New appreciation for virtualization!

[NoxTek]

Heh... Look! I'm a poet and didn't know it!

In all seriousness though, I've got a web design client who needed some plat maps scanned in and made available on their website. So they mail me the maps and I dig out ye ole trusty Acer 620U USB scanner which I haven't used in well over a year.

I connect the scanner and Vista sees it and promptly asks me to find a driver.... arrrgh. This thing works in XP right out of the box with whatever driver the o/s has built in, but I've never tried it since I upgraded to Vista over a year ago. A search of the web reveals no Vista compatible driver for this ancient hunk of junk... so wtf am I going to do now?

BAM! An idea hits me! I dig out ye old XP SP3 disc and download Virtualbox, get myself a nice fresh 'virtual' XP install going, plug in the scanner and YES! XP picks it up and I'm in business scanning the maps.

There is just something so cool about that, I don't think I'll ever get used to it.

 

[alg7_munif]

Heh... Look! I'm a poet and didn't know it!

In all seriousness though, I've got a web design client who needed some plat maps scanned in and made available on their website. So they mail me the maps and I dig out ye ole trusty Acer 620U USB scanner which I haven't used in well over a year.

I connect the scanner and Vista sees it and promptly asks me to find a driver.... arrrgh. This thing works in XP right out of the box with whatever driver the o/s has built in, but I've never tried it since I upgraded to Vista over a year ago. A search of the web reveals no Vista compatible driver for this ancient hunk of junk... so wtf am I going to do now?

BAM! An idea hits me! I dig out ye old XP SP3 disc and download Virtualbox, get myself a nice fresh 'virtual' XP install going, plug in the scanner and YES! XP picks it up and I'm in business scanning the maps.

There is just something so cool about that, I don't think I'll ever get used to it.

I use VMWare Server with XP just for my usb LBP 1120 Laser Printer.

 

[Direwolf20]

I've been playing with Virtualization for a good 2 years now (off and on, though my company is finally moving towards a couple of ESX boxes now) -- It STILL impresses and excites me every time I play with a virtual machine.

 

[Gott]

We're running ESX 3.5 and it's a great product. Any free chance I get, I'm always playing with the service console, amongst other things.

 

[QHalo]

I use the T7400 below to recreate my entire Altiris production environment along with domain controllers and everything. It's quite nice to be able to run through production upgrades in VM's and work out the kinks. Not apples to apples, but better than just shotgunning it in. That's 7 VM's running at the same time on this box. Good times.