Do Virtual Machines Behave the Same as a regular PC on a network?

Do Virtual Machines Behave the Same as a regular PC on a network? What are the differences between a virtual network and a wired network? By difference I mean the movement of packets, header size, and performance.

I also noticed the VMware network adapter in the control panel. Doesn't the VMWare adapter have to use the hardware network card on the machine it's being hosted on?

bishop101 said:

Do Virtual Machines Behave the Same as a regular PC on a network?...

Yes, for the most part.

bishop101 said:

...What are the differences between a virtual network and a wired network? By difference I mean the movement of packets, header size, and performance....

There are no differences between the two (that matter). Except Virtualbox has had a performance flaw for many years now: slow outgoing speeds if behind a virtual NAT. I'm not sure if VMWare has the same issue.

bishop101 said:

... I also noticed the VMware network adapter in the control panel. Doesn't the VMWare adapter have to use the hardware network card on the machine it's being hosted on?

I've not used VMWare so I'll let others answer that - but for Virtualbox: two or more VMs that are on the same host computer can exchange data between them without using the hosts network adapter.

When connecting to a real network and then onto the internet, the VM and the host computer can share the same network adapter or each can use a separate network adapter (e.g. the VM could use Wi-Fi while the host uses hard wired).

I've found that using Hyper-V, performance toll is negligible. I can never tell the difference unless I am using a tool to measure which gives me about a 10% decrease in speed. VMware performance depends on which drivers you use. If you use their native drivers you should be fine, but if you change its virtual driver to emulate the e1000, you pay a heavy price.