Microsoft Providing Virtual Server Free

[IronBits]

Up to this point, Microsoft sold Virtual Server for $100 or $200, depending on the number of processors in a server. Now, it's throwing out the price, preparing for the bundling scenario a bit early. Customers can pick up Virtual Server 2005 R2 as a free download. Microsoft product marketing man Zane Adam made it rather clear that this move was intended as a blow against VMware.
http://www.theregister.com/2006/04/03/ms_virtual_free/
Now there's no excuse for those of you with 1GB of ram to toss on a few VM nodes and crank on Dimes. :)
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/software/default.mspx

[Scoofy12]

so i guess we know that VMware recently started giving away a version of their server. i've been playing with it a bit lately and i like it pretty well... has anyone tried both of these products and can offer a comparison?

[CaptainMooseInc]

Heh I'll use either one as long as they can minimize to the systray. I ended up uninstalling VMware because it just sat on my taskbar. I can't stand things being on my taskbar.

-Jeff

[Fozzie]

Virtual Server is a web front end so there is no icon at all. If you close your browser the service just keeps them running in the background. If you then go to the page that is the admin console you can then admin them from there.

Nice bit of kit IMO.

[Cowering]

I'd like to try these freebies, but which one supports DirectX better? I don't play games often, but it would be nice not to have to worry about it.

[PCZ]

Cowering

VM's are very very slow.
You would not play a game inside of one.
Well maybe Solitare ;)

[Cowering]

I guess what i need to know is (and I know next to nothing about how these VMs install), do I install VS2005 and/or VMWare on top of a running copy of WinXP. I would think that would allow me to run one app in 'native' mode.

I'd assume that if XP crashed, all the VMs crash also. However, if VMWare or VS2005 installs first, then you 'migrate' the existing OS install into it, you can't run an app and have it work if it expected if it needed special port access (like custom parallel port drivers).

I've got a room full of dedicated machines which I use maybe twice a month (DOS based eprom reader, WIN95 PCMCIA chip programmer, etc). Would these be hopeless to try and run as a VM??

[Fozzie]

the virtual machines use, by their nature, virtualisations of all the attached hardware, but I believe if you run something like DOS or Win95 etc as long as they can use those virtual devices you should be able to do away with those systems and use the VM ones instead.

[Digital Parasite]

I guess what i need to know is (and I know next to nothing about how these VMs install), do I install VS2005 and/or VMWare on top of a running copy of WinXP. I would think that would allow me to run one app in 'native' mode.

The free versions of VS2005 and VMWare need to be installed and run inside a regular OS like WinXP or Linux. If that OS crashes then everything dies. WinXP acts like normal, you can run games or whatever, and VMWare is an "application" you load which will then let you open another OS in a Window. The virtual OS acts just like another program in XP.

Many people especially in testing will have one box with say XP or Linux, and have many different VMWare images, one of Win98, one of DOS, one of RedHat Linux version X. But the free VMWare does not let you create VM images I don't think, just let you use existing ones that others have created.

[Scoofy12]

not true, anymore.
you're thinking of the vmware player, which, until a month or 2 ago, was the only free thing, but they recently released VMware Sever (http://www.vmware.com/products/server/) (formerly known as GSX server) downloadable free.

[Cowering]

So, VMware and V2005 are just as unstable as WinXP.. and if i install on top of Linux I won't get full DirectX compatiblilty since there are not a full set of APIs for it (I think)

My other question was if something like my ancient ISA EPROM reader can work in a virtual DOS machine.. it needs real port access, not virtual.

[CaptainMooseInc]

I dunno if I'm misreading your response or what but it seems to me you're aren't catching the idea.

VMware and VS2005 can -not- be installed as OSes. They are programs. Just like Internet Explorer, Solitaire, Quake 3...etc etc etc.

Basically what they do is you have a copy of an OS that you can "install" into an image file made by VMware or VS2005. It "installs" this OS to the folder on your hard drive in the operating system you already have installed. Then you can RUN the operating system inside a small window (which can be maximized if you like). But there's absolutely no reason to install WinXP in a virtual machine if you're running WinXP if you intend on using that virtual machine for gaming. Now if you have a Macintosh and want to play a game that only a Windows machine can, you could run a virtual machine and put it on there and install Direct X 9.0, but its performance would be excruciatingly horrible and almost pointless.

VMware and VS2005 are not unstable at ALL. They are as unstable as the operating system. If you install WinXP to a virtual machine and that WinXP crashes, the screen would go to BLACK inside the program. Your Windows XP that is really running is still -fine-.

Repeat, once again....

VMWARE and VS2005 are not OSes and never have been intended to be as such. They are -=JUST=- programs.

[Cowering]

I had thought that some versions of VMware installed first, then you install your guest OS. I THINK the term is a hypervisor. That would be much better IMHO because the less you have on your initial XP/linux system, the less chance of a crash. XP normally works pretty good, but after a few months of uptime, something always breaks from a memory leak or an endless loop eating up VM and BANG there she goes.