Solved VM or dual boot?

[HAVOC]

I'll sometimes fix other peoples computers that have Vista or Seven on them. I have no experience with 8.1 or Windows 10, so I'd like to install one or the other on my system should I need to fix a computer that has a newer OS. I have a separate HDD that I can install to so I won't mess up my C drive.

I'm not sure if a VM or dual boot install would be better for this.

 

[mart4494]

Seems to be a personal preference so I'm sure you'll get plenty of feedback. I recently set a separate partition up on my C drive and installed Win10 to play with. My reasoning was the C is a SSD so I wanted to see what - if any - performance gains there were with Win10. Nothing went amiss and now there is a dual boot facility.

Everything went smoothly but whether I keep Win10 is debatable in my head anyway.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi
I got one of these for a safer dual boot practice because 10 is pretty much an alpha os and can be problematic for other os's and other drives if things go badly
Amazon.com: Vantec 2.5-Inch Dual Bay Trayless SATA III - 6G Mobile Rack (MRK-225S6-BK): Computers & Accessories

Otherwise vm is the safest way to browse and test win-10 and also win-8/ 8.1

 

[strollin]

I like using VMs over dual boot because I can have as many VMs as I have disk space for. I can have both Win 10 32 & 64 bit, Win 8 32 & 64, XP, Vista, ME, Win 7, any number of Linux distros, etc... all available to boot up. If I decide I no longer want a particular VM I can simply delete it.

I personally haven't setup a dual boot machine in over 10 years.

 

[HAVOC]

What's a good VM to run? I have a book (studying to take the A+ exam), and it lists "Windows Virtual PC" and "Oracle VirtualBox".
I have a 2TB internal drive to use as a VM drive. That should be enough space, correct?

 

[AddRAM]

M V PC is old, not sure if it`s even usable with 8.1 or 10, it does not show them as a guest. Details in snip.

VMware workstation player is a good free one. 3rd from the bottom.

https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/downloads

 

[Brds7t7]

I use Virtualbox. It has some bugs, plugging in USB devices can be a little temperamental at times, but it's updated regularly. Has a lot of options for customising the VM and has snapshots which are a handy feature for testing software. I think you can achieve the same thing in VMware player by right clicking on the VHD and selecting "Restore Previous Version", although I haven't tried it.

 

[Ztruker]

Oracle Virtualbox is very good. I run Win 10 Pro X64 on a quad core Lenovo with 16GBV ram and I have the followi9ng VMs setup.

 

[HAVOC]

I've installed Windows Virtual PC which came with XP mode. I ran XP mode and it wants me to download a file. I'm not sure which file I need.

 

[HAVOC]

Got my answer.
WindowsXPMode_N_en-us.exe doesn't come with Windows Media Player (for Europe).

Would having multiple VM's installed cause any issues like having multiple anti-viruses installed?

 

[AddRAM]

According to the specs MS VPC will not run 8.1 or 10

Let us know how it goes.

 

[HAVOC]

I saw that and I don't need XP mode (it is running pretty good though). I also installed Oracle VirtualBox. It comes with a user manual that will be helpful as I'm a beginner with VM's.

I wanted a VM to run Windows 8.1 and 10 to see if I want to "upgrade" my system to 10 in the future and because I know someone will ask me to look at their computer and if it has 8.1 or 10, I'll be confused.

I'm going to uninstall Virtual PC. Is there and reason to keep it for what I need.?

I'm going to have to buy a copy of 8.1 and 10 if I plan to run them in a VM, correct?

 

[AddRAM]

No reason to keep MS VPC

If you want them then ya, just buy em.

But 10 can be downloaded free I believe.

Windows 10 ISO Download - Windows 10 Forums

 

[lehnerus2000]

VMware Player

The latest VMware Player will run the W8 series and W10.

I run a W10 VM using VMware Player on a Linux Mint (64 bit) OS (I dual boot W7 and LM17.2)

 

[Brds7t7]

Got my answer.
WindowsXPMode_N_en-us.exe doesn't come with Windows Media Player (for Europe).

Would having multiple VM's installed cause any issues like having multiple anti-viruses installed?

You mean having AV installed on both the guest and the host systems?
I've done it before, I don't tend to usually, I just have AV on my host machine. But I have had VM's set up with AV and firewalls installed. Never really caused me any issues although can slow down the VM a little occasionally.

 

[AddRAM]

You only use 1 Virtual OS at a time, so there should be no problems. Look at how many Z has installed in reply #8

I even have ubuntu and zorin installed in mine. No issues.

 

[strollin]

You only use 1 Virtual OS at a time, so there should be no problems. Look at how many Z has installed in reply #8

I even have ubuntu and zorin installed in mine. No issues.

Provided you have enough RAM and an adequate cpu, there's no reason why you can't run multiple VMs concurrently.

 

[HAVOC]

I was referring to having multiple VM programs installed at the same time.

 

[strollin]

On my Win 7 desktop, I have MS Virtual PC installed with XP mode and also have both VirtualBox and VMWare Player installed. I have had some problems trying to run a VMWare Player VM at the same time as a VirtualBox VM but there is no issue with having multiple VM programs installed at the same time.

 

[DavidE]

I use both multi-boot PC's and VM's.
imho there are pros and cons to both.

For me a VM is fine for testing, learning, etc.
I would not run a "full-time/permanent" OS as a VM.
In a VM, everything runs through an emulator, and that can make a difference.
When i see an issue or question (VM), is it because of the OS or a "VM" issue ?
Been there, done that, spent the time troubleshooting.

With a bare-metal install, there is no emulator, my OS's access hardware directly.
I still use both multi-boot and VM's, they work for me as i prefer and want.