Could you please advise me as to which one to use?

[Mitka27]

Like a member a couple of days ago, I am new to virtualization. However, very interested. The transgression from Vista to Windows7 leaves no regrets. From XP to both does a little. Some of my portables wont work, I cant access to some of my files (despite being admin with the necessary privileges), etc. Yes, I miss my XP. I also have a PC at work running XP which I would like to use the .vhd on this Win7 machine as well and vice versa. I would also like to try out Mac OSX Snow Leopard 10.6. Do I go for, Sun's Virtual Box Microsoft Virtual PC, VMPlayer or VMWorkstation (which I have a copy).

BTW, I am in Japan and all my OS are Japanese.

Can somebody please suggest what I should use - or what would be the easiest and most efficient for a beginner.

Mitaka27

 

[crxin]

I use sun's virtual box and i like it a lot. At work we have a license for vmworkstation, and even with a high powered machine, find it slow and bulky. Sun's virtual box is the way to go imo.

 

[whs]

+1, vBox is the way to go. A while ago I made a tutorial that adresses both vBox and vPC. You can download the PDF from here: Installing in a virtual partition .zip - Windows Live

 

[Mitka27]

Thanks to you both. Yes, Whs, I saw that tutorial and that is why I asked further. I wasnt sure about VMPlayer or VMWorkstation. However, I will now give Sun's VB a go and see. Here's hoping. Once again, many thanks.

Mitaka27

 

[huisinro]

in terms of ease of use, no once can beat VMLite, you should try it.

You install it, sit there for 30 mins, click a few buttons, then you will have an XP Mode. The XP Mode VHD will be automatically downloaded from Microsoft website. VMLite's primary users are those never used vm before.

 

[Mitka27]

Thanks Huisinro for the advice. I havent had time yet to install either but before I do I want to know whether it is possible to have both Japanese and English XP installed at the same time. I know that, say, Vista and other OS are okay, but what about the same OS? Does VMLite deal with this situation. The reason I ask is that lots of my portables which I dont want to install on either Windows7 or Vista wont work, or wont even work under Japanese XP should work under English XP.

Thanks again for all the adive.

Mitaka27

 

[huisinro]

yes, you can have as many xp modes as you want. You can do it one by one. You can select the XP Mode language from the VMLite download button.

Per requests, we will soon provide a plugin to Sun's VirtualBox, so you can get the good things from VirtualBox + VMLite, run XP Mode activated inside VirtualBox, plus host Start menu integration, and extremely fast file copy between host and vm, or between VMs, much faster than any other vms, since we pass kernel level IRPs for file i/o.