What is a virtual machine. The best virtual machines for Windows: install if you really want to look at other operating systems

The rapid development of virtualization technologies has had a significant impact not only on the development of the IT infrastructure of large enterprises. Desktop power personal computers have reached the point where one physical machine can support several simultaneously running operating systems in virtual machines... Until a few years ago, virtual machines were something exotic for end users who installed them, mostly for informational purposes. Now multi-core processors and large volumes random access memory on a home or office computer is not uncommon, and this allows you to come up with new options for their use in the context of virtualization technologies.

A multitude of users find a variety of uses for desktop virtualization platforms, both at home and at work. After all, a virtual machine, in comparison with a physical one, has significantly more flexibility in terms of portability to another physical platform. In addition, over the past couple of years, the quality of desktop platforms virtualization in terms of functionality, ease of use and performance. More recently, support for hardware virtualization in desktop systems says leading processor manufacturers such as Intel and AMD have faith in the future of virtualization technologies on personal computers.

Of course, operating systems as bulky and demanding on hardware resources as Windows Vista can absorb the power of user desktops, no matter how high they are, but progress does not stand still, and further development of desktop hardware platforms will soon make it possible to support several such systems at the same time. satisfying the performance requirements. However, many users believe that using virtualization technologies at home is unnecessary and consider virtualization as another specific technology that will not have much of an impact on them. For the most part, this is due to the fact that they do not see worthy ways to use virtual machines.

In the business realm, virtualization technologies are deployed primarily to support the virtual infrastructure of the company's servers and have very little impact on end users. In this article, we will show that almost any personal computer user can use virtualization technologies to improve the efficiency of their work with a personal computer at home, as well as for daily tasks at work.

How to use virtual machines at home

Most personal computer users are often faced with the problem of using potentially dangerous or unstable applications that can either damage the operating system or affect the operation of other programs. Often, a home computer, on which work documents are also located, is used by several people, among whom not everyone understands how to properly handle it so as not to damage important data or the operating system. Creating accounts of the "User" type does not solve this problem, because many applications require administrative rights to install, and working at the computer in this mode significantly limits its use. Of course, many also face the problem of porting the operating system and installed applications to another computer when you buy it. The category of users who actively use laptops is faced with the problem of data synchronization between them and a stationary computer. After all, you need not only file synchronization, but you also need to use the same applications at work and at home. For many people, it is also important to be able to learn how to work with various operating systems, which in this case does not require high performance. In this case, for example, working in Linux, the user needs to access Windows applications, and for this he has to restart the computer. And the main problem in training is the impossibility of simulating a real network between several computers with one available. All these and many other problems can be solved by using virtual machines in desktop virtualization systems.

The main home use options for virtual machines are as follows:

• Creation of a personal virtual environment, isolated from the host system, which allows you to use multiple copies of working environments on one computer, completely isolated from each other. Unfortunately, this model excludes the option of using virtual environments for 3D games, since manufacturers of virtualization platforms have not yet learned to fully support emulation of all functions of video adapters. Ahead of everyone on this moment in this regard, VMware, which has included experimental Direct-3D and shader support in recent versions of its VMware Workstation desktop platform. However, not so long ago, PCI-SIG, the developer of the PCI Express standard, published new specifications for the PCI Express 2.0 standard, which claims to support I / O virtualization functions, which greatly simplify guest systems' access to physical hardware. Undoubtedly, the time is not far off when we will be playing games in virtual machines.
• Build portable virtual machines ready to use on any other architecture-compatible platform. If you need to demonstrate the operation of a program, while it or the environment of the operating system must be configured in a certain way - virtual machines the best way in this case. Do all the necessary steps in the virtual machine, burn it to a DVD and, where you need to show how everything works, install the virtualization platform and start the virtual machine.
• Getting a secure user environment for the Internet. When working on the Internet, which, as everyone knows, is pretty full of viruses and Trojan horses, launching an Internet browser in user-mode is not an acceptable solution for many from a security point of view. Indeed, in software, including operating systems, there are many vulnerabilities through which malware can damage important data. In this case, the virtual machine is a more advantageous option, since the malware, after gaining control over the operating system in the virtual machine, can only harm it inside it, without affecting the host OS. By the way, recently viruses have begun to appear that detect their presence in a virtual machine and do not give themselves away in this case, but so far there are only a few such malicious programs, and in any case, no harm will be done to important data until the infected objects are transferred to the host OS. ... Therefore, the use of virtual machines in this case does not in the least preclude the use of antivirus software.
• Creation of environments for experimenting with potentially dangerous software. On a virtual machine, you can painlessly try out a new registry cleaner, or disk utility... You can also install application software without any risk that could damage your system or your data under certain conditions. In this case, the virtual machine acts as a sandbox in which your programs are played. You can safely observe and study their work without worrying about data safety.
• Convenient and simple backup custom environments. Ultimately, a virtual machine is just a folder of files on your computer that can be copied to a backup media and then easily restored. In this case, you do not need to create images hard diskto back up your system.
• Possibility of training to work with operating systems other than your host. Of course, you can install a second OS in parallel with your main system, but in this case, if you need any application from the main system, you will have to reboot. In this case, a virtual machine is ideal: you run the OS you need in parallel with the host and switch between them if necessary. In many systems, file exchange between the guest and the host system is organized simply by dragging and dropping files and folders with the mouse pointer.

We have listed only the main options for using virtual machines at home, of course, there are other, more specific areas of their application. But the real prospects when using desktop virtualization systems open up in business, where availability and savings in time and the cost of purchasing additional equipment are important, above all.

