Desktop

Desktop Virtualization Products

Tables below will help you identify most popular desktop virtualization products which are available today. Most of those I installed once and worked with them for a while. The choice is there and based on your requirements you can download and install the solution.

Icon-WarningIf you are new than I would recommend to install VMWare Player and get started with downloading a appliance from VMWare’s Virtual Appliance Marketplace. Good choice to start with is the Browser Appliance that allows you to browse the Internet securely using Mozilla Firefox, running under Ubuntu Linux 5.10, optimized for browsing; for more details click here.

 

Microsoft VirtualPC 
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Description: Virtual PC 2007 is the most cost-effective virtualization technology engineered for the Windows operating system. As a software solution, Virtual PC 2007 lets you create separate virtual machines on your Windows desktop, each of which virtualizes the hardware of a complete physical computer. Use virtual machines to run multiple operating systems such as Windows Vista, Windows XP, and OS/2 on a single computer. Virtualization technology requires two components, the virtualization stack—Virtual PC and the OS—Windows.
Version: 2007 SP1 (6.0)
Link: VirtualPC
Host Supported Systems: Win32, Win64 (Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Tablet PC, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Enterprise, and Windows Vista Ultimate.)
Guest Supported Systems: Win32 (Windows98-Windows2008)
License: Free

 

Parallels Workstation for Windows 
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Description: Parallels Workstation is an easy-to-use, easy-on-the-pocket solution that lets you run Windows, Linux, and more side-by-side on a single PC without rebooting.     

Truly revolutionary, Parallels Workstation empowers users of any skill level – including computer professionals, sales executives, and home users – to easily run multiple operating systems on a single computer. Completely networked. Stable. Secure. Use Windows? Like Linux? Have it all on a single PC.
Version: 2.2
Link: http://www.parallels.com/en/products/workstation/ 
Host Supported Systems: Win32 (Windows2000-WindowsVista)
Guest Supported Systems: Linux, MsDos, Win32 (Windows3.1-WindowsVista)
License: $ 49,99
Documents: Parallels Workstation Datasheet

 

VMWare Player
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Description: VMware Player is a free desktop application that lets you perform the following functions:          

  • Run virtual machines on a Windows or Linux PC.
  • Run virtual machines without investing in virtualization software, making it easy to take advantage of the security, flexibility, and portability of virtual machines.
  • Use host machine devices, such as CD and DVD drives, from the virtual machine.

VMware Player provides an intuitive user interface for running preconfigured virtual machines created with VMware Workstation, ESX Server, VMware Server, VMware Fusion, and GSX Server. On Windows host machines, you can use VMware Player to open and run Microsoft Virtual PC and Microsoft Virtual Server virtual machines, and Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery, formerly LiveState Recovery, system images.

VMware Player also lets you download virtual appliances and access Open Virtualization Format (OVF) and Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) files.
Version: 2.5
Link: http://www.vmware.com/products/player/
Host Supported Systems: Win32, Win64 (Windows2000-WindowsVista), Linux
Guest Supported Systems: Linux, MsDos, Win32 (Windows3.1-Windows2008), Win64 (WindowsXP-Windows2008)
License:  Free
Documents: VMWare Player Getting Started Guide

 

VMWare Workstation
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Description: VMware Workstation 6.5 makes it simple to create and run multiple virtual machines on your desktop or laptop computer. You can convert an existing physical PC into a VMware virtual machine, or create a new virtual machine from scratch. Each virtual machine represents a complete PC, including the processor, memory, network connections and peripheral ports.VMware Workstation lets you use your virtual machines to run Windows, Linux and a host of other operating systems side-by-side on the same computer. You can switch between operating systems instantly with a click of a mouse, share files between virtual machines with drag-and-drop functionality and access all the peripheral devices you rely on.
Version: 6.5
Link: http://www.vmware.com/products/ws/
Host Supported Systems: Win32, Win64 (Windows2000-Windows2008), Linux
Guest Supported Systems: Linux, MsDos, Win32 (Windows3.1-Windows2008), Win64 (WindowsXP-Windows2008)
License: $ 189,00
Documents: VMWare Workstation Datasheet

I personally would download and install VMWare Workstation. As an IT Professional VMWare Workstatations offer special features like:

  • 64bit virtual machine support
  • Snapshot Manager
  • ESX server installation and testing 
  • Exchange Server 2007 64bit installation and testing
VMWare Workstation is perfect when you need to create test environments and prepare the vm’s to be imported into VMWare ESX production servers/clusters. VMWare Workstation can easily be installed on your laptop and you can take your complete test environment and go to the customer and show them the result or solution you created at your office. Being able to quickly setup a test environment and test it with all features you would have on a physical server but with all advantages like easy backups, snapshots, etc.

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