Release: Microsoft Virtual PC 2007

Yesterday, Microsoft released Virtual PC 2007. With a footprint of 30MB, the software allows you to virtualize Windows machines and other guests are installable, but not supported.

Some new features are:

• 64bit host OS support
• AMD SVM and Intel VT support
• Vista support (both host and guest OS)
• PXE booting support

Virtual PC 2007 is more stable than VirtualBox and offers about the same set of features. Snapshots are not as enhanced as in VMware Workstation.

I would advise VMware Workstation for professionals, that need the enhanced snapshots, conversion etc. For personal use, Virtual PC 2007 is a good free alternative.

Read more or download.

Review: InnoTek VirtualBox 1.3.4

Today I discovered InnoTek VirtualBox.

InnoTek VirtualBox is a general-purpose full virtualizer for x86 hardware. Targeted at server, desktop and embedded use, it is now the only professional-quality virtualization solution that is also Open Source Software. My taste ;-).

Installation

An easy installation as simple as next, next, finish. The footprint of the Windows Installer package is only 11.3MB. Ubuntu and Debian packages are also available.

Features

Large range of guest OSes: DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 9x, Windows Me, Windows NT 4, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, OS/2 3, OS/2 4, OS/2 4.5, Linux (kernel) 2.2, Linux 2.4, Linux 2.6, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Netware, Solaris, L4 and many more.

Other features are multigeneration snapshots, guests additions for Windows and Linux, XML configuration store and folder sharing.

Networking

VirtualBox has three kind of networks: NAT, Host interface and Internal networking. The first allows VM’s to communicate with each other and to the outside world, but the outside world can not connect the the VM’s. Host interface is a kind of bridging. A new network connection is created on the host and the VM’s are bound to that interface. The networking is a little bit different from VMware Workstation and Virtual PC, but the end result is the same.

Headless mode

With a command line tool VboxManage.exe you can do all GUI activities from the command line. The option -type vrpd (same as VboxVrdp.exe) allows you to run a VM as a VRDP Server. The VM console can be controlled with a default Remote Desktop Protocol client.

General

During the use of VirtualBox I did experience some errors and VM configurations that disappeared. Hope the development continues to fix these problems.

For basic virtual machines on a Windows XP of Ubuntu/Debian host, VirtualBox is OK.

Download at the source.

30 Seconds Bunnies Theatre

Recently a friend pointed out to me a website with 30 seconds movies. In case you have no time to watch the entire movie, try this website.

Angry Alien Productions

Review: My first Vista experiences

Recently I have moved to Vista Business with (almost) all my applications.

Installation

Due to the fact that I had an upgrade license, I performed a clean install from a legally activated Windows XP instance. The You can choose to do a clean install and place the old installation in \windows.old.

The rest of the installation went smooth. Most hardware was automatically detected.

Applications

I tried to install all applications that I also used on Windows XP. The only ’showstopper’ was Quicktime. Some weird error code 2738. Apple will probably solve this in their next version.

I also had to install the new (but still beta) VMware Workstation 6.0. Installed fine, but a big footprint. I also tried the Virtual PC 2007 beta, but although the footprint is less, the performance is worst.

Overall

I can do the same with Windows Vista as I did with Windows XP, only the GUI is much richer. This rich GUI does require much more memory. I would advise a minimum of 1GB RAM.

If you do not care about memory consuming looks, Windows XP does the job just as good.

Good luck with your upgrade.