[Evildave]

Not only do I use virtual machines, I use a LOT of them.

Mostly, all kinds of test cases, since the ONLY browser I ever have problems with is Internet Explorer, I end up running different versions of windoze with different versions of Internet Exploder, so I can test and fix whatever 'problem' appears unique to Microsuck's own abomination, that is locked to certain versions of windoze, because it 'patches' windoze its self, potentially breaking all kinds of things. Yeah, Microsoft, it's 'their fault' for not sticking to the shoddy API examples perfectly. But that doesn't matter to you, because YOUR computer is borked.

Fortunately, IE is sinking fast. When it becomes one with the herd, it will drop dead, PDQ. The only use for IE is downloading a better browser that doesn't bork your OS and applications. Every web site should pop something up when IE connects, letting the users know there are BETTER browsers that DO NOT mess up their computers. They make a new release, it reverses a point or two for a month, then it carries down dropping 1% (10,000,000 users) a month.
http://marketshare.h...re.aspx?qprid=1

VMs are also AWESOME for freezing development environments. What C++ compiler did you compile that with? What software did you use to edit the textures? What software did you use to (etc.)? What service pack of what version of windoze is still capable of running all of that without issues? Install it all into a VM, disable every kind of 'automatic update', and from then on, you can just launch into that VM when a bug happens, or a change needs to be made. Or give someone a copy of that VM (assuming all the licensing is 'correct') to do their work without screwing around with the 'prerequisites', or having the machine 'update' something into a borked state that either needs an obscure patch, or has no work-around.

I mean, yeah, just because Shista or 7 sez, "I don't want to support that anymore", doesn't mean you can't install it into an XP vm and not even boot windoze. I went to native Linux with Windoze in a VM when I got my Shista-Equipped Dell. Most of the horrible hardware issues went away at the same time. Windows ran 'good enough' in the VM, so that's where the last 1% of software that I didn't have an open source equivalent to lived.

VMs are easy to back up, and (relatively) easy to move to another machine. The only brand loyalty you need is Intel vs AMD vs etc. If your new machine is the wrong CPU, there are usually issues booting the VM. So when I switched to Mac, my VMs came with me. I eventually switched to Parallels. It does a pretty good job of making windoze apps behave on the Mac.

[Evildave]

waldojim, on 10 February 2011 - 06:57 PM, said:

I am not talking about viruses - though that is an important note. I am talking about control over applications. Lets say I don't WANT Nero calling home every time I start it. How can I stop that for free? I can't. In order to do that, I have to buy a proper firewall. Lets say I want to change an image in explorer, how can I change it? Buy a resource editor that will let me open the executable and modify the image it contains. How about if I want to install a custom written driver to support hardware that neither Windows, nor the manufacturer decided to support? I have to REMOVE all of the Windows Anti-Piracy countermeasures, and effectively flag my copy as pirated. These are all freedoms I used to enjoy in Dos. Change an image? Over-write the jpg/bmp that the file resources for it. Write my own driver? Add it to the config.sys, reboot and go!

You can use a virtual machine to keep software from calling home. Run them in a VM, and Just don't connect the VM to the 'network'. You can disable/unplug the virtual network device. You can do that with VirtualBox. That's 'free'. So problem soved.

The reason 'DOS' was 'secure and convenient' like that (not really) was that it was a single-task environment. Having an 'always live' internet connection be common antedates DOS by years.

Another free solution is to switch to open source. You don't want Nero calling home? Use open source software. There are FREE equivalents to pretty much everything. Run Linux (in a VM, if you like). It'll reach out and burn CDs/DVDs/etc. from one of the dozens of CD/DVD writing packages. And many of them are scriptable from the shell, so if you have a build step that burns a CD, that can be fully automated, so you don't have to sit there and WAIT TO CLICK 30 times, as is common in windoze apps.

[waldojim]

Evildave, on 11 February 2011 - 06:57 PM, said:

You can use a virtual machine to keep software from calling home. Run them in a VM, and Just don't connect the VM to the 'network'. You can disable/unplug the virtual network device. You can do that with VirtualBox. That's 'free'. So problem soved.

The reason 'DOS' was 'secure and convenient' like that (not really) was that it was a single-task environment. Having an 'always live' internet connection be common antedates DOS by years.

