BIOS: Technology Means Business

VMware Workstation is a fantastic software application that will prove a godsend for those who need or want to run more than one operating system on a single computer. It installs and runs effortlessly, and makes light work of switching between both the host operating system and multiple guest operating systems. The well established software comes with some high-end features too, such as virtual networking, support for live snapshots (restore your computer to an earlier saved point), as well as the ability to drag-and-drop files between operating systems. VMware Workstation 4.5.2 is a powerful and indispensable tool for IT developers, system administrators, and even those who'd like to sample a world beyond Microsoft. It's a tad expensive if you just want to test a free operating system though, such as Linux or FreeBSD.

Pros: Easy to use; powerful; flexible; supports many operating systems
Cons: Tad pricey; doesn't support DirectX API

VMware Workstation is one of the most established and most powerful virtual machines for testing and deploying multiple operating systems (OS) on a single computer. Available in various versions, we've taken a look at the latest Windows version that allows you to run Linux, NetWare, or any major operating systems on a single, Windows-based desktop.

The major business advantage of this is that it allows developers to streamline software development and testing operations, accelerate application deployments, and ensure application compatibility and perform operating system migrations. VMware Workstation also be used to save time and effort when your organisation needs to test service packs by allowing you to apply the patches, but not having to commit changes until you're sure everything works. For non-developers, VMworkstion is a neat solution that allows you to play around with Linux or other OS without having to format a Windows-based hard disk.

If the thought of running multiple operating systems on your computer sounds problematic or a tad technical, fear not. VMware Workstation works by enabling multiple operating systems and their applications to run concurrently on a single physical machine as it does not overwrite one with the other. It does this by isolating operating systems and applications in secure virtual machines that co-exist on a single hard disk. And installing a new operating system is just like installing a regular Windows program.

If you're an experienced VMworkstation user, the updated software offers a number of enhancements. In particular, it has broader support of devices, better performance and more powerful functionality. Integration between host and guest operating systems has been improved, you can create 32-bit guest operating systems on a 64-bit host computer that uses an AMD 64 Opteron, Athlon 64 or Intel IA-32e CPU, and you can now create individual virtual machines with up to 3.6GB of memory and use up to 4GB of memory for all running virtual machines.

There's now support for a pre-boot execution environment (PXE) to boot and install operating systems into new virtual machines over an enterprise network, you can track a virtual machine's performance through the Windows' performance monitor counters, and USB devices connected to the host are available to virtual machines. You can install and run beta versions of the next version of Windows, code-named Longhorn, support for guests using Linux kernels in the 2.6 series have been improved, and you can now install and run Solaris x86 Platform Edition 9 (experimental) and 10 beta (experimental). Finally, similar to Windows, VMware Workstation automatically checks for available product updates.

If you're new to VMware Workstation, you'll be pleased to know that you can share folders, drag-and-drop files, and copy and paste between guest and host. You can take a 'snapshot' (a point-in-time copy of the running virtual machine state) and save it, and then revert back to it at any time to make repetitive testing and configuration of systems a little easier. Virtual networking is supported with NAT devices, DHCP server, and multiple network switches, and native program debugging in a virtual machine is included with support for both user- and kernel-level debuggers.

We installed the software on an Intel Pentium 4-based computer running Windows XP Professional. Other host operating systems supported include Windows NT 4.0/2000/XP and Windows Server 2003. We then installed Novell's SuSE Linux Desktop 9.0 as a guest operating system. Other supported guest operating systems include Windows Server 2003, Windows Longhorn beta (experimental), XP/2000/NT 4.0/ME/98/95/3.1, MS-DOS 6, popular Linux distributions including Red Hat, SuSE, and Mandrake, FreeBSD, Novell NetWare 6.0 and 5.x, as well as Solaris x86 Platform Edition 9 (experimental) and 10 beta (experimental).

The software's virtualisation layer maps the physical hardware resources to the virtual machine's resources, so each virtual machine (operating system) has its own CPU, memory, disks, I/O devices, and the like, including configurable memory size, disk support with configurable size, CD and floppy support with physical device or virtual image file support, as well as USB device support. On the downside, these virtual machines are the full equivalent of a standard x86 machine, so you're likely to experience a performance hit.

Once the software is configured and a guest operating system is installed, you then simply switch between the two by clicking on the software's tabbed interface. You can start a new virtual machine, open an existing virtual machine, or close a virtual machine from the software's menu instead of using physical buttons to turn a computer on or off. When a virtual machine is active, such as SuSE Linux on our test system, its virtual name is displayed in a tab at the top of the virtual machine window. Switching from one active virtual machine to the other is simply a case of clicking the respective tab/machine you want to operate - just like a soft KVM switch.

From the software's tabbed interface we could then switch between Windows XP and SuSE Linux's KDE desktop in a matter of seconds, allowing us to flip between Windows and Linux applications. One thing you should bear in mind, however, is that you will need approximately the same amount of hard disk space to install a guest operating system as you would if you installed it on a separate PC. You should therefore carefully determine whether you have enough space to install both a second operating system and its associated applications.

Also, don't expect to run the latest 3D DirectX games inside a guest operating system as there's no support for Microsoft's gaming API. This is a real shame because Linux users can't run Windows games inside a virtual machine on their Linux desktops. Nevertheless, VMware Workstation is still the best - albeit pricey - software overall for running multiple operating systems on a single computer.