I last chatted about virtual PCs in January ( How To Convert A Physcial Computer To A Virtual Machine ). Since then it has gotten a little easier to have a look at this…. well at least cheaper.
Back in February, VMware announced that it was giving away one of its flagship products, VMware Server (formerly GSX Server). The free OS virtualisation server makes it possible to run multiple operating systems simultaneously on top of a host OS, which can eliminate dual-booting, make installing or testing potentially dangerous apps risk-free, or keeping around a copy of your old system when you reinstall Windows. VMware Server 1.0 is available for Windows or Linux.
So in what could probably be seen as a weird marketting poker move ( I’ll see your virtual PC and raise you ours), Microsoft has announced that as of now, Virtual PC 2004 is free. The virtualisation software which, like VMware Server, allows many operating systems to run simultaneously on top of a host OS.
Sorry Mac users, it’s only the Windows 2000/XP version of Virtual PC that’s going free–the Mac version still has a price tag of US$249. Looks like the
Me? I am waiting to see what Xen looks like on Ubuntu in a few months, now that my laptop spends most of it’s time in Linux.