Another free solution is to switch to open source. You don't want Nero calling home? Use open source software. There are FREE equivalents to pretty much everything. Run Linux (in a VM, if you like). It'll reach out and burn CDs/DVDs/etc. from one of the dozens of CD/DVD writing packages. And many of them are scriptable from the shell, so if you have a build step that burns a CD, that can be fully automated, so you don't have to sit there and WAIT TO CLICK 30 times, as is common in windoze apps.

Remember, you are talking to a Linux user, and supporter of FOSS. Virtual Box showed more problems with Dos than ANY other VM I used. I also don't think using a VM to burn a CD/DVD is an appropriate answer - especially since I need a second license for Windows - which is NOT free. So no, the problem is NOT solved that way. I should not need TWO licenses of Windows for ONE pc.

DOS in its own right is single task, yes. But there were MANY different UI's that came along to MAKE DOS multitask. Which it did quite well.

As for replacing Nero, I bought Nero for a reason. It works. I tried GPL software, and never did I find the type of power, reliability, and compatibility that I get with Nero. I don't need automatic burning. I need burning applications that work consistently across a variety of data types. I have a LOT of unusually formatted images that make GPL'd burning apps cry.

However, you missed the point. The point remains that I have control over everything in Dos. Even in Linux, I don't have that type of control. It is close! Very close, but Dos still wins.

[LiveBrianD]

Evildave, I agree about IE being slow. Maybe it's because I'm used to Chrome, but it never seems too responsive. Even firefox is better (at times). Did you know you can change a registry key to change the title bar from "Windows Internet Explorer"? I made mine say "Windows Internet Exploder (KABOOM!!!!!!!!)".

[AgentF]

LiveBrianD, on 11 February 2011 - 07:37 PM, said:

Did you know you can change a registry key to change the title bar from "Windows Internet Explorer"? I made mine say "Windows Internet Exploder (KABOOM!!!!!!!!)".

You can do that via the Group Policy editor in XP Pro. User Configuration > Windows Settings > Internet Explorer Maintenance > Browser User Interface > Browser Title

I'm pretty satisfied with VirtualBox. It suits my needs of running Windows XP for general use. I don't like how "Windows XP Mode" in Windows 7 is so limited. I understand it's intended for businesses to run legacy applications, but I'm better off installing a real copy of XP Pro in Virtualbox.

[LiveBrianD]

AgentF, on 12 February 2011 - 11:57 AM, said:

LiveBrianD, on 11 February 2011 - 07:37 PM, said:

Did you know you can change a registry key to change the title bar from "Windows Internet Explorer"? I made mine say "Windows Internet Exploder (KABOOM!!!!!!!!)".

You can do that via the Group Policy editor in XP Pro. User Configuration > Windows Settings > Internet Explorer Maintenance > Browser User Interface > Browser Title

I'm pretty satisfied with VirtualBox. It suits my needs of running Windows XP for general use. I don't like how "Windows XP Mode" in Windows 7 is so limited. I understand it's intended for businesses to run legacy applications, but I'm better off installing a real copy of XP Pro in Virtualbox.

I have the home version of Windows though, and that doesn't have group policy editor. Virtualbox isn't bad, but it's terrible with Windows 9x. It's fine with NT4, 2000, XP, Vista and 7 though.

[waldojim]

LiveBrianD, on 12 February 2011 - 01:17 PM, said:

I have the home version of Windows though, and that doesn't have group policy editor. Virtualbox isn't bad, but it's terrible with Windows 9x. It's fine with NT4, 2000, XP, Vista and 7 though.

I wonder if the 9x problems are related to the issues I was having with Dos. Namely with the management of the upper memory.

[LiveBrianD]

waldojim, on 12 February 2011 - 01:46 PM, said:

LiveBrianD, on 12 February 2011 - 01:17 PM, said:

I have the home version of Windows though, and that doesn't have group policy editor. Virtualbox isn't bad, but it's terrible with Windows 9x. It's fine with NT4, 2000, XP, Vista and 7 though.

I wonder if the 9x problems are related to the issues I was having with Dos. Namely with the management of the upper memory.

I've never tried that, so I can't be sure.

[techie4fun]

AgentF, on 12 February 2011 - 11:57 AM, said:

LiveBrianD, on 11 February 2011 - 07:37 PM, said:

Did you know you can change a registry key to change the title bar from "Windows Internet Explorer"? I made mine say "Windows Internet Exploder (KABOOM!!!!!!!!)".