Desktop virtualization platforms for business

For most companies, when it comes to virtualization, this primarily means virtualizing the server infrastructure of the enterprise. However, there are many end-user virtual machine solutions that can dramatically improve employee productivity. Let's consider the main areas of application of virtual machines in business on virtualization platforms for desktop users:

• Creation of repositories of typical templates of user working environments. Depending on the specifics of the organization's work, its employees need to use a certain set software... When a new employee comes to the organization, he needs to install the operating system, configure it in a certain way, in accordance with the requirements of the organization and security policies, and install all the necessary application software. When using templates for virtual machines, this problem is solved very simply: an employee is installed a desktop virtualization platform, and a virtual machine from a set of organization templates is launched in it, in which all the necessary software is installed and the corresponding operating system settings are made. This model will significantly reduce the time spent on deployment, as well as provide high flexibility when transferring an employee's virtual desktop to another physical machine. Of course, such a use case may require increased hardware resources of the equipment, but it will pay off with interest if the employee has to operate with large amounts of heterogeneous data, which will take a significant amount of time to back up. For example, marketing employees who install many of the software they need, try something and work with different documents every day. In this case, they can copy the folder with the files of their working virtual machine at the end of the working day, without fear that tomorrow, when installing the next program, everything will "break".
• Creation of a virtual desktop infrastructure that allows you to centrally store user environments on the company's secure servers. At the same time, end users themselves use the means of remote access to the desktop of their environments (for example, Terminal Services) stored in the corporate data center. This use of virtual machines requires significant implementation costs, since in this case support is required for server platforms for virtualization of the company's data center. However, this provides the best security and availability. Since all production environments are stored and maintained centrally in a secure data center, the likelihood of confidential information leaks is significantly reduced. At the same time, the degree of accessibility of such environments is significantly increased, because access to them can be provided from anywhere with a high-speed connection. This is not strictly a desktop virtualization solution, but it does affect end users. An example of such a solution is VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, which is based on the virtual infrastructure of an organization's servers in a corporate data center. The structure of such a model is shown in the figure:
  
• Applying security-protected virtual machines. IT professionals who need to ensure the confidentiality of their personal data, as well as frequent demonstrations of various software to customers, are perfect solutions for creating secure virtual machines that provide means of differentiating access to various functions for working with a virtual machine. You can also set an expiration date for the virtual machine and thus distribute the software so that a certain group of people cannot use the virtual machine for more than the allowed time. An example of such a solution is VMware's ACE Manager.
• Simplify user learning by creating classrooms with virtual machines, where various operating systems and application software are installed. If a group of employees in an organization needs to be trained to use a product or program, you can create one virtual machine template and install a virtualization platform on each of the classroom computers. Then the virtual machine can be copied to all computers and launched with all the required number of programs. If you need training on a different product, you can create a new virtual machine template and deploy it to all computers in the classroom as well.
• Development and testing of software in the company. The virtual machine, being an isolated environment, is ideal for software development. Developers and testers can create the necessary configurations of operating systems and user environments to simulate program behavior on various platforms. Within this use case, it is also possible to simulate working bundles of virtual machines on the same physical platform that communicate with each other. In addition, some platforms, such as VMware Workstation, allow you to create virtual machine state trees, each of which retains a specific custom configuration. Each of these states can be rolled back with one mouse click. An example of such a tree:
  

Comparative overview of desktop virtualization platforms

Leading companies in the field of desktop virtualization platforms have done a lot over the past two years to make them as easy as possible and make them accessible to even the most inexperienced user. Currently, the leaders in the production of virtualization systems for end users are: VMware with VMware Workstation, VMware ACE and VMware Fusion, Microsoft with Virtual PC, Parallels, promoting its virtualization platform for Mac OS with Parallels Desktop for Mac, and InnoTek with the free open source VirtualBox platform. Let's take a quick look at the capabilities of some of these products.

VMware Workstation

VMware is the undisputed leader in desktop virtualization today. Its products are easy to use, feature rich and fast. Almost all manufacturers of desktop virtualization platforms are guided by the product. The process of creating a virtual machine and installing a guest operating system does not cause any particular difficulties: during creation, you must specify the amount of RAM allocated for the guest system, the type and size of the virtual disk, the folder where the virtual machine files will be located and the type of guest OS to be installed. A bootable CD or DVD or ISO image can be used as an installation distribution for the guest system. After installing the operating system in a virtual machine, be sure to install VMware Tools and disable all unnecessary emulated devices in the settings in order to optimize performance. You can also create a snapshot of the "clean" state of the guest system, while all the data of the virtual disks at that moment will be saved, and at any time you can return to their saved state. TO key features VMware Workstation can be referred to:

• Support for various types of virtual disks (controllers are emulated for both IDE and SCSI disks):
  • fixed size (Preallocated) or growing as it fills (Growing), while the former are optimized for speed, and the latter are convenient in that they do not take up much space before they are filled
  • independent disks that are not affected by operating system snapshots. Such disks are convenient for organizing file storages that do not need to change when working with snapshots of the guest system
  • support for disks whose state is not saved when the virtual machine is turned off
  • the ability to write directly to a physical disk
• Support for various types of networking between virtual machines, including the combination of virtual machines into "Teams" (Teams), which allows you to create virtual subnets consisting of virtual machines with a different number of virtual network adapters (up to three). In this case, the virtual network interface can operate in three different modes:
  • Bridged Networking - the virtual machine shares the resources of the network card with the host operating system and works with the external network as an independent machine.
  • Host-only Networking - the virtual machine obtains an IP address on its own host subnet from the VMware DHCP server. Accordingly, you can only work on the network with other virtual machines on this host and with the host OS itself.
  • NAT - the virtual machine also works in its own subnet of the host (but different), however, through the VMware NAT server, it can initiate connections to the external network. Of external network it is not possible to initiate a connection to such a virtual machine. Within the host, networking is provided.
  • Disks can also be mounted to the host system using the utility vmware-mount and expand with the utility vmware-vdiskmanager (this utility is also used to perform a number of other actions on virtual disks).
• The ability to easily exchange files using the Drag & Drop interface, as well as by creating shared folders (Shared Folders) between the host and the guest OS.
• Support for a large list of guest and host operating systems.

