Virtual machines in general

Tasmania Green · Friday at 4:55 AM

I haven't worked with virtual machines in so long I hardly remember them. Why would you need to use a virtual machine? What's the difference between the major software packages? What makes one virtual machine better another? What advise someone before they install a virtual machine?

antspants · Friday at 5:27 AM

Running multiple operating systems. You can run different OSes (like Linux on Windows or macOS on Windows) on the same physical machine without rebooting.
VMs allow for safe testing environments where developers or users can test software, scripts, or system updates without risking the host system. VMs isolate environments, meaning problems (e.g., malware or crashes) inside a VM won’t affect the host machine.
Old applications that only work on outdated operating systems can be run in a VM without needing to keep old hardware around.

And this is one for you considering your interest in Azure; Many cloud platforms (like AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) rely heavily on VMs to provide scalable and isolated computing resources to users. Above my head: —

At the core of most cloud services are virtual machines:
Cloud platforms (e.g., Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform) run huge data centers full of powerful physical servers. These servers are partitioned into multiple virtual machines, which can be rented by users.

Each VM behaves like a real computer with its own OS, CPU, RAM, storage and network.
Users can spin up a VM in seconds, run apps, host websites, or process data.

I have actually never setup a VM. I’ve never thought I had a need to. Having said that, if I tried it I may never look back. I am guessing it would be great for testing scripts/scripting that I am unsuccessfully attempting to learn.

Kees · Friday at 5:31 AM

I only can tell you for what purposes I use my (Oracle) VirtualBox virtual machine.
In general one can install (almost any kind of) operating systems on it, save the different installation and modification states in so called Snapshots. If you wish so you can delete one or more snapshots very easily or just close the state it was in at that particular moment. When you restart the last snapshot, all that you did before will be undone.
- I have used it many times to test Linux operating systems of all kinds to know what they could do. That phase has been ended long time ago, because from the experience with Linux I decided to stay at windwos OS.
- I use it to test other versions of the Windows OS.
- And most of all: I test unknown (freeware) apps on it, so that I don't need to fear that my main system will be coorupted or at least, the registry will be filled with unneccessarythings from apps I removed in the meantime.
- One special purpose may be worthwhile: since 24H2 my old Epson scanner does not function anymore. It does not communicate. I found a solution by installing a virtual machine with Win11 23H2, on which the scanner does indeed function correctly. As I don't scan very often that is enough to be able to use that scanner again.

I can't tell you about other virtual machines, because I only have experience with VirtualBox.

Tasmania Green · Friday at 6:11 AM

Hmm. I could put Mac OS on it. And it would be interesting to try Linux. That’s some good information. I appreciate the perspectives too. Thanks mates.

antspants · Friday at 6:22 AM

Enable or Disable Hyper-V in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable the Hyper-V feature for all users in Windows 10 and Windows 11. Hyper-V enables running virtualized computer systems on top of a physical host. These virtualized systems can be used and managed just as if they were physical computer systems...

www.elevenforum.com

Enable or Disable Hyper-V for Standard Users in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable full access to Hyper-V for standard user accounts in Windows 10 and Windows 11. Hyper-V enables running virtualized computer systems on top of a physical host. These virtualized systems can be used and managed just as if they were physical...

www.elevenforum.com

Don’t ask me where to start. As I mentioned, never done it.

tecknot · Friday at 6:33 AM

Hello everyone,

Not being familiar with VMs myself, can you run the VM while having Windows running at the same time?

Thanks in advance.

Kind regards,

tecknot

antspants · Friday at 6:46 AM

My understanding is that when you run a VM on Windows using virtualization software (like VirtualBox, VMware Workstation, or Hyper-V), it’s just like running any other program. The VM window contains the other operating system, which runs simultaneously alongside Windows.
Your physical computer (called the host) continues to run Windows.
The VM (called the guest) runs inside a window or full screen, depending on how you configure it.

You can switch between the host and guest OS just like you would switch between apps.

tecknot · Friday at 6:53 AM

Thanks, Sinto.

Oh, so it isn't an OS you can access at boot? That's cool.

Kind regards,

tecknot

antspants · Friday at 7:05 AM

tecknot said:
Oh, so it isn't an OS you can access at boot?

It's not a duel boot setup. I believe you must be booted to Windows 11 and then access the VM like you would an app.

Many members here run VM's, it's just a quiet time on the forum. I predict replies when traffic increases.

suatcini54 · Friday at 7:43 AM

tecknot said:
Thanks, Sinto.

Oh, so it isn't an OS you can access at boot? That's cool.

Kind regards,

tecknot

You have to boot to host OS first and then you can start VM manager and then start Guest OS (the VM).

In VM manager settings, you have the option to start the guest OS (VM) at the same time as the host OS.

Below is my Hyper-V VM running in full screen mose. There is a short bar on the top. There you have the minimize to Taskbar, close buttons like in a program. When you want to full access to your host OS, you use Minimize button.

I have 16 GB RAM.

VM is assigned 6 GB RAM.

MY CPU has 4 cores/8 threads

VM is assigned 2 cores/4 threads

VM is stored on a separate drive other than the Windows drive.

Host OS has Windows 11 25H2. VM has Windows 11 24H2. You Can have any combination.

Hope you find the info useful.

EDIT: If you use Microsoft account and a PIN to log into VM, you cannot have advanced option VM like use of USB drives or sound. But if you use password, you can have advanced options. This may have changed recently. I don't know. I set up my VM when I was running Windows 10. Now I moved my VM to Windows 11. If you set up your VM in Windows 11, things may be different. As I said, I don't know.

tecknot · Friday at 7:49 AM

suatcini54 said:
You have to boot to host OS first and then you can start VM manager and then start Guest OS (the VM).

