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Working with virtual multiple operating systems and apps
MOST operating systems today are very easy to instal but what if you have only one machine and you don’t want go through hassles of re-partitioning disks. This makes you wonder if there was a way to switch between operating systems without rebooting and avoiding complicated multi-boot configurations. Wouldn’t life become easier if you could run multiple operating systems and their applications simultaneously on a single PC. Yes, it is possible now, virtual machine software is the perfect answer to all these questions.
Virtual machine software enables you to run multiple operating systems and associated applications at the same time on the same host machine. These operating systems and applications are isolated in secure virtual machines that coexist on a single physical computer. Each virtual machine acts like a standalone computer and runs its own operating system and applications.
Instead of installing operating systems on multiple, costly computers or creating multi-boot installations, you can install the operating systems in multiple, inexpensive virtual machines. Virtual machines make using multiple operating systems easier.
The number and variety of OSes and programs that you can run is limited by physical computer’s resources, such as memory and disk space. You can run them side-by-side if you have a fast processor and lots of RAM. There are two major players in virtual machine software: Microsoft Virtual PC and VMware Workstation.
VMware, Inc
VMware Workstation 4.5 enables multiple operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris, to run in fully networked, secure, portable, and high-performance virtual machines. The more memory that’s available, the more operating systems that you can run at the same time. VMware Workstation supports running virtual machines in full screen mode.
VMware virtual machines run concurrently and with full isolation on a single physical computer. The VMware virtualization layer maps the physical hardware resources to the virtual machine’s resources, so each virtual machine has its own virtualized processor, memory, I/O buses, network interfaces, storage adapters and devices, human interface devices, BIOS and others. This set of virtual devices is different from the set of real hardware devices, and is independent of the underlying hardware with a few exceptions. Virtual machines are the full equivalent of a standard x86 machine. For virtual machine (Guest) specifications, visit
VMware Workstation offers a wide selection of supported host and guest operating systems, and runs on both Windows and Linux host operating systems. VMware virtual machines are portable across the two versions. The list of ‘Supported Host Operating Systems’ and ‘Supported Guest Operating Systems’ is amazingly long. They are listed at
You can try VMware Workstation free for 30 days
The virtual machine typically is stored on the host computer in a set of files. In the most common configurations, VMware Workstation creates virtual hard disks, which are made up of files that are typically stored on your host computer’s hard disk. A virtual disk is made up of one or more .vmdk files. IDE virtual disks can be as large as 128GB. SCSI virtual disks can be as large as 256GB. A virtual disk of either type can be stored on either type of physical hard disk.
Some of the key features of VMware Workstation 4 include:
You can save the current state of your virtual machine by suspending it. Later, you can resume the virtual machine. This feature is most useful when you want to save the current state of your virtual machine, then pick up work later with the virtual machine in the same state it was when you stopped.
The snapshot feature lets you take a snapshot of a virtual machine at any time and revert to that snapshot at any time. You can preserve the virtual machine just as it was when you took the snapshot. You can take a snapshot while a virtual machine is powered on, powered off or suspended. You can return to the same state repeatedly.
You can install VMware Tools package in guest operating systems for enhanced performance and improved usability. The tools support shared folders, drag and drop operations, synchronization of time in the guest operating system with time on the host, automatic grabbing and releasing of the mouse cursor, and copying and pasting between guest and host.
Another key feature of VMware Workstation is encapsulation. Since an entire disk partition is saved as a file, virtual disks are easy to back up, move, and copy.
Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 is built on virtualization technology that Microsoft acquired in February 2003 from Connectix Corp., a company which was a leading provider of virtualization software for Macintosh and Windows platforms. According to Microsoft Corp., Virtual PC provides a time-saving and cost-saving solution anywhere users must run multiple operating systems, whether they use it for tech support, legacy application support, training, or just for consolidating physical computers.
Virtual PC is software that allows you to run two or more x86 operating systems on the same host machine. You can install multiple guest operating systems in virtual machines and run multiple operating systems at once. You can switch between operating systems as easily as switching applications-instantly, with a mouse click. You can switch to full screen mode.
Virtual PC lets you create separate virtual machines. Each virtual machine has its own sound, video, hard disk and network cards and its own processor. And devices that you connect to your physical computers, such as printers, modems, CD-ROM drives, and so on, work normally in virtual machines. For further information, visit
Virtual PC emulates many of the virtual machine’s hardware in software. The emulated hardware is detected by the virtual machine operating system and appears to both the operating system and any users of the virtual machine as physical hardware. Emulated hardware components include the BIOS, chipset, sound card, network adapter and video card. Virtual PC then uses the host operating system to interact with any external devices - like the CD-ROM, floppy, keyboard, mouse or physical display.
Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 runs on Windows XP Professional and Windows 2000 Professional. According to Microsoft, you can install and run almost any x86 operating system in a virtual machine. Many of the Linux distributions will run. However, Linux isn’t officially supported by Microsoft. For further information, visit
Virtual PC supports virtual hard disks in a number of powerful and flexible ways. Users can associate several virtual hard disks with each virtual machine. Virtual hard disks are a single file (.vhd file) on the physical computer’s hard disk.
Some of the key features of Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 include: Extensible Markup Language (XML) file-based configuration of virtual machines to ease the copying of a virtual machine to another computer.
Undo Disks, which allows you to delete any changes you make to the virtual hard disk during a session (a session lasts from the time the virtual machine is started until it is closed). Virtual PC stores these changes in a separate temporary file; and then at the end of the session, users can save, commit, or delete the changes.
Virtual Machine Additions provide a high level of integration between the host and guest operating systems. You can copy, paste, drag, and drop between guest and host. Other features include integrated mouse, time synchronization, folder sharing, and arbitrary screen resolutions.
You can suspend individual virtual machines so they stop using CPU cycles on the physical computer. You can also save virtual machines to disk and restore them at a later time. Virtual PC provides additions that you install in a guest operating system to enable this functionality.
In short, if you have a decent processor and lots of RAM, you can benefit from the flexibility, power and productivity of running multiple operating systems side-by-side on a single physical machine. The solution is extremely simple, elegant, quick, safe and reliable.
The writer
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