Why Sun's Virutalbox Software Is Really Cool

[twocows]

Sun VirtualBox is software that allows you to, basically, run another OS inside of your existing OS. So, let's say you're running Windows XP (a lot of people are). VirtualBox will let you run, say, Fedora Linux inside of a window. It integrates very well, and it makes testing cross-platform interoperability easy as cake.

Another potential application is to try out a new version of an OS. I'm running Vista as my primary OS right now (even though I hate it), but the Windows 7 beta came out about 2 months ago, and I got in before it closed. So, I used VirtualBox to set up a virtual Windows 7 installation inside of my Vista installation. I didn't think it would work, since the OS is newer than what I'm running, but it works quite well. I figure the same applies to any OS; you could play-test Vista on an XP machine, provided you had the hardware to do so.

I actually used VirtualBox for a presentation last week; I gave a speech on how to set up a new computer, and I simply uninstalled most of the stuff from my XP installation before I gave it to give an example of what a new computer would look like. I didn't think it'd have that kind of application initially, but you never know.

Finally, it's really, really cool. I had Windows 98 running inside Windows XP running inside Vista the other day. I didn't bother taking a screenshot, but dang. It was just so cool, even if it was kind of pointless.

[Matrim]

interesting. thats cool.I was wondering how people did that. finally i can run both at the same time instead of restarting me computer. Woo!


Edit:

Hmm... seems like i'm having trouble starting wind xp in vista.  

This post has been edited by jdmj90 on Mar 18 2009, 09:33 PM

[twocows]

What sort of problem are you having? I might be able to help; after all, I am going into IT, so this sort of thing will be my job in a few years (provided everything goes well until then).

[Matrim]

its keeps telling me that no bootable medium is found.  for any os i've tried. i could try some more.

[twocows]

its keeps telling me that no bootable medium is found.  for any os i've tried. i could try some more.

It should bring up a first boot thing when you first boot into an OS. You either need to mount the OS's installation disc or have it in your disc drive so you can install.