Note that Virtual PC Express is different from Virtual PC - it's a cut down version of VPC that MS announced (but have not yet released) as an add-on for Vista.  I suspect that now that Virtual PC is free (and VPC 2007) that Virtual PC Express will probably disappear as a Vista add-on feature.

I hope VMware can continue to make a go of it - they have some great technology.  Whether MS is doing anything illegal or wrong, I have my own not-so-strong opinons. It's clear that they certainly have the capacity to make life very, very difficult for anyone they'd like to see out of the way, and there are times I wish the field were a bit more level.  But, I do like the free software (until MS decides there's no more competition, so stops development themselves, as was the case for many years with IE 6 until Firefox came along and lit a fire under them).

Anyway, here's a catalog of free virtual machine software:

     - MS Virtual Server Enterprise: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/software/privacy.mspx
     - MS Virtual PC: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6d58729d-dfa8-40bf-afaf-20bcb7f01cd1&displaylang=en


     - VMware Player (this is really not equivalent to VMware Workstation, but nice for deploying pre-configured VMs): http://www.vmware.com/products/player/
     - VMware Server (basically the next version of GSX Server): http://www.vmware.com/products/server/

     - Xen (open source).  I think this is currently for Linux only (as host and VM guest), but with new CPU virtualization support they will be able to host Windows (or any OS) as a guest: http://www.xensource.com/
     - QEMU (mostly open source):  http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/

I think that most users will find MS Virtual PC to be the most straightforward to install and use.

I happen to use VMware Workstation because I already have it (bought it quite a while ago).  It has some very nice features above VPC (for me, snapshots and 'teams') which are very usedful for development and testing, but unless you know you need those features VPC is pretty much just as good.

Interestingly, while digging up the URLs for this post, I noticed that VMware Server just went from Beta to GA Release acouple days ago...  Now I'm off for another download.

Microsoft continues its ’Netscaping’ of VMware.  I’m surprised this step took so long, since Virtual Server has been free for a while now. I wonder how many (few?) copies of VPC have been sold since that happened.  In any case, this virtualization stuff (VMware, VPC, etc.) is fantastic - even better when it's free.

I'm in the process of moving my main system from one computer to another.  I migrated the machine to a VMware virtual machine to help keep things usable during the transition. 

So far, I've been in 'transition' for months now - I've had no reason to actually set up the system on the new hardware, I'm just running the VM on it.  I'm not a gamer, so in general things are going great.

“Virtual PC 2004 SP1 is available immediately for free download. In addition, Virtual PC 2007, which supports Microsoft Windows Vista, will be available for free in 2007”

     http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/jul06/07-12PartnerDay2UmbrellaPR.mspx

Here’s the download site:

    http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6d58729d-dfa8-40bf-afaf-20bcb7f01cd1&displaylang=en

Too bad there are not more details on VPC 2007.