Virtual Machine Questions

[MR ZenWiz]

On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 8:10 PM, Lucio M Nicolosi <lmnicolosi at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> If VBox, don't go for the OSE release, it doesn't have USB support.
>
> Get last release at:
> http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads
>
So far it works fine with my USB drives and printers.  I got it from
VB directly and chose "not the OSE" version.

> VMware has a feature that enables you to convert an actual install
> into a virtual machine (no install CD needed).
>
> Check:
> http://www.vmware.com/products/player/
> and
> http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/overview.html
>
Yeah, so I heard.  I tried four times to convert the Windows XP native
install on my Dell into a VM and after about four hours I gave up -
they all got errors.  I tried with the Converter with Ubuntu and also
from the Windows install itself.  I didn't try putting VMW Workstation
on the Windows install and converting that way (more money and time -
no thanks), but I got tired of waiting over an hour for each
conversion to fail, so I just reinstalled WXP on top of VMWare WS
running in Ubuntu.

My only complaint is that the Outlook I run in the Windows VM (VMWare
Workstation) loses its network connection at least once and hour and
then gets it back.  Don't know what that's about, but I don't really
care, either.  I only run the VB VM for a few minutes at a time,
usually, so I don't see that (and I don't use Outlook in it either),
but so far I've never had a network problem with it.

I have been unsuccessful at getting VMWare Server or Player to run on
Ubuntu (Maverick).  Workstation works, but it's not cheap....