Running a Virtual Machine

[zinglebarb]

I use Windows for my operating system always have and unless something seriously changes I always will.

Sometimes though even the widest most compatible used operating system can not utilise all the software you want it to. So what do you do? Format and install the operating system the software uses? Buy a new computer? Well why not consider a Virtual Machine

 

I will quickly link to a couple of variants and then go in depth and show the install of Windows XP on machine running VistaX64

 

Virtualbox is free and runs on various operating systems from Windows to FreeBCD to MacOSX

http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads it is available for this link as you see it is available for a lot of different systems

Microsoft Virtual Pc available from this link http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/get-started.aspx as you can see they are pushing the windows 7 version which when installed with the XP mode add on it is meant to seamlessly integrate apps installed on the Virtual machine inside windows 7. My experience of this is not that great.

 

Although there are other versions of this around the one I use is the paid for client called VMware workstation.There are versions of this for Windows and Mac I will now run through a simple install process for XP while running Vista.

Here you see the open program all I have done is selected to install a new virtual machine

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Load XP cd into optical drive and select it from the menu seen here

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It will find the cd and recognise it as XP Add your cd key now and details otherwise you will see the normal menus once setup files etc have loaded

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Select where you wish your virtual hard drive to live

 

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Select how many processors you want the VM to see 1 or 2 is available I do not think you need a screen shot of this J

Allocate memory to machine use 512 as a minimum

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Leave Networking as NAT unless you wish to change it (no screenie needed )

I leave the hard drive as standard

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Create a virtual disk and assign space to it(select drive type I leave default) Size of disk depends on how much you think you will need to install on the machine. Leave enough to cover your needs. Name the drive as required

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Time to customise hardware.

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Make sure 3d acceleration is ticked if you want to play legacy games

Now click next and the machine will start

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If you have not set the machine easy install you will get a break in the install process to add details and keycode.Other virtual machine may need you to point to your virtual drive but it is all the same as if you were installing from scratch

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As you see the install looks that same as normal. Once complete the machine will reboot and start. As windows opens it triggers install of VMware tools allow these to install as they are helpful.

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You can adjust the desktop to any size you wish even upto full screen resolution of the host machine. You can expand to full screen by pressing CTRL ALT and Enter and reduce the same way.

You should now have a full functioning operating system which will act exactly the same as it would if it was on its own hardware. You can use it to install and run apps that do not work under your main OS or test suspect files safely without exposing your data.

Remember you do not have to install XP it might be Windows 98 Windows 95 or even DOS it also runs happliy with none Windows operating systems such as Linux

[zinglebarb]

As a little add on. I installed ZooTycoon 2 in VM which would not play on Vista X64 and it was flawless.Do not expect it to run like a top spec machine but it is a simple enough option to save having to format and install. So all or at least most of your old games should work thanks to the new better 3d acceleration support :)