In VM manager settings, you have the option to start the guest OS (VM) at the same time as the host OS.

Below is my Hyper-V VM running in full screen mose. There is a short bar on the top. There you have the minimize to Taskbar, close buttons like in a program. When you want to full access to your host OS, you use Minimize button.
...

Hope you find the info useful.

Thanks, suatcini54. I appreciate it.

Kind regards,

tecknot

Tester · Friday at 8:53 AM

MacOs you might find very hard to install or stay stable in virtual machines. So that might not be the right usecase for a virtual machines.

However you can just run, and boot what ever os you made in the past and use it.

Never mind the red crosses. That happens when i move vm local to nas or network share is unavailable at the time. However i still have all virtual machines.

cereberus · Friday at 9:00 AM

tecknot said:
Thanks, Sinto.

Oh, so it isn't an OS you can access at boot? That's cool.

Kind regards,

tecknot

You can install a second OS in a Virtual Hard Drive and create a boot entry for it.

This is not the same as running a virtual MACHINE.

jimbo45 · Friday at 9:14 AM

cereberus said:
You can install a second OS in a Virtual Hard Drive and create a boot entry for it.

This is not the same as running a virtual MACHINE.

But you CAN also have a VM which has itself a number of vhdx "physical" files -so you can have the VM OS itself bring up a choice of a number of OS'es to boot just like on a physical system and choose which Windows "VM" to boot -- simply install via dism /Apply-Image in the VM's boot -- boot the "install" device from WITHIN the VM and select "repair system" to get into command mode.

Note if you have VM's set up this way then you will only be able to have 1 VM running concurrently with your HOST OS.

cheers
jimbo

Tester · Friday at 9:28 AM

Multi boot in a virtual machine would be a good test case, to see how that works instead of doing it on your main machine. Otherwise i would just make a new virtual machine with new files, and don't make your vm's to complex. It will also make your vm files smaller incase you want to transfer them to you laptop with limited space.

pseymour · Friday at 10:06 AM

Tasmania Green said:
Why would you need to use a virtual machine?

A couple of things I use them for that haven't been mentioned: 1) Sometimes I write apps that may be CPU intensive or network intensive, for example. A VM is a good way for me to "turn the hardware down," so I can see how those apps would perform on a lower-powered machine. More developers should do that, in my opinion. 2) Sometimes when someone posts a question here, I know it's going to be better to find the answer on a nice clean installation of Windows, rather than my customized installation. Or, I know what I'm about to tell them might be tricky and could go wrong, so I'll try it in VM first, to get the instructions without trashing my machine. If I screw up the VM in the process, no problem; just roll back to a snapshot.

Tasmania Green said:
What's the difference between the major software packages? What makes one virtual machine better another?

One thing to consider, among Hyper-V, VMware Workstation, and VirtualBox, is that only Hyper-V is a type 1 hypervisor in that list. The other two run on top of the existing operating system (type 2), and just by their nature aren't going to be as performant as a type 1 hypervisor. They all have their little idiosyncrasies though, so choosing one can be a matter of trying them to see what suits you.

cereberus · Friday at 10:24 AM

pseymour said:
One thing to consider, among Hyper-V, VMware Workstation, and VirtualBox, is that only Hyper-V is a type 1 hypervisor in that list. The other two run on top of the existing operating system (type 2), and just by their nature aren't going to be as performant as a type 1 hypervisor. They all have their little idiosyncrasies though, so choosing one can be a matter of trying them to see what suits you.

This is correct.

In simple terms if the guest is a Windows edition (not Home though), Hyper-V is the best tool by and large for performance.

If you are using a Linux guest that supports rdp (xrdp), Linux works well with Hyper-V.

Although Hyper-V is a bit limited perhaps mainly to Windows guests, it is important to note Hyper-V is really aimed at the corporate (Azure etc.) market and its roots are from Windows server editions.

MS imported Hyper-V to the non-server editions of Windows (except Home) noting that the version most of us use is actually slightly more limited than the server editions. It was never intended to be an all singing / all dancing vm system.

I do not think there is much difference between Vmware and Vbox in terms of performance based on my tests but they are more general purpose than Hyper-V when using non Windows OSs.

Many here use Hyper-V for Insider versions of Windows as it is well suited to that.

As you say, "They all have their little idiosyncrasies though, so choosing one can be a matter of trying them to see what suits you."

tecknot · Friday at 10:36 AM

cereberus said:
You can install a second OS in a Virtual Hard Drive and create a boot entry for it.

This is not the same as running a virtual MACHINE.

Ah, okay. Thanks, cereberus.

Kind regards,

tecknot

MisterEd · Friday at 12:16 PM

I have the following free VM Managers:

Hyper-V Manager
Oracle VirtualBox Manager
VMware Workstation Pro
DOSBox

I can run more than one VM at a time from different VM managers. My biggest limit is the number of CPU cores and the amount of RAM my laptop has.

LeLibran · Friday at 12:30 PM

Tasmania Green said:
Hmm. I could put Mac OS on it. And it would be interesting to try Linux. That’s some good information. I appreciate the perspectives too. Thanks mates.

You can't (legitimately) run macOS on anything other than genuine Apple hardware. That would be a breach of Apple's Terms and Conditions of use.

Virtual machines in general

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