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Virtual Computing is growing more popular among computing enthusiasts
as it allows them to test or use multiple operating systems, or
different versions of the same OS on one single physical computer.
For developers testing new products, system administrators supporting
multiple platforms, or power users who wish to have multiple computers
without the space and cost constraints associated with that, virtual
computing is the way to go. VMware
Workstation 3.1 accomplishes this by allowing you to install
a new operating system on your computer that will run in a virtual
computer, sharing your physical computer's processor and memory,
so the more you have, the better.
Creating Virtual Machines
VMware provides a wizard driven Virtual Machine creation tool
that makes set up of guest operating systems very easy. You can
choose a typical setup which uses the most common settings for
the Guest Operating System (OS) to be installed, custom, which
affords greater control in the setup of the Virtual Machine, including
specifying the RAM that will be utilized by the system, type of
virtual disk and disk size. A third option to install from a VMware
Guest OS Kit is available, but was not part of the review software
as received.
The first Guest OS I set up was Windows 2000. The installation went as expected,
identical to that of a regular PC. I also went through the setup process with
both Windows XP Professional and Mandrake Linux 8.2
Features
One of the most important choices in setting up a new VMware
Guest OS is the type of networking. VMware allows for four different
types of networking.
- Bridged - the Guest OS will have a direct connection to the
external network. This configuration allows for services that
need to be accessed from the outside to be utilized.
- NAT (Network Address Translation) - the Guest OS will access
the external network through the host's address. NAT allows
you to connect your virtual machines to an external network
in situations where you only have one IP address, and that address
is being used by the host computer.
- Host Only - the Guest OS can only connect to the host OS.
It will not be able to interact with other computers on the
network.
- Do Not Use a network connection - No network connectivity
to the guest OS.
I used NAT for each of the Windows Guest OS's I installed, and Bridged Networking
for the Linux installation.
VMware also has three different disk states.
- Persistent - Changes made during the operation of the OS are written to
disk (just as with a regular PC)
- Undoable - A log is made that will allow the user to roll back to a previous
state. VMware prompts the users at the end of the session whether
or not to commit (save the changes made to disk), Discard the
changes allowing you to restart the way you started previous
to the last commit, or Keep the changes. Keeping the changes
will append any futures OS changes to the same log, allowing
you to undo after successive sessions.
- Non-persistent - Changes are always discarded.
For most purposes, Undoable is the most useful disk state. It
allows for testing of new software, interactions with other software,
and tweaking without great fear of having to rebuild the whole
OS. If something does not work, simply roll back the changes.
Non persistent connections can be very beneficial in software
comparison studies, tech support and any application where you
need a consistent setup.
VMware has a number of advanced features that enthusiasts will appreciate including
port forwarding which allows requests from an external network
to be forwarded to a virtual machine on the internal network and
repeatable resume allowing you to restart your installation from
the same point, time after time.
Once thing that I believe is lacking from VMware is a utility to view thumbnails
of what is happening with the virtual computer. During long installations, or
instances where the virtual machine is running a particular process but not
being directly used, I believe it would be beneficial to see what each running
virtual machine was doing at a glance.
Conclusions
The ability to run multiple operating systems on a single computer
is a great tool for anyone involved in support of multiple platforms,
or development. With it's various disk states and networking options,
VMware makes both processes much smoother. It is definitely geared
toward more advanced users though, and with a $299 US price tag,
isn't something you want to invest in just to play with. While
we were expecting a Guest OS kit to test, we never received it.
From what I can tell, the guest OS kit is a licensed version of
Windows XP Home or Professional or Windows 2000 Professional that
is preconfigured and ready to use. The kits sell for $149 up to
$249. If you require a license for you guest OS (as with everything,
proper licensing is always important) these are probably an easy
alternative to the standard approach of wading through countless
menu items and installation screens.
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