You can do that via the Group Policy editor in XP Pro. User Configuration > Windows Settings > Internet Explorer Maintenance > Browser User Interface > Browser Title

I'm pretty satisfied with VirtualBox. It suits my needs of running Windows XP for general use. I don't like how "Windows XP Mode" in Windows 7 is so limited. I understand it's intended for businesses to run legacy applications, but I'm better off installing a real copy of XP Pro in Virtualbox.

I'm glad someone "likes," and particularly uses VirtualBox. I was using it last week to see how different the experience would be having been used to all the features in VMWarePlayer, and I literally took VirtualBox off in seconds and went back to VMWarePlayer after discovering V.Box would take 30 minutes for the programs "built in- backup" feature to copy my VM from one place to another. Sure, I could have copied and pasted the file manually without using the software's option, but I DIDN'T.

[AgentF]

I used VMWare for a networking course I took a few years ago. Can't remember the version, but I'm sure it wasn't a free one. For many years, I was using Virtual PC 2004/2007 but ran into problems and wanted to look for other options. I came across VirtualBox (someone mentioned it here, I think), found it to be very satisfying, and haven't checked out VMWare Player. The recently released VirtualBox 4 gets a thumbs up from me.

[LiveBrianD]

techie4fun, on 12 February 2011 - 08:27 PM, said:

AgentF, on 12 February 2011 - 11:57 AM, said:

LiveBrianD, on 11 February 2011 - 07:37 PM, said:

Did you know you can change a registry key to change the title bar from "Windows Internet Explorer"? I made mine say "Windows Internet Exploder (KABOOM!!!!!!!!)".

You can do that via the Group Policy editor in XP Pro. User Configuration > Windows Settings > Internet Explorer Maintenance > Browser User Interface > Browser Title

I'm pretty satisfied with VirtualBox. It suits my needs of running Windows XP for general use. I don't like how "Windows XP Mode" in Windows 7 is so limited. I understand it's intended for businesses to run legacy applications, but I'm better off installing a real copy of XP Pro in Virtualbox.

I'm glad someone "likes," and particularly uses VirtualBox. I was using it last week to see how different the experience would be having been used to all the features in VMWarePlayer, and I literally took VirtualBox off in seconds and went back to VMWarePlayer after discovering V.Box would take 30 minutes for the programs "built in- backup" feature to copy my VM from one place to another. Sure, I could have copied and pasted the file manually without using the software's option, but I DIDN'T.

I love how in vmware you can clone something quite easily. With virtualbox, because there's a unique identifier for each file, and those are in it's XML config file, you simply can't copy and paste it. I've tried; it simply doesn't let you no matter how hard you try. On the other hand, Virtual PC isn't bad - you just copy and paste the folder, then go launch it from the copy to add that to the library. I haven't used vpc for a while though.

[Evildave]

Maybe I'm better at editing XML or something. I've had no issues with copying VirtualBox virtual machine drives, creating a new virtual machine on top of them, then copying the settings over from the 'old' one. Being straight XML, and being a tech geek, I've always been able to move them around.

As long as the CPU was the same brand (Intel->Intel, or AMD->AMD), it seems to just work. Make sure the machine is emulating the same kind of IDE (newer versions tend to default to 'newer' IDE/ATA types), copy the network ID and a few of the UUIDs into the right spots in the XML file, and it boots right up. The same VMs are on four different machines that I have now, were on two machines that I USED TO have. No problem.

I used VMware, once upon a time. It was never any less buggy, at least for the problems that I had with it. When VirtualBox was free and just in Linux, I switched. I saw absolutely no reason to keep updating in hopes of getting things fixed that never, ever were.

VirtualBox is actually better supported by the community. VMWare won't even accept BUG REPORTS from you, once your support runs out. So, I find VMWare to be shockingly bad for paid software.

Under OSX, Parallels is absolutely wonderful. They really put the extra bit of effort making it work well. Shared drives are pretty much as fast as 'real' drives, for instance, rather than being SLOWER than networked drives, ala VMWare or even VirtualBox. It's worth every penny, if you have a Mac. And it runs windoze games quite well, so there's no reason at all for 'Boot Camp'.

On my VirtualBox based VMs (and former VMWare VMs), I have to put a 'work' folder on the virtual drive and separately sync with version control to do things. With Parallels, things like Adobe Flash 'FLA' files just work on the 'shared' folder. With VMWare or VirtualBox machines, a FLA file opened on a shared volume was basically DEATH, as soon as you started trying to do any work with it.