The latest version of VMware Workstation 6 also includes the following useful features:

• full support for USB 2.0 interface
• the ability to record virtual machine activity
• integrated product VMware Converter (for Windows hosts) for importing virtual machines from other manufacturers
• running a virtual machine as a service

It's also worth noting that VMware Workstation is currently the only virtualization platform experimentally supporting Direct-3D in guest operating systems. The main and perhaps the only drawback of this platform is the fact that it is not free.

Microsoft Virtual PC

Having emerged as a competitor to VMware Workstation, the product of the company Connectix, which was subsequently bought by Microsoft Corporation together with the company, did not receive a worthy development in its hands. As a result, at the moment, in almost all respects, it loses to the VMware Workstation platform and can only be launched in the host Windows operating system. However, a fair number of users are adopting it as a desktop virtualization platform because Virtual PC is free and satisfies the basic needs for using virtual machines. The guest installation process is also quite simple and intuitive. After the operating system is installed, it is necessary to install Virtual Machine Additions (analogous to VMware Tools in VMware Workstation), which significantly increase the performance of the guest OS by improving the virtualization technique. VM Additions can also be installed on Linux guest operating systems.

The main advantages of the Microsoft Virtual PC product include the following features:

• Full windows support Vista both as host and guest operating systems. In terms of performance, Virtual PC 2007 has taken a significant step forward compared to the previous version, and now windows performance Vista in a virtual machine is fine.
• Support for 64-bit host Windows systems.
• Improved performance by taking advantage of the improvements introduced in Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2.
• Availability of different types of virtual disks:
  • Dynamically expanding (analogous to Growing in VMware Workstation)
  • Fixed Size (analogue of Preallocated in VMware Workstation)
  • Differencing - a disk that stores changes from the current state of the virtual disk
  • Linked to a hard disk (analogous to direct write to disk in VMware Workstation)
• Various types of networking between virtual machines and the host:
  • analogue of Bridged Networking in VMware Workstation
  • Local only (analogue of Host-only in VMware Workstation)
  • Shared Networking (analogue of NAT in VMware Workstation)

It should be noted that the Virtual PC product is aimed more at home users than for IT professionals and software developers, while VMware Workstation, having much more functionality, is able to cover the needs of the latter. At the same time, Virtual PC is free and is mainly intended to simplify migration to new Microsoft operating systems and support their outdated versions. And, of course, the popularity of the Virtual PC platform is rendered by its free, creating a certain niche for the use of this product.

Parallels Workstation and Parallels Desktop for Mac

The product is intended for use on Windows and Linux platforms as a desktop virtualization system. Due to the fact that Parallels (actually owned by the Russian company SWSoft) is now focusing mainly on the product, the development of this product is currently somewhat suspended and in terms of functionality it is inferior to the two leading desktop platforms from VMware and Microsoft. Therefore, let's talk about the Parallels Desktop for Mac platform, which is now the main platform for Apple computers. In addition, at the moment, the development of this platform is very dynamic, which is primarily due to the fact that VMware is seriously intending to invade the virtualization market for Macs with its practically ready-to-final release product VMware Fusion. Key features of the Parallels Desktop for Mac platform:

• Easy three-step virtual machine creation with Parallels Installation Assistant. It doesn't take much effort to create a virtual machine and install a guest operating system in it.
• Parallels Transporter utility that allows you to migrate from a physical machine to a virtual one.
• Full support for Windows Vista guest OS. This provides a simple file exchange between the guest and host operating systems.
• USB 2.0 support
• Mac OS X "Leopard" support

Like most products for the Mac OS X platform, Parallels Desktop provides the user with an easy and user-friendly interface... It's no secret that many Mac users often feel the need to use Windows products, and Parallels Desktop gives them this opportunity, allowing them to feel “in two worlds”.

We can also mention such Parallels products as Parallels Compressor Workstation and Parallels Compressor Server, which allow compressing disks not only of Parallels virtual machines, but also of VMware, which is a solution to one of the problems frequently encountered by users.

VirtualBox

InnoTek recently entered the desktop virtualization market with an unexpected free open source solution. At a time when it would seem that it is difficult to bring a new virtualization platform to a decent level, InnoTek has achieved unexpectedly rapid success and popular recognition.

Many bloggers loyal to VMware, however, said that on their desktops, virtual machines on the platform are noticeably faster than virtual machines in VMware Workstation. In addition, until recently, the VirtualBox platform was available only for Linux and Windows hosts, and at the end of April the first build for Mac OS X appeared, where it is planned to compete with such “monsters” of virtualization systems as Parallels and VMware. And, of course, she has every chance of winning. Given the full openness of the platform and its free-of-charge, many enthusiasts are ready to tackle the development of the platform and increase the functionality, hopefully, without sacrificing its performance. At the moment, VirtualBox does not have such a wide functionality as the leading platforms, does not support 64-bit systems and networking with Windows Vista, but on the site you can get operational information on what functions of the system are being worked on. At the moment, the platform has the following main features:

• Quite a large list of supported host and guest operating systems.
• Support for multiple snapshots of the current state of the guest system (snapshots).
• Dynamically expanding and fixed size disks.
• The ability to install Guest Additions (similar to VMware Tools) to increase the degree of integration with the host OS

Of course, in terms of functionality, VirtualBox is a very immature product, but its performance indicators indicate that the platform has a future, and the Open Source community will make every effort to improve and develop it.

