By Lincoln Spector
There are many excellent reasons to run virtual PCs within your real system, and it’s relatively easy to do.
While Microsoft has its version of a virtual PC system, there are third-party products that offer more flexibility.
Building disposable systems with VM software
Why run a virtual PC inside your physical PC? Maybe you want to test a new application in a controlled environment — where potential software crashes and aggressive program installations won’t trash your workaday installation of Windows. Perhaps you want Windows and Linux on the same computer, and you want to switch from one to the other without rebooting. Or possibly you just want to run older, 16-bit software that isn’t compatible with your 64-bit system.
You can do all these things with virtual machine (VM) software, which creates a completely simulated PC-hardware/software environment inside the Windows-based box sitting on your desk. (In a VM world, the true hardware/OS system is called the host; the simulated system is the guest.)
Running virtual machines in your PC doesn’t require any special hardware. Most CPUs in today’s personal computers have virtualization technology built in. And though this technology helps to run a VM, it’s certainly not a necessity. Without CPU support, VM programs might run slower and have some limitations, such as the inability to support 64-bit code in a virtual environment.
A quick Internet search will tell you whether your chip supports virtualization. Just search for your chip’s name and model number (such as Intel Core i5-2520M) along with the words virtualization technology. You’ll almost always get the answer you need.
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