Do you use a Virtual Machine?

Who here uses a Virtual Machine?
VMWare, VirtualBox, VirutalPC?

 

I do!!!
and can any mod edit the title and Poll question by adding an "a" between "use" and "machine", as it is grammatically incorrect?

 

I use/create and manage many

I don't really use either of your options though since my VMs aren't local on my computer. I use the Vsphere client to interact with the VMs I have to play with.

VMs make great test environments and smaller servers!

Lots of the developers at work though use VMware Fusion on OSX.

 

I do as well. A couple of really old games I have will only work on 98, so I have a 98 SE virtual machine with VMWare Player. Works perfectly.

 

Running 7 pro x64, use virtual pc to run autocad/photoshop so i can plot to my designjet 755 plotter. works great.

 

If it's ok to make a suggestion; instead of yes or no you should propose the following options:

• never
• hardly ever (used once in a while)
• sometimes (used haft the time)
• often (used in a regular base)
• always

 

I assume you meant between use and virtual. But it's done.

 

I use VMWare to test out various distro's of Linux. But I'm slowly moving to VirtualPC.

 

I use VMWare and Hyper-V

 

I use VMware to test new OSes, like Ubuntu and such.

 

VMWare and Vsphere client

 

I don't yet, but I want to.

This is an interest of mine. I want to create a VM of XP that will be totally isolated from my Win7 machine. I want to be able to run software that I know to be virus infested without fear of infecting the rest of my machine. Is this possible and a good use of VM?

 

i used vmware back when no one knew it to virtualise some dos/win98 apps to windows xp that otherwise wouldn't have worked (with novell network urgh). other than that, haven't used it much anymore. thanks to home server, my physical systems are just like virtual machines. install some test os. restore. install something else... restore...

 

My answer no - I did play with one from a book (on MySQL and PHP.... and never got far with it...) - but else, no because in my case there is no need for them.

 

There is a chance of the host system getting infected, but it's very small. The malicious code will have to be crafted specifically for being able to compromise a host system from within a VM, as it has to exploit a security weakness in the virtualization software.

It's very unlikely that your host will be infected, but there is a very small chance.

On the other hand, there is no such thing as "100% secure".


Christoph

 

no for me. i would still worry about some cross infection but also you do not get the 'full effect' of an os in a virtual window (from past experience).
i have about 10 partitions on my 2 laptop drives and use Boot-It boot manager to shuffle them around. if i want to try a new os, or virus-infected program (hmm, where could i get some of those?), i just use a suitable os then restore from image backups.

 

I use VMWare at work for several servers, gives me more control with less hardware. On my Laptop I use VirtualBox, with XP and Ubuntu installed.

 

I use virtual machines every day in the sense that my AD domain and my Exchange server are both virtualized, and I either log on to one (or more) of my home computers or check my email at least once a day.

But in terms of direct interaction, these days I only use virtual machines when it's time to patch or when I need a full desktop Linux experience, which is pretty rare since SSH is good enough most of the time.

 

VirtualBox user here for Linux, XP, and [Secret].

 

I'm using VMware to run a few different OS's ... Mainly Server 2008 and Linux Distros

 

I do not use virtual machines, though I have tried one once. I was having a hard time getting a program to work in Vista so I tried to use a virtual machine running Windows XP. It didn't remedy the problem, though.

I don't fully understand what virtual machines are typically used for. It would be cool to be able to run a Linux distro and use programs that are exclusive to the Linux platform, but I usually end up trying to find a Windows alternative.

 

Virtual Machines are highly useful as test environments for various uses, notably testing softwares.

They also allow multiple virtual severs to be present within a company without the need to have multiple physical computers.

Basically, think of any use you could want to have multiple computers with multiple OSes but without the hassle/space of having multiple physical towers.

 

Ah, thanks for the clarification! I can see how that would be useful. Perhaps not so much for me, right now, but it definitely is interesting technology!

 

i don't like performance on virtual machines , my laptop can run windows/mac/Ubuntu why should i use virtual machines , i tried them once but the experience didn't meet my expectations

 

No need to.

 

Running Linux and XP on virutalbox, much more convenient than dual boot which I used to do.

 

+1

I hardly install anything on my computer that I have no idea will work or have any problems (even though all software you install on your computer has a chance to run into problems).

 

For home user use, VMs are kind of a niche environment. I had never really used or considered using VMs until I started working at the office, but now that I do, I can see how useful they are given multiple servers and test environments.

 

Win7+ Ubuntu 10.04+Virtualbox and seamless mode = ftw

 

I have used them on and off, but I am installing Win 7 Ult 32-bit in one now because my school has this printing software where you can print from your dorm to one of the self service printing machines. The only catch is that it doesn't work on 64-bit OS's, so now I have to have 2 copies of Win 7 to use it (not willing to downgrade from 64-bit just to use it).

 

I did, a few years back. Not anymore...

 

I use several including VMware and Virtual PC every day at work.

 

VMWare Workstation @ home for my development environments and VMWare LabManager & vSphere @ work. VMWare is wunderbar!