What to Choose for Desktop Virtualization?

Summing up, we can say that each of the platforms described above currently occupies its own niche in the field of application of virtualization technologies on desktop computers... Each of the virtualization systems has advantages and disadvantages. Over time, of course, many of them will acquire the necessary functionality that meets most of the needs of users. Hopefully, there will also be tools for converting virtual machine formats between platforms.

Undoubtedly, when it comes to using desktop virtualization at home on Windows hosts, you should choose between the Microsoft Virtual PC or VirtualBox platforms, since they are free and have the necessary functionality to support virtual machines at home. However, when it comes to the use of virtual machines in business, in the corporate environment of the enterprise, where the deployment of desktop virtualization systems places high demands on functionality and reliability, you cannot do without VMware Workstation, which significantly exceeds the other described platforms. Here, too, the VirtualBox product can find its place, as the most optimized for performance.

Virtual PC should be used when providing support for older versions of Windows and running Windows Vista as a guest OS. Mac users cannot do without Parallels Desktop: this is evidenced by the fact that the result in more than 100,000 copies of the product sold was recorded back in 2006. Mac users should also take a look at VMware Fusion, which is set to take the lead in desktop virtualization platforms in the future.

Virtualization technologies for personal computers are getting closer to the end user and can now be used both in the daily work of corporate employees and on home computers to create secure or isolated personal environments. In addition, the use of virtual machines on desktops is not limited to the described options. For example, in a VMware virtual machine, in the windowed mode of the console of the guest operating system, you can set a higher resolution supported by the monitor, and scroll bars will appear in the guest system window. This will allow you to test your website or application at high resolutions without a proper monitor. This example shows that the use cases for virtual machines on desktop computers are up to your imagination. And rapidly evolving custom virtualization platforms can help you meet your needs.

We got to know a little about processor virtualization technology, learned how to enable this function. Today we will continue the topic, we will install virtual operating systems on a computer, configure resources, and launch.

The issue presents short review two of the most popular shells for creating and using virtual machines. These programs are also called hypervisors.

Virtual machines can be easily and independently installed on ordinary home computers, but they are also widely used on servers.

Virtual servers with virtual remote desktops are created to solve various tasks on one physical computer.

What is a virtual machine on a PC and its purpose

For personal use it is quite suitable if you decide to master a new operating system on your own. Now you don't need to have an additional computer. There is no need to remove the familiar Windows. You can learn by simultaneously checking your mail and social network and at the same time gain skills in installing, setting up new, useful and interesting programs... This is how developers test the operation of applications in new and old environments, and test the operation of both operating systems and software and hardware.

But the main purpose is perhaps not this, but in the obvious economy. It's not in vain that this technology has been developed for a long time. For servers to work, first of all, you need productive equipment that is expensive. A typical server uses its resources somewhere between 40-60%. And if there are two or more such servers, it turns out that half of the capacity is idle.

To get rid of clustering, do not implement a bunch of physical servers and virtual machines are intended. On one computer, you can install, for example, mail server, DNS server, domain controller and proxy server... With the correct calculation and configuration, you will have four servers that spin on one physical server. The physical computer will run at optimal power.

How do I set up a Hyper-V virtual machine for Windows?

The program - the hypervisor is designed to install, configure, start and manage virtual machines. In Windows 10, the developers made their own, built-in and you don't need to buy anything in this way. By default, this snap-in is not visible in the operating system and we need to install it as an additional component. To do this, in the "Control Panel" we find the link "Programs", and in it "Install additional Windows components"

We mark the necessary components with the checkboxes:

The hypervisor installation starts and the changes are applied. The system will ask for a reboot.

When rebooting, do not forget to check if CPU virtualization is enabled in BIOS!

What else do we need to run a virtual operating system? It's enough for us to find her iso image and download it to your computer. I have a Linux Fedora distribution for astronomy lovers in the form of Iso. I wonder what this operating system is? Let's find our Hypervisor first. To do this, click on the "Start" menu, go down and find "Administration Tools".

You can display shortcuts on your desktop for convenience. The dispatcher is designed to manage virtual machines. And "fast creation" speaks for itself. We click on this shortcut. By default, the system prompts you to create a Windows 10 virtual machine or Linux -Ubuntu... But today we will be looking for another image, click "Change installation source":

Do not forget in " additional parameters»Indicate network adapter and the name of the virtual machine.

In the "Explorer" we are looking for our desired image operating system:

Then we press the big blue button:

Virtual machine Hyper -V created with default parameters, usually minimal system requirements for start. The system itself selects the number of processor cores, allocates the optimal amount of RAM, creates a VIRTUAL hDD based on the available space available. The location of the virtual machine is also automatically selected on the disk. But you can change all the settings for yourself. Before connecting, go to:

All parameters are modifiable; we carefully read what is intended and for what purpose:

Then you can connect.

