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Darwin:
Hi all,

I'm keen to set up a virtual machine on my notebook. However, I'm trying to pick between Virtual PC 2007 and VMWare Player 2.2. I'm reading conflicting reports about the capabilities of each and don't know which way to jump!

Anyone here have experience with either or both and willing to enlighten me?

Thanks,

Mike

PS For now, I simply want to run Win2k and possibly 98 in a VM on my XP Pro notebook...

jgpaiva:
I'd also consider the option of VirtualBox.

I've tried all 3 of them. I decided to stick with VirtualBox because at the time, both VirtualPC and VMware didn't allow me to use AltGR to insert special characters while VirtualBox did.

On the other hand, currently i'm using VMware Workstation (now it supports using the windows key as "host key") and it's way superior to VirtualBox (ubuntu runs noticeably faster), so i suppose that from those3 options, i'd go for VMware player.

On (yet) another hand, I'm not sure if VMware allows you to create new machines, i think it only allows you to use "virtual appliances" already made by someone..

These are pretty similar products, but if you're going to be running windows, probably Virtual PC is the best option, since it's made by microsoft and works quite well with windows guests and hosts.

[edit] After re-reading this post, i want to apologize for making it this confusing. In conclusion, i'd go for Virtual PC [/edit]

Darwin:
Thanks João! That's just the kind of input that I'm looking for... One of the points of confusion for me is the issue regarding VMWare Player - some people say that you CAN create new machines with it, others say you can't. I think I'll go the MS route, which is the way I was leaning anyway - I'm going to be running Win2k so the MS solution makes the most sense for now.

Thanks for the VirtualBox pointer as well. I neglected to ask for other options in my original post, but that was one of my questions/objectives  :Thmbsup:

Darwin:
Just grabbed this from the VMWare Player FAQ:

Can I create VMware virtual machines using VMware Player?
No. VMware virtual machines can only be created with VMware Workstation, VMware ACE, VMware Server, VMware ESX Server, or VMware VirtualCenter products.
--- End quote ---

So for now VMWare is off the table for me (unless anyone knows of a TrialPay offer on VMWare Workstation  :D?).

jgpaiva:
Well.. You could not take VMware out of the picture right away. Just like this guy made a bunch of images of linux distros for VMware player, i bet there should be someone out there that has already built a few windows images for it too.

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