VMware appliances

Jim Brain wrote: I forget who recommended it here, but that Symantec Application virtualization would be perfect for that type thing. (but isn't supported under 64-bit OS's) http://www.symantec.com/business/endpoint-virtualization-suite It is trialware, but think it's unlimited, so basically free. I also use VMware (workstation), because my Xilinx FPGA ISE software suite isn't supported on Vista 64-bit. This may have recently changed, but I have an XP 32-bit VM installed, and then run it inside that. It's also nice to have things separately installed --- it doesn't affect anything and nothing affects it. There can be minor USB driver issues, especially if the host does not have a device driver for a particular piece of hardware. This changed at one point, but lack of a driver on the host didn't necessarily preclude using it successfully under the VM itself. I tried virtualbox, but had compatibility problems with it and other linux OS's, and had an XP installation blue-screen. Virtualbox has some nice features like side by side host and VM applications on the same desktop. But overall, the lack of compatibility made me uninstall it. VMware has been stable, reliable, and has nice features for smart and automatic installation of certain types of windows VMs. So it makes installing Windows VMs really quick and easy --- bypassing most of the normal setup screens. Keith