VMware Workstation

If you are a software developer/tester who needs to test a software code’s response on different operating environments quickly, then VMware might be a useful thing to have. It allows you to run multiple OSs on one x86 machine. It completely emulates an x86 machine (called a Virtual machine) for each of the ‘Guest’ OSs you want to install within the 



‘Host’ OS.

The software is available in three versions–Workstation, GSX Server and ESX Server. While the server versions are designed to give you mainframe class virtual machines on a single server, the workstation version is aimed at technical professionals for running multiple OSes on a single computer. The process and configuration is similar for VMware Workstation for Windows and Linux (Linux users are advised to read the manual before starting just in case you need to change the configuration file to suit your system). The Windows installation is straightforward and an icon is created on your desktop. It creates two new connections in your Network Connections settings. If you have a firewall running, it would prompt you to recognize them. 

Adding another OS is quite simple with this software. A wizard guides you through the entire process. It first asks you to create and set up a new virtual machine. You then have to specify the guest operating system you want to install and a location for the virtual machine. It even asks you to allocate memory (RAM) to your virtual machine, which must be in multiples of 4 and allocated such that there is optimal amount of RAM available to both the host and the guest OS. The software also provides various networking configurations, which include bridged networking, NAT or Host-only. You can setup the guest OS in a different partition on a single drive or use a separate hard drive. 

The software let’s you add as many operating systems as you want, limited only by the amount of RAM and hard disk space you can afford. What’s more you don’t need to repartition your hard disk. The process of deploying and testing new application becomes easier and developments can be tested without any risk to a test system. The changes to any virtual machine can be rejected any time. Supported OSs include DOS, all versions of Windows, Linux and FreeBSD. Though the website says that BeOS and QNX are not supported, we tried them and they worked fine in our tests. However for certain variants of Linux (Redmond Linux Personal example), the graphic mode of installation may not work properly if default graphics run at more than 640x480 pixels and 16-bit colors. 

The Bottom Line: A really useful software if you consider the alternatives to running multiple OSs. You could set them up on different machines, a costly proposition though. Or you could set them up on the same machine using a bootloader program that supports multiple OSs, such as those found with Windows NT, 2000, and Linux. Here, you’ll have the trouble of rebooting the machine every time you want to change an OS. Considering the trouble with both alternatives, VMware is quite a viable option.

Ashish Sharma at PCQ Labs