Like any operating system, the virtual one also requires installation. Everything is the same as in real life :)

Typical Linux installation:

After loading the KDE graphical shell, we will continue to install the distribution kit on the VIRTUAL hard drive by selecting the appropriate shortcut:

The Hyper-V virtual machine is controlled by clicking the buttons at the top of the panel:

The buttons allow you to start, pause, shutdown, create a checkpoint, and also export the virtual machine. Everything is like in a real computer :). Hyper-V will be fine on Windows server editions. True, there you need to be able to configure a lot of things. And this hypervisor crashed for me a couple of times after major cumulative updates of the "dozen". It had to be re-installed.

VM Workstation virtual machine overview, how to configure and install

Another popular solution is VM Ware Workstation. It's very flexible software solution, I had no problems with him. It's not free. But it is lightweight and works flawlessly, it was easy to configure. Download and configure the program. On the latest editions of Windows 10, the hypervisor will not start, the program will give an error. If you get an error when you start the virtual machine for the first time vmware player and device / credential guard are not compatible, first .

We agree with the instructions of the master; after installation, restart the computer. We find the launch file through the "Start" menu and click on it:

We open the program, create a new virtual machine.

We choose the usual type of installation:

Further, the wizard, as expected, will offer to install the operating system. He offers to do this either from a CD / DVD disc or from an ISO file. I have a file on disk, and I will use it. In this example, I am installing Windows XP.

Using " quick installation»Parameters such as computer name, keyboard layout, product key, username, accountwill be installed by default. This is not always convenient, and this data is corrected after installation, or at the time of creating an operating system image. But in the latter case, you will have to go through all the stages manually - as on a physical computer.

Do not forget to specify the name of the virtual machine and its location in the next window.

So we got to the key settings. You need to specify the size VIRTUAL hard disk:

Almost ready. For most operating systems, the hypervisor selects the optimal sizes of both memory and hard disk, but they can be changed later:

We start the virtual machine, after which the installation of the operating system will begin. Please note that connected to a physical computer peripherals can be used on a virtual machine as well. Some of them (flash drives, external hard drives) will need to be connected manually through the "Virtual machine" - "Connected hardware" menu

Managing virtual machines is straightforward and straightforward. There is also a control panel located at the top of the window:

Windows XP virtual machine on Windows 10, video

Let's see an example of creating a virtual machine in a short video:

Nothing complicated! Good luck!

To have several operating systems with a separate workspace and applications at hand, you do not need to buy a second (third, fourth, etc.) computer. Because it all fits into your only PC. How? Thanks to virtual machines (VM) - special programs that create (emulate) imaginary (virtual) computers inside the main operating system.

The virtual PC is almost like a real one. It has its own processor, memory, hard drive, network adapter, and everything else. Of course, these are not physical devices, but they are made in such a way that operating systems consider them just like that - real.

Several virtual computers can run simultaneously on one physical computer. How much depends on hardware resources: the faster the processor, the larger the RAM, the more spacious the drive, the more. A typical mid-range home PC running Windows 10 can handle three to five lightweight operating systems (such as Windows XP, Android and Lubuntu + base system) running simultaneously. Or two or three relatively heavyweight ones (for example, basic Windows 10 + virtual windows 7 and Mac OS X). As you already understood, virtual computer emulator applications allow you to install and run a wide variety of operating systems on them.

General purpose virtual machines (as opposed to specialized virtual machines such as, for example, VM Java) use:

• To run applications that the main system does not support.
• To protect the system from potential harm from unverified programs.
• As an additional barrier against viruses when visiting questionable web resources.
• To create an isolated environment for studying malware activity.
• As a testing ground for debugging your own designs.
• To master the technologies of building networks.
• For double authorization on some game portals and much more.

And of course, virtual machines are widely used to distribute server working resources.

Today we will not touch upon the industrial application of VMs, but consider only what can be useful for home users of Windows.

Oracle Virtualbox

Let's take a look at the process of creating a new virtual machine and starting the installation of Windows 10 into it.

• Click the "Create" button in the top panel.

• In the first window of the VM creation wizard, we will indicate the OS name (it will be displayed in the list of guest systems), its type (Windows, Linux, etc.) and version. In our example, this is Windows 10 32 bit (you can install 64 bit, but it will need more resources). Click Next to go to the next step.

• Next, we will indicate the size of the VM's RAM. By default, Windows 10 x86 is allocated 1 GB, but you can increase this amount by moving the slider to the right. If your PC does not have a lot of RAM, do not give the VM more than 2-3 GB, otherwise the main system will slow down due to lack of memory.

• Next, we create a virtual hard disk. If you are installing the system for the first time, select the "Create new" option.

• Leave the default virtual disk type.

• A data storage format is an area on your computer's physical storage that is assigned to a VM. It can have a constant or dynamically expanding volume within the limits that you define further. To save space, let's choose a dynamic format.

• Next, we will indicate the name of the volume (virtual disk C) and its size. The default is 32 GB.

• After clicking the "Create" button in the last window, a new virtual machine will appear in the list. Its parameters are shown in the right frame.
• To proceed to the Windows installation, click the "Run" button in the top panel.

• In the window that will open after that, a window will appear “Select boot disk". Click on the folder icon and specify the path to the system distribution kit. It can be an image in .iso format or physical media (DVD, flash drive). After selecting the distribution, click "Continue".

• The further course of OS installation into a virtual machine does not differ from its installation on a physical computer.

Some VM and guest settings

A click in the virtual machine window captures the mouse cursor (i.e., it will only move within the virtual screen). Press Ctrl + Alt to return the cursor to the main OS.

To access the full range of functions of the guest OS, you need to install special add-ons. Go to the "Devices" menu, click "Mount Guest OS Additions Disk Image" and follow the further instructions.

