Those familiar with Microsoft’s Virtual PC may want to check out some other virtual workstation software. I will focus on the three that I’ve used: Microsoft Virtual Workstation, VMWare Workstation, and Sun xVM VirtualBox. Each has their share of pros and cons.
Microsoft Virtual PC
Anyone who has taken a Microsoft training course is undoubtedly familiar with MS’ Virtual PC platform. It has snapshots and is pretty easy to use with a bugless full-screen mode, however there is a caveat. A big, obvious, unsurprisingly disappointing caveat; it only works with Microsoft operating systems. I tried to run Fedora and Ubuntu to no avail. If you never plan on venturing outside of Microsoft OS products, this is a good choice, otherwise I would focus on the other two. It’s probably worth keeping an eye on though, as the big Northwest firm has recently become more open-minded to open source OS.
VMWare Workstation
This one is not free, but is available as a fully-functional 30-day trial. It offers a wealth of features however, and should be strongly considered if you are a serious virtual workstation user in need of these options. It’s around $160 last time I checked.
Sun xVM VirtualBox
I’ve been extremely happy with Sun’s free xVM VirtualBox software. It works well with every OS I have thrown at it: live distros, Ubuntu, OpenSolaris, Windows 2003, 2008, XP, Vista, Windows 7, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Gentoo, Slax, Fedora and more. Full-screen works great and I’ve used it on several laptops and desktops. It will run VMDK files from VMWare, and offers snapshots as well. To date, it’s my favorite open source virtual workstation software. You can find a download link to it on my Favorite Open Source Apps page.
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Tags: Virtualization, VMWare
