Looking to set up a virtual machine; where do I start?

H

Harb

Limp Gawd
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Apr 10, 2007
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So I recently built a new rig running Vista HP 64 (see sig) and absolutely love the computer and OS. The only downside is that there are a handful of apps I rely on that won't play nice with Vista, 64-bit OS's, or both. I was considering installing XP Pro 32 on a 320gb hdd that I've got laying around collecting dust and simply dual-booting, but I don't really want to have to reboot my system just to run one or two apps for maybe 20 minutes at a time.

I've looked around a bit for info on virtual machines, but can't find any real "Hey, new to VM's? Look here" type thing designed for beginners. What software do I need? Is it possible to run a 32-bit VM with a 64 bit OS? (I.E. boot vista 64 as usual and then run a VM with XP 32)?

Thanks!
 
What kind of software are we talking about here?

To answer the main question - first you need some VM software like VirtualBox, or VMWare Workstation/Server. Virtualbox is free to use for personal use, so I'd pick that. Read the doc on their site and it will sound really simple, because it really is.

And yes, you can run 32-bit VMs if your host OS is a 64-bit system.
 
I can't recommend VirtualBox enough. You install it, and then walk through the wizards to set up your VMs. I also recommend turning your OS discs into .iso files, and loading your OSes from there. It is easier and faster.
 
Your processor should have virtualization support. Make sure you enable it in your BIOS.

I've got XP hosting another XP VM and a Vista VM, and they're all running full speed.


You should be fine running a 32bit guest on a 64bit host.
 
+1 for VirtualBox
http://virtualbox.org/

Works great, excellent support community and it's Free! ;)

I'm running WinXP Pro (Guest) on my AMD Phenom X4 with 4GB and Vista Ultimate 64-bit (Host) with fantastic results. I'm able to use usb devices in the VirtualBox as well. I'm very pleased with the performance of the Guest OS with ~1GB RAM dedicated to the virtual session.

g/l
 
Perfect, I'll get started on this right away. Thanks for the info!

I'll be giving Virtual Box a shot. This was one of those things where I had no idea where to begin; the only software I knew of that even remotely delt with this sort of thing is vmware, but one look at their website told me that it wasn't the type of thing I was looking for.


Oh, BillLeeLee, the types of apps I need to use are small, niche apps that aren't deal-breakers as far as making the jump from 32 to 64 bit, but they're important enough that I would have to do some digging and find and get used to some new software. SoundTaxi is an example; it doesn't run on 64 bit systems. I also want to try some older games like Mechwarrior 3; it's almost entirely incompatible with my new system and I'm hoping XP and DX9 are a bit closer to what it's ment to run on.
 
DeaconFrost said:
I can't recommend VirtualBox enough. You install it, and then walk through the wizards to set up your VMs. I also recommend turning your OS discs into .iso files, and loading your OSes from there. It is easier and faster.
Click to expand...

Funny you mention that, as I just did an install of Fedora 9 from the DVD into VirtualBox and it took forever, much slower then when I would install it on a normal machine. Does making it into an .iso somehow help it install faster?

Sorry, you will have to excuse our "differences" in the other thread... :)
 
When you make an ISO of whatever CD/DVD you have, and you put it on the same drive or - even better - another physical drive in the same PC, or hell, even on an external, the installation of an OS into some VM software is roughly 5-8x faster overall. Considering that even the fastest DVD drives on the market today at 20x are about 25MB/s, that still pales in comparison to hard drives being able to pump out 60 or more per second, sometimes a lot more (especially with SSD hardware now where it's consistent speed start to finish).

So the basic answer is HELL FUCKING YES IT'S FASTER... ;)

I have a smallish partition towards the end of my primary drive (old 250GB Maxtor SATA I) where I have about 8GB of ISOs of various OSes, XP Pro, XP Pro x64, 2K3 32 and 64 bit, Ubuntu 8.04, Arch Linux, etc, and I use those for testing with VirtualBox. If I put in a CD in my Plextor and install Ubuntu 8.04 from that CD to the hard drive (the VM), it takes roughly 18 mins to install. I do it from the ISO on the drive (same files, just an ISO of that physical CD), the installation takes about 4-5 mins roughly, depending on what else I might be doing.

Watching the loading progress bar zipping across screen is pretty cool when you do this type of installation from ISO.

It's the same software, why add more wear and tear on the optical drive, put ISOs on your hard drive and run with 'em...
 
^Awesome, exactly what I wanted to know. Kind of seems obvious now anyway.
 
Yeah, what Joe said. You are pulling the data from a much faster medium, so your overall install time is much faster than the host's OS was installed, believe it or not.
 
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