To connect a folder to the guest system for sharing files with the main one, click on the "Devices" menu item "Shared folders". Click on the "folder +" icon in the window that opens and through the "path to folder" field specify it in the explorer (it shows the directories of the main system).

If you want the setting to work all the time, check "Auto connect" and "Create permanent folder". The shared folder will be accessible from the virtual machine explorer as a network folder.

To change the order of polling boot devices (for example, to boot a virtual machine from DVD), shut down the guest OS, open its settings (in the main Virtualbox window) and go to the first tab of the "System" section. In the Boot Order list, mark the desired media and use the arrow buttons to move it up.

VMware Workstation Pro

Some options for Hyper-V virtual machines

To take a snapshot of a running guest OS, open the top menu of its Action window and click Checkpoint. Or press Ctrl + N combination.

Access to the settings of an individual virtual machine is opened from its context menu in the list of the main manager window and is hidden behind the "Settings" button.

Other features of the program are also very straightforward and are mastered without much difficulty.

Every PC user sometimes wants to try some other operating system, but hesitates to install it on his work computer. Indeed, installing an unfamiliar OS is a very risky act. One wrong command can lose all data on the disk. But today there is a way to test several operating systems on one computer at once, and, if desired, even simultaneously! This method is called - virtual machine or virtual computer... Consider three best programsthat allow you to use virtualization technology at home.

Understanding virtual machines

Virtualization systems that exist today have a lot in common. Specifically, each virtual machine recognizes a CD drive as well as a floppy drive. In addition, it is possible to work with virtual drives and disk images. The ability to manually set the amount of RAM for each of the virtual machines, the list of connected devices, etc. is very useful. Such flexible settings allow you to comfortably use the guest system. Highly convenient function is the ability to suspend a virtual machine at any time. This frees up the necessary hardware resources for the host system.

All the differences between existing virtual machines, in fact, are reduced only to the list of supported by them operating systems, and cost... The most common systems today are VirtualBox, Windows Virtual PC and VMWare. How are they different?

ORACLE VirtualBox - versatile, free virtual machine

VirtualBox is a very simple, powerful and free virtualization tool, developed thanks to the support of the famous ORACLE corporation. Allows you to install almost any modern operating system as a "guest", be it Windows, MacOS or any of the many representatives of the Linux family.

Creating virtual machines in VirtualBox is done with a step-by-step wizard. Any more or less experienced PC user will be able to understand its work. The system supports working with networks, therefore, if desired, you can give the virtual machine access to the Internet.

VirtualBox allows you to take "snapshots" of the operating system. With their help, you can create "restore points" to which you can "roll back" the guest system at any time in case of errors or failures.

Windows Virtual PC - a virtual machine from Microsoft

Windows Virtual PC - a virtual machine to work only and exclusively with Windows. Linux installation, MacOS and other operating systems are not supported.

Virtual PC allows you to run multiple different copies of Windows on one computer. In this case, you can set them a priority so that in automatic mode to allocate more resources for the needs of a particular virtual machine, slowing down the work of the rest.

The monoplatform nature of the Virtual PC virtual machine is its main drawback. However, if you want to test only programs running on Windows, this is not relevant. Some disadvantage can be considered less functional and less convenient than in VirtualBox interface. Otherwise, Virtual PC is quite reliable tool, allowing you to create virtual machines with operating microsoft systems Windows.

VMware Workstation - for serious tasks

VMware Workstation is a powerful, premium, premium virtualization software that supports Windows and Linux. For virtualization MacOS, this machine is not intended.

Due to its high reliability and the broadest functionality, VMware Workstation is often used not only for testing, but also for the permanent operation of virtual machines as servers, whether it be a firewall that separates an organization's network from the Internet or even a server of a database.

VMware Workstation is highly configurable, including many hardware options and networking options for working with the Internet. This system can be played better than others on virtual machines. graphics applicationsbecause it has a special virtual 3D accelerator for obtaining high Quality graphics.

The interface of VMware Workstation is quite well-organized, so it's pretty easy to get comfortable with all its rich functionality. The program fully supports the Russian language.

It should be noted that VMware Workstation has a free "little brother" - VMWare Player. The player does not know how to create virtual machines, but allows you to run previously created in VMware Workstation. This program will be useful in cases of testing, when, for example, a developer automated system will send it for review in the form of a virtual machine image. This practice is becoming more widespread as it relieves the user of the need to deploy an unfamiliar program on their own.

What do you think is the most best virtual machine?

I will not invent a bicycle and retell others. I'd rather suggest you read an article from Linux Format magazine. In which experts made a comparative review of five popular virtual machines in the hope of finding the very ..., the best virtual machine. By the way, I highly recommend Windows to those who renounced and managed to escape from captivity.

• What is a virtual machine
• Why do you need a virtual machine
• How we tested the virtual machines
• Performance
• Functionality
• Compatibility and snapshots
• Desktop integration
• Graphics acceleration
• Verdict

What is a virtual machine

In simple terms, without tediousness, a virtual machine is an operating system in an operating system.

Why do I need a virtual machine

In our case, a virtual machine is primarily a platform for checking programs. Among which, as you understand, there may be. Another virtual machine is used by hackers to test their own and others' Trojans, and other miracle files. Whichever group you belong to, you will still be interested in learning more about virtual machines and how they work.

How we tested virtual machines

First, we took a dual-core machine (due to budget constraints) with fresh Arc Linux. In addition to proprietary VMware (version 7.1.0 of Plauer and a 30-day trial period of Workstation 11), we used the official Arch packages that closely follow the developer releases. Each machine had 2 GB of system RAM and 128 MB of video memory (256 MB if necessary).

