Downloads

It's pretty cool booting up Vista within an XP window, but what good is it? There are three excellent reasons for using a virtual machine: trying out a new OS, trying out new software without putting your regular OS at risk, and--probably the most useful for most people--safe browsing. If you hit a malware site while browsing within a virtual machine, simply reboot it without saving its state and you're good to go again. You main system is completely untouched.

But why on earth would you want to use the free VMware Player, a virtual machine application that lets you use virtual machines, but not create them, when Microsoft's equally free Virtual PC 2007 also lets you make your own? Three words: USB, Linux, and Server. VMware's entire lineup of software supports USB, and Virtual PC 2007 doesn�t. And there are a number of existing Linux and other OS VMs (Appliances in VMware-speak) for VMware that you can download. Virtual PC 2007 doesn't do Linux very well, either; I had no success trying to install the latest Ubuntu in VPC 2007. For that reason alone I keep the VMware Player installed on my system.

As for Server, it's sometimes assumed that because VMware's flagship Workstation product costs money, that VMware Server does as well. But in truth, VMware Server is a free download available after you register for the serial numbers, and you can use it to create VMs for the player. Once you're through creating your VMs, you can uninstall Server and use the smaller VMware Player. Even if you keep Server on one PC, you can use the player on other systems in your house or business.

The VMware Player is very easy to use--you basically just load a VM and go. If you intend to tweak settings, though, you�ll need to understand a bit about hardware. You can install anything you like within the virtual machine. All the virtual machines I downloaded worked fine with the player, but it did blow up loading a file I'd created with the most current Workstation product. But by and large, VMware has been stable for me, if not as rock-solid as Virtual PC 2007. Yet I repeat: USB. Linux. Server.

Note: This link takes you to the vendor's site, where you must register to download the latest version of the software.

--Jon L. Jacobi