disk Director), and recently I've read reviews about third HyperOS.
As for my experience: VMware is rather difficalt in use, it's not clear at once, how to do what I want, but it's a virtual machine and it couldn't be as easy as Disk Director.
So, I think for creating multi OSs HDD, the best and most conveniant way is using Disk Director.
You may create two OSs even on the same partition. This is very reliable software. I heve XP and win98 on my HDD, also it has OS Selector: during start up PC you could chose the OS. It the best one and rather chepaer then other. IMHO

 

[TonyRic]

I have never had a difficult time installing, configuring or using VMware as long as you are running a supportd OS as the host or guest.

 

[Fatherof3]

Tony: on my version of hyperos only windows are supported,
switching between systems require rebooting. On their website
they say the latest version support linux and instant switching.

I like the ability to zip up a system and store it away for later restoration.
It doesn't like seeing more partitions being added, you have to do it "right" way.
I thought rebooting was necessary evil, now I know better...

Is 512 mb RAM enough for vmware or acronis? I have a feeling that instant switching needs more resources?

 

[sourceninja]

I only use vmware, but thats just because I only tried virtual pc and vmware and I found vmware to be much easier to use.

 

[Brian23]

I use GRUB

 

[n0cmonkey]

qemu and mips64emu are interesting.