We tested each candidate on a different guest OS: Mint 17.1 and Kubuntu 15.04 beta, and different versions a non-Linux OS called Windows. To measure performance, we compiled the main Mint core, ran the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark, and played different games from our Steam library. To test the actual options, we ran them on an 8-core machine with 16GB of RAM and 4GB Nvidia GTX, but then we were forced to return it.

Virtualization technology has fundamentally changed the computing landscape. We'd be embarrassed to say that this is a new invention (early mainframes used it as a means of providing resources), but ten years ago CPU innovations mean that you can only achieve near-native performance with x86 code. And now we manage to cram dozens of machines (easily copied and restored) into one building, and the work of data centers has become much more efficient. It is also possible to simulate another architecture, say ARM, which is convenient for embedded developers.

It's also a boon for regular users: getting to know a new OS doesn't have to be such a time-consuming exercise in constant fear of ruining your system. Even if you just want to test new programit is much safer to do it in a virtual machine instead of risking your current setup. Support for in-kernel virtualization (via KVM) and Qemu emulator means Linux users no longer need to resort to proprietary tools.

In the olden days, Sun's VirtualBox (once owned by Innotek and now Oracle) was the only real option. But times have changed, so let's look at other virtualization applications as well.

Both VMware and VirtualBox use kernel-dependent modules that load to do their magic. VMware will need to compile them, which will require installing the kernel header packages and all the compiler stuff. Then you get init script to boot these modulesthough it will be useless for Systemd users. If this is your case, you might want to create your own init file instead of running this script as root all the time (or seeing all the same error messages). At the time of this writing, the 3.19 series kernels required patching the VMware sources, but I hope this will be fixed by the time the magazine is published. VirtualBox packages are available in most distributions, so if you have a standard kernel you don't have to worry about anything.

Virt-Manager requires the libvirtd service to be running on your system before starting it, which will notify you with a kind message, and if you are using a fully functional desktop environment, it will do it for you; all you have to do is enter the root password.

Both VirtualBox and VMware Workstation are pretty straightforward, unless you want to be distracted by every option. However, VMware Player doesn't have that many options, and you can get your machine up and running very quickly. But if you are determined to make the most of these options, you will need to install Guest Additions.

Linux Guest Additions for VirtualBox are much easier to install (the CD will start automatically) than VMware add-ons that require copying programs from an imaginary CD, changing permissions, and then running a script. Is it really 1999? But, having done all this, you will be rewarded with improved graphics and a number of additional features, which we will discuss next.

Boxes is the easiest to use in our collection, even if it only provides the bare minimum of Qemu / libvirt functions. VMware Player and VirtualBox come in second, followed by their paid rival (nominally, they are more difficult due to more options). Virt-Manager isn't particularly difficult to use, but it has enough of Qemu's maze of settings to overwhelm a beginner. In addition, the mechanism for managing storage is rather convoluted, especially if you are going to store your virtual disk in a non-standard location: then you first need to add the required directory as a "storage pool". However, all the necessary exotic modules will be provided by your own distribution kit, and in that case why not take the risk.

Performance

Will they create a slow or nimble VM for you?

Hardware enhancements and paravirtualization technologies have made it possible to perform some tasks at speeds close to those of real hardware.

However, as it is, there is usually a certain drop in performance. Almost every configuration we tested on the guest desktop showed some sort of lag. But you get used to it, and you can turn off all sorts of beautiful things or turn on the appropriate neutralization mode, if it bothers you.

We're not taking 3D performance into account here - that wouldn't be entirely fair, and it has its own category through the page. However, for day-to-day tasks using Terminal, you are unlikely to notice much of a difference between our candidates. Experiments with kernel compilation have shown that VirtualBox lags far behind in the competition. Comparative test JavaScript SunSpider confirmed this conclusion: both tasks completed 20% slower than the others. Disk I / O (especially if you have an SSD) and network traffic were fast for all of our candidates. Ultimately VMware secured the edge with support for newer intel processors.

Functionality

What does each candidate have to offer?

All of our candidates target different use cases, and therefore each has its own, individual benefits. Of course, the presence of some standard features is certainly implied: for example, it is customary to include the ability to create snapshots, support for Intel VT-x and AMD-V processor extensions, and flexible configuration of virtual hardware. All of this is offered by everyone, but some applications are capable of more heroic feats.

A caveat should be made here that Gnome Boxes and Virt-Manager are only interfaces to Qemu (via the libvirt abstraction layer). And Qemu is essentially a processor emulator that can provide virtualization over KVM, but it is a whole world nonetheless.

So, let's consider our candidates separately.

Gnome Boxes ★★

When called from command line Qemu supports a ton of options, most of which are missing from Gnome Boxes: its goal (implemented) is simplicity and clarity appearance and work. Through its user-friendly wizard interface, you can set up a virtual machine in just three clicks - just point it to the appropriate ISO. Boxes abstracts the difference between a virtual machine and a remote machine, and you can connect to both via VNC, SPICE (which allows audio to work over the network), or OVirt.

Gnome boxes

Boxes doesn't offer much control over your virtual machine over the network, but at least it does provide all the NAT wizardry you need to keep your virtual machine communicating with the world. Other candidates successfully set up NAT, network bridging, or host-only networks, and all this can be very convenient in certain circumstances.

Virt-Manager ★★★★

Virt-Manager (aka Virtual Machine Manager) offers significantly more Qemu features (but again, not all). He seems to have gone overboard with his list of supported x86 operating systems, in particular the Linux family.

