XP Mode

Lee said:

Some good information there Mr. pparks1; didn't know about the ability to us VMware's to run the XPMode. Will have to give that a try. Do you have any suggestions as to how to do it other than running Player.
Thanks.

You can use VMWare Workstation and convert the file as well. As long as XP Mode is installed, you just go to File and there should be an option to convert XP Mode.

Note: This does convert the plain jane clear slate copy of XP Mode..so if you previously had configured XP Mode and installed applications and such..they wouldn't convert using this method.

For Sun's product, I think you have to go through the vmlite process that one of our members here posts about from time to time. I don't particularly feel all that comfortable with that, plus vmware is what I use at work, so I just stick with VMWare Player for my home use as well.

You can run a virtual machine on 2GB, you just cannot run many, mostly one at a time.
But the CPU is a lot more important....

Lee said:

First let me say something. . .Forget XPMode. Cannot say that enough. It is without a doubt the worst VM going. Get a copy of either Virtual Box (free) or VMWare's Workstation, or Player. I have a fairly high powered system (see specs), and XPMode just crawls. Finally got so fed up with it I removed it from my computer, and swore that it would never see the light of day again, and that was after three attempts to make it work.

Sorry to interrupt this thread. But XP Mode crawls for you? Thats odd as I have (aside from the OC) worse specs then you, and even then XP Mode flies. Perhaps its something to do with the iMac or perhaps even the Mac's HDD which uses the GUID partioning scheme. As opposed to a PC which uses a MBR partition scheme.

Again, sorry to interrupt. Just needed to get that out there. In my experience, XP Mode is a good thing to have 'just in case'.

DarkNovaGamer said:

Sorry to interrupt this thread. But XP Mode crawls for you? Thats odd as I have (aside from the OC) worse specs then you, and even then XP Mode flies.

When I first played with XP Mode, I had quite a large amount of experience with VMWare Player, VMWare Server, VMWare ESX/i, and VirtualBox. Thus, when I first saw XP mode, the first thing I noticed was just how slow it booted up for me. It took about 40 seconds to book XP....which might be described as "lighting fast" by some...but I was used to 20 second boots with other products. If you don't have experience with other products, my guess is XP Mode is amazing and all that you could ask for. However, when you have extensive experience with other products...you see things a bit different when you evaluate.

jimbo45 said:

Actually NOT TRUE -- the MOST IMPORTANT COMPONENT YOU NEED FOR RUNNING VIRTUAL MACHINES IS RAM --OODLES AND OODLES OF IT.

(Capitals intended).

The poster is correct in saying that you can run a Virtual machine in 2GB of RAM -- you can even run one in 256 / 384 MB of RAM (Windows 2000 or even an XP virtual machine will run in 256 / 384 MB of RAM) -- you just can't run MANY concurrent VM's if your host has a small amount of RAM.

Actually IS TRUE. If you read what I said. You cannot run many, mostly one at a time just as you said. In this configuration the CPU is more important then RAM. An ATOM processor for example will choke regardless of how much RAM you have.

logicearth said:

jimbo45 said:

Actually NOT TRUE -- the MOST IMPORTANT COMPONENT YOU NEED FOR RUNNING VIRTUAL MACHINES IS RAM --OODLES AND OODLES OF IT.

(Capitals intended).

The poster is correct in saying that you can run a Virtual machine in 2GB of RAM -- you can even run one in 256 / 384 MB of RAM (Windows 2000 or even an XP virtual machine will run in 256 / 384 MB of RAM) -- you just can't run MANY concurrent VM's if your host has a small amount of RAM.

Actually IS TRUE. If you read what I said. You cannot run many, mostly one at a time just as you said. In this configuration the CPU is more important then RAM. An ATOM processor for example will choke regardless of how much RAM you have.

I believe I am enough proof that you can run a virtual machine pretty well with not much RAM. OS X 10.6.3, Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista SP2, Windows 7 SP1 (what? I got bored!) all ran fine for me in VMWare. Of course never tried it at the same time.

Also XP Mode was a slow bootup for me as well but once its started theres really no speed issues for me.