Instead of making my PC quintuple boot, I'd like to create a few virtual machines running different OS's. Does anyone have any experience creating virtual machines with VMWare Player under XP?

I haven't used VMWare but I have used Microsoft's Virtual Machine. They made it a free download and it works fine on XP pro.

Pretty straight forward. Everything is configured in a Web interface so you don't even need to be at the computer running it.
Then just install the client and you can easily switch between several of them running at the same time.
When ever I have to test something I use it, I have had a windows 2000 domain with 4 servers running, 2 of them clustered then upgraded the cluster to 2003. All of it off the network and running from my PC.
HTH

I've used both, but I have more experience with Virtual PC. It works great for windows systems, I haven't used it as much for linux. It's allowed me to run my copies of 95, 98, 2000 pro and advanced server all fine. The real key is once you have the OS installed, you want to click under the 'action' tab in the menu and select 'install or update virtual machine additions'. This allows drag and drop copying functionality between your host OS and the virtual one, as well as removing the need to hold down alt to move your mouse out of the window.

Both great products, aimed at slightly different users in my opinion. If you have a lot of non-windows OSes, give vmware a try (it's free as well). I've also used qemu whenever I was trying out a lot of linux distros. For windows products, virtual pc is the way to go.

Edit to say: I've used virtual pc 2004 SP1, which is a free download from microsoft

[This message has been edited by kwagner (edited 09-28-2007).]

Thanks all!

quote Originally posted by kwagner: Edit to say: I've used virtual pc 2004 SP1, which is a free download from microsoft

Virtual PC 2007 is out and is supposed to run much better on Core Duo processors, so I'll give that one a try.

(Forgot to mention that I've tried to get Xen running on Linux, but that failed.)

I use VMware Workstation. I love it. The VMware player seems to be a player only. You can't use it to create virtual machines (OS installs), only running them.

http://www.vmware.com/products/player/faqs.html

[This message has been edited by FierociousGT (edited 09-28-2007).]

I use vmware. Best one out of the two. I feel that it is more stable.

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VP will let you mount img files as bootable devices. Thats how I install the os on what ever I want to test.
Linux worked fine that way as well as vista and windows 98

quote Originally posted by Cliff Pennock: Instead of making my PC quintuple boot, I'd like to create a few virtual machines running different OS's. Does anyone have any experience creating virtual machines with VMWare Player under XP?

You would be better off to use vmware server, its also free and much more stable, and 100% functional even in a commercial environment. Its actually the old GSX commercial product rebranded. I use it daily.