| When I was younger and worked on mainframes I | | | | a real computer with it's own IP address, installed |
| was always working with pretty mundane stuff; batch | | | | programs, anything you can thing of.Want to try and |
| processing for the most part with what little online | | | | trash your little virtual machine? By all means do so |
| work being done with smaller computers (Buker-Ramo | | | | with no worries, you are isolated from the host |
| if you must know) with the mainframes running DOS | | | | operating system and won't bother it. In fact you're so |
| VSE. It was hardly the big league and I lusted after the | | | | isolated |
| really exotic stuff like MVS/TSO and the top of the | | | | your virtual machine will need to have all patches, |
| heap; VM or Virtual Machine. VM was a "hypervisor". | | | | anti-virus |
| That is it wasn't really an operating system but an | | | | software, etc. installed just like it was a new |
| environment whereby multiple operating systems could | | | | standalone machine.Other than the obvious benefits to |
| run on a single machine, each with protected access | | | | developers there's also the legacy aspect of all that |
| to the full instruction set and, most importantly, | | | | great (okay, maybe not so great) DOS software that's |
| protected from each other. You could crash and burn | | | | still out there. If you've ever wanted to |
| your private virtual machine and everything else kept | | | | experiment or, if you're a refuge from the old days, |
| on running without a hitch. I can't recall the number of | | | | experience some of the old stuff again without |
| batch jobs I killed because a problem with a program in | | | | trashing your current system Virtual PC is the way to |
| one partition in DOS/VSE caused the whole machine | | | | do it.Performance on a perky AMD 4200+ system |
| to crash.I say "was a hypervisor". Firstly it was an OS | | | | was brisk. Oh, Windows Server 2003 wasn't as fast |
| in it's own right and thus is more than a hypervisor and | | | | as it would have been had it been the only thing |
| secondly it's | | | | running but it was certainly acceptable. Everything else |
| still around to the point that it'll run Linux as a client | | | | was certainly faster than any hardware I'd used it on |
| operating system. But my experience was from afar, I | | | | before, certainly far, far faster than say an 80286 so it |
| left the mainframe world and never got to work with it | | | | seemed |
| full time.But now I have my own little virtual world. A | | | | remarkable quick. I did have one session in Win 2003 |
| while back Microsoft bought Connectix and their virtual | | | | where I dropped a few characters from the keyboard |
| machine technology. Oh, I'd tried it along with VMWare | | | | and from time to time I'd have to tell DOS that there |
| a while back and frankly it didn't do much for me either | | | | was indeed a floppy in the drive two times (a pain |
| because my hardware wasn't up to it, the software | | | | when installing the 8 disk Windows for Workgroups |
| wasn't robust or a combination of both but recently I | | | | update to Win 3.1) but nothing terminal.There are |
| picked up the latest version of Virtual PC from | | | | troublesome questions; will the police break down your |
| Microsoft and wow, how the worm has turned, Virtual | | | | door if you set up a virtual copy of XP Pro using the |
| PC 2004 has come into it's own.What does it do? | | | | same copy of XP Pro that's hosting Virtual PC? Read |
| Firstly it installs in Windows XP Pro or Win 2k Pro just | | | | your EULA but Microsoft has announced that they will |
| like any other program. Once set up you're ready to | | | | allow "virtulizing" Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise |
| create as many virtual machines as you can find.A | | | | and the Datacenter edition of "Longhorn". Sadly they |
| wizard is available to walk you through the set up but | | | | haven't made any changes to the desktop software |
| it's hardly needed. You set up the amount of RAM and | | | | license.But there's still plenty of stuff to plink away at |
| hard drive space you want to allocate to the "guest" | | | | and you can try Virtual PC for 45 days for free. List |
| operating system and start preparing the virtual | | | | price from Mr. Softie is $129. I've seen it discounted at |
| machine like you would a regular computer. This might | | | | several places and, as |
| mean partitioning the hard drive, formatting it | | | | always, be sure to check around for the best price. |
| and then installing the operating system.What | | | | Meanwhile if you want to check it out you can |
| operating system? Doesn't seem to matter. It took | | | | download the trial version off the Microsoft info page |
| more time to track down old floppies than it did for me | | | | here.And my biggest problem? Finding a 5.25" diskette |
| to install Windows 2003 server, FreeDOS, BSD and | | | | drive for all that old software.Don Watkins, Copyright, |
| DOS 7.0.Fire up Virtual PC and a console comes up | | | | 2006. May be reprinted in compliance with terms.About |
| that allows you to select an existing guest operating | | | | Don Watkins - Don has been in involved in computers |
| system or install a new one.So what's the benefit? | | | | since the 60's starting PCNet on CompuServe in 1983. |
| Well it's pretty cool to be able to | | | | In 1994, Don was awarded the John Dvorak Lifetime |
| isolate various operating systems so you can do just | | | | Achievement Award. He was awarded the SIA |
| about anything yet not have your main machine crash | | | | Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003. |
| and burn. You can set up a virtual machine just like it's | | | | |