Remote Virtual Machine

vaidas3 said:

Kebero said:

Unless you have an enterprise class hypervisor, you may have issues with this. You may want to think of using Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 (free), and virtualising Windows 7 over that.

windows 2008 R2 server is not free.. technet/msdn subscribtion gives you some keys for testing but not very good for permanent environment, there is evaluation copy of win2k8 server but after evaluation period is over (there is few extensions of that period) you will have to buy or stop using it.

Two different products. As Kebere said, Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 is free, you can download it from here: Download: Microsoft® Hyper-V

Kari

Hi there
another suggestion

If you Download Windows 8 consumer preview (Free) and install VMware workstation rel 8.02 (or later) this can operate your Virtual Machines as Servers where NOBODY needs to be logged on to the host or even have an account on it.

In other words for example users can logon (locally on the same Lan or remote if your router / firewall allows it) to the VM without having to have an account on the Host machine itself.

Of course the Virtual machine will have the same restrictions as to number of concurrent users as a Native machine would -- I use a Windows 2003 Server - but unless you can get some arrangement from work / college (if you are a student you can often get a server OS from Ms via your college) you'll probably have a single user machine such as W7 as the remote Virtual Machine.

VMware's vmserver is now discontinued -- functionality has been incorporated into VMware workstation rel 8.

I haven't tried the facility in W7 but it definitely works in W8 consumer preview -- as far as users of the remote machine are concerned -- no difference as the are only seeing the standard W2003 server login screen.

You wouldn't have ANY problems running 2 or 3 W7 instances as virtual machines on the host and as I said users don't have to have an account on the HOST.

Note that to use say RDP (Remote Desktop) to each virtual machine you will have to arrange for the RDP ports via your router to be mapped differently for each machine as RDP has a standard port setting.

It's fairly simple to set up and if the W7 machines are reasonably identical (should be with Virtual Hardware etc) you can test say one machine and then clone the rest.

Note here to avoid confusion

What I mean here that NORMALLY when you run VMware on a Host YOU (or a USER) have to be logged on to start the VMware program and need to be logged on throughout the life of the application.

What operating it as a "Server" does means that this process can run in the background WITHOUT anybody being logged on to the Host -- so the host gets booted up and starts the VM's and you are in business.

It's probably a bit heavy to start with but if you can perservere and peruse this article it should point you in the right direction --actually although it sounds complex once you've got the basic process going you'll be amazed at how easy it is.


http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/mic...rnalId=2005585

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

If you Download Windows 8 consumer preview (Free) and install VMware workstation rel 8.02 (or later) this can operate your Virtual Machines as Servers where NOBODY needs to be logged on to the host or even have an account on it.

For the OP: Just be aware that the VMWare Workstation product is a commercial application and does cost $199. I recently bought myself a copy with a discount code from VMWare for $169. It's a really solid product and I felt worth the money

It's not a true bare metal hypervisor, of course. The Original Poster wanted to continue using his high powered workstation for his everyday tasks, so going with a Hypervisor based solution wasn't appropriate.

I've very familiar with virtaulization stuff. I'm the VMWare vSphere guy at my office. It's what I do for a living. Hyper-V, while a cheaper solution for things like Live Migrations, is a real pain in the ass to work with. I avoid it at all costs.