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Virtual PC and VMware
How to run multiple operating systems
Product: Virtual PC
From: Microsoft (developed by Connectix)
Price: about US$200 (Windows 98 or Me); $250 (Windows 2000); Mac-compatible versions also available.
A fully functional 45-day trial version for Windows is available from http://preview.connectix.com/trial/
Pros: Solves many compatibility problems, especially when running Windows 2000 or Windows XP. Easy to set up and use.
Cons: Slower than your "real" PC. Not compatible with USB devices or other non-emulated hardware.
A Virtual Machine
An alternative to multiple-boot drive scenarios is the idea of virtual machines that can co-exist within your current operating system environment. Microsoft, in Sept. 2001 revealed that it is now supplying some of its sales personnel with VMware (which we've looked at in the past and will re-examine later in this article) to simplify product demos by allowing them to run several operating systems without the need for multiple computers. Now, one of the best known titles in the Macintosh world, Virtual PC, is available for Windows PCs and, despite the fact that emulating a PC on a PC seems at first glance a very strange concept, it works surprisingly well.
We set up Virtual PC for Windows on a Pentium 4 and installed and ran Windows Me from within Windows XP. It was very easy to set up and supports the loading of a wide variety of PC operating systems, including most Linux and Unix variants.
The system achieves a commendable level of compatibility by emulating a very specific set of PC-compatible hardware. In other words, you may have the latest, greatest GeForce 3 graphics card (as we did, in our test machine), but Virtual PC emulates only a lowly S3 Trio32/64 -- not exactly a speed demon, but highly compatible with almost any piece of software. The same goes for other components. Virtual PC simulates a SoundBlaster 16, an Intel Ethernet controller and other common hardware components. Virtual PC doesn't even use your "real" hard disk, or your full complement of RAM. It simulates a hard disk partition that looks to Virtual PC like a C:\ drive, but appears to the rest of the system as a compressed file. Similarly, Virtual PC uses only as much RAM as you choose to allocate. For our test system, we set up a 2GB virtual hard disk and allocated 96 MB of RAM. We then installed Windows Me. It installed, much as it would on any PC. So far so good!
We then ran a number of benchmarks on the system to see how well the emulation performed.
We tested the unit with a number of CPU- and graphics-intensive applications, including:
- Corel Bryce
- CorelDraw 9
- Adobe Photoshop
- Microsoft Excel 2000
- Adobe Premiere 5.1
- Dragon NaturallySpeaking 4.0
...and others noted below.
Here are the results from our tests:
| System: Virtual PC CPU: Intel Pentium 4 processor, 1999 MHz 256 MB PC800 RDRAM |
System Name Pentium 4 - 2 GHz CPU: Intel Pentium 4 processor, 1999 MHz 256 MB PC800 RDRAM |
System: HP Pavilion 9692C CPU: Intel Pentium III processor, 800 MHz 128 MB PC133 SDRAM |
System: Overclocked Celeron CPU: Intel Celeron processor, 450 MHz 128MB of PC100 SDRAM: |
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| In each case, lower run time numbers are better, and higher ratings (the last column in each category) are better. Virtual PC failed our Netscape test. However, real PCs sometimes fail to complete the BAPCo benchmark, too. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Compared to the Celeron 450's overall Sysmark 2000 rating of 78, the Pentium III 800's rating of 146 and the 2 GHz Pentium 4's SYSmark 2000 rating of 233, Virtual PC's lowly score of 39 shows off just how much of a performance hit your machine takes to run the "virtual" environment. It's roughly the equivalent of a Celeron running at 233 MHz. (A level of performance, we should note, that you can achieve with a computer that sells for next to nothing these days.)
Running applications designed for a specific task, the picture is similar (again, higher rating numbers are better):
| Virtual PC running on a 2 GHz P4 | Pentium 4 - 2 GHz | Pentium III 800 MHz | Celeron 450 MHz |
| Internet Content Creation 51 | Internet Content Creation 253 | Internet Content Creation 141 | Internet Content Creation 76 |
In summary, Virtual PC emulates at about one-quarter the speed of the machine on which it is running.
In February 2003, Microsoft announced the acquisition of Virtual PC and an unreleased server-based product from Connectix. The company says it sees such "virtual machine"-based solutions as a way to provide an upgrade path from Windows NT to newer Windows servers. In the announcement, Microsoft also said it will support Macintosh platforms "for a long time to come."
VMware
Product: VMware 3.0 (build 1364 tested)
From: VMware (www.vmware.com)
Price: about US$300
Pros: Supports USB, also available for Linux.
Cons: Even slower than Virtual PC. Crashed during our installation of Windows Me. Clumsy "VM Tools" installation procedure.
A similar virtual machine emulator is VMware. We've tested both the Linux and Windows editions of this rather pricey (US$299) title and haven't been particularly impressed with the hardware support of either the 1.x or 2.0 releases. Version 3.0 seems to be a great improvement in this area, adding support for USB devices to the emulated environment. Unfortunately, the beta version we tested wasn't able to load and run Windows Me successfully; it also contains debugging code the company warns slows it down substantially. To be sure, it felt tangibly slower than Virtual PC, running on our 2GHz test PC. Because we could not get it to successfully run Windows Me, we were unable to collect any benchmark figures for VMware 3.0. We'll revisit this program (which is supposed to allow you to load any version of Windows and most Linux releases) after its official release. If you want to give it a go now, it is available for free download in beta form. You'll need to register with the company to obtain the required serial number. See Betanews.com for more information on VMware 3.0.
We also attempted to install VMware 1.0 on our 2GHz Pentium 4. Interestingly, it thought this computer's processor was running below the 266 MHz level the company deems to be the minimum clock speed able to provide decent performance. At any rate, version 1.0 wasn't compatible with Windows XP, so we didn't pursue the matter.
Conclusion
Although it is true that, for the money either one of these programs costs, you can practically go out and buy a PC (and you'll get far better performance from even the cheapest low-end clone on the market today), they definitely can help solve compatibility problems and assist PC users (particularly help desk technicians and software developers) in quickly and effectively running and switching between multiple environments. VMware is the preferred solution of many Unix buffs, and its new USB support may help version 3.0 overcome the program's reputation for weak hardware support, but it is too early to say how compatible it will be, based on our problems with the beta release.
Virtual PC, although no speed demon, did everything it promised. It was easy to set up and use. If you need PC emulation on your PC and having another computer on your desk isn't an option, Virtual PC is the way to go. Download a trial version here.
For Further Reading:
- See also: Terminal Services: Why VMware isn't an ideal solution
- Running Linux under NT with VMware
- Sept. 7, 2001: VMware wins deal with Microsoft
- Feb. 20, 2003: Microsoft Acquires Connectix Virtual Machine Technology" PR Newswire
- Feb. 20, 2003: Microsoft Buying An Upgrade Path From NT To Windows Server: Connectix is selling virtual-machine technology to Microsoft InformationWeek
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