You can use the no-charge Microsoft Virtual PC to install and run multiple
OS's on a base machine.
Example: on my Windows XP-64 machine, I have VPCs for WinXP, W2K, W2003,
W2008. This works out really well when I want to create a "PC" for different
client work, or want to install and test software but not alter the
configuration of the base machine.
If you install Windows Server 2008 as your base machine, you can use
Hyper-V, which is a "super charged" version of VPC. With Hyper-V you can
install Linux. I think I tried to do a Linux install into a VPC
configuration, but I don't think it worked.
You may want to consider getting a PC that can accomodate 8GB or more. The
2GB RAM sticks are inexpensive now, if the motherboard supports it, it is
worth getting the memory. When you create a VPC or Hyper-V image, you tell
it how much memory you want it to claim from the base PC. Obviously, the
more memory you have available, the more instances you can fire up at one
time.
People who have not done this usually pooh-pooh the idea of needing that
much memory, or needing to fire up more than 1 OS at once. For what I do, it
has proven to be very useful.
BTW, it helps to get very large disks, which are also cheap. The VPC images
are usually anywhere from 10-20GB once you have the OS installed and some
applications configured.
Craig Pelkie
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thorbjoern Ravn Andersen" <ravn@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: "PC Technical Discussion for iSeries Users" <pctech@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 1:45 AM
Subject: Re: [PCTECH] Windows Vista (puke) and Windows Server 2008
Shannon ODonnell skrev:
Hi,
I need to purchase a new PC and I want to kill two birds with one stone if
I
can.
Consider getting a lot of RAM and then run the one you need the most
rarely in a virtual machine.
midrange.com