Virt-Manager

Leaving that aside, Virt-Manager makes it relatively easy to configure a machine of any complexity - you can add any hardware, including multiple network interfaces. In addition to KVM VMs, Virt-Man-ager is able to leverage Qemu / libvirt support for Xen guests and LXC containers. Optionally it can also poll guest resources and thus provide very nice graphs (like the ones in the Performance section on page 25, which takes about 30 seconds after windows startup ten). In addition, Virt-Manager leverages Qemu's recently added USB 3.0 support.

Compatibility and snapshots

Can virtual machines be moved between real ones?

Sometimes you need to move VMs between hypervisors. All our programs can import machines stored in the Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) format, which is simply a tar archive with a VMDK (VMware) disk image, and virtual hardware data. VirtualBox allows export to this format, but also has its own - Virtual Disk Image (VDI), and also copes with all the others.

The qemu-img command can be used to convert formats. Of particular note is his beloved QCOW2 format, which allows multiple system snapshots to be stored internally using the excellent Copy On Write (COW) trick.

Boxes, Virt-Manager, VirtualBox, and VMware Workstation support system snapshots, keeping different states of their VMs. VMware Player allows you to have only one snapshot for each machine in addition to its current state... So deep regression testing is eliminated.

VirtualBox and VMware Workstation are also capable of "cloning" VMs, and this is an effective method of taking system snapshots: data is written to the corresponding clone only if its state is different from that of the parent. VMware allows the VMDK guest image to be mounted to the host, which is convenient too, although the same trick can be done by converting to a raw disk image and using standard Linux tools and arithmetic to calculate the partition offset.

VirtualBox ★★★★

Originally a desktop virtualization client, VirtualBox is still probably the main tool for many. This program has a clear structure that makes it easy to set up a virtual machine, and many useful options. In addition to limiting the number of CPU cores that the guest OS has access to, VirtualBox allows you to specify a limit on the guest's CPU usage as a percentage. VirtualBox also supports video recording, so you can record a Windows manual for your youTube channel.

VirtualBox

It can import any virtual disks, but only offers USB 2.0 host controller support, and then only if you install the proprietary Oracle Extension Pack. The distributed clipboard and drag-and-drop options (in one or both directions, as you wish) are quite handy. VirtualBox provides convenient indicators for network and disk I / O and for CPU utilization.

By the way, in the article "" we talked in detail about how to install and properly configure the VirtualBox virtual machine.

VMware Player ★★★

The free offering from VMware has come a long way since its introduction in 2008. The most remarkable thing is that this is no longer a player: it is more than capable of creating a quality virtual machine for you.

VMware Player

In addition to supporting a number of network configurations (NAT, bridged, host-only, etc.), it offers very nice network traffic shaping options, which is quite handy if you are testing latest versionsay, a DDoS client, or see how much malware you can put on your Windows XP virtual machine before it bursts. VMware also supports uSB devices 3.0, and installing guest tools will allow for shiny graphics, shared clipboard, and shared directories. Player is somewhat inferior when it comes to snapshots (it only allows you to take one), but we criticized it in the previous section.

VMware Workstation ★★★★★

There is a non-free version of VMware Player (VMware Player Pro), but we decided that for of this Comparison it would be more appropriate to take a higher quality Workstation instead. This application provides many additional functions for developers, including the ability to group virtual machines into a kind of virtual phalanx so that you can make them go live simultaneously with one click.

VMware Workstation also offers support for new commands for modern Intel processors, and also allows you to configure machines with virtual CPUs up to 16 and 64 GB of RAM. However, Workstation is heavily focused on integrating with the rest of the (rather weighty) VMware suite, and will therefore look more appropriate in an enterprise environment.

Desktop integration

Will they clash with your color scheme?

Some users love the perfect harmony of the interfaces of the virtual machines and their corresponding hypervisors with the host desktop, while others are only confused.

VirtualBox uses Qt4, which is especially infuriating on the Qt-based Arch Linux desktop where Qt5 is used all over the place, but this is just a bit of a niche flaw. Boxes pairs perfectly with Gnome 3, which is to be expected; Virt-Manager and VMware use GTK3 and are also perfectly compatible with it.

All of our candidates allow us to switch the virtual machine to full screen mode, and luckily they all allowed us to switch back with the appropriate keyboard shortcut.

The Unity modes in VMware (no, this is not a way to make everything ubuntu-like) and Seamless in Virtual-Box stand out especially - both display application windows directly from the guest on the host desktop. This is very good for Linux VMs (excluding potential confusion between guest and host windows), however trying to run
the preview was not very successful; Windows 7 with the Aero interface turned on was also not a pleasant experience.

All our candidates support the launch of a guest in full screen mode, and they can be configured to change resolution when the window is resized. Suitable hotkeys are provided to exit this script. The drag-and-drop capability on VMware machines is very convenient, which is why VMware wins this category.

Graphics acceleration

Can software rendering problems be avoided?

Any of our candidates would serve you great if you just wanted to set up a virtual machine, without intending to do anything graphics-intensive.

But if you need 3D acceleration, you need to take VMware or VirtualBox. Once you get the hang of installing the Guest Additions (including the side-by-side VirtualBox double-negation question that tries to turn you away from its experimental WDDM support, like the Windows 7 Aero interface you need), you can enjoy 3D acceleration in VirtualBox and in two VMware clients.

Boom boom, Maxwell's silver hammer hit the, uh, hive. He died shortly after this screenshot was taken in Don’t Starve.

VirtualBox allows you to allocate up to 256 MB of system RAM to a virtual video card, and VMware up to 2 GB. Note that these gigabytes do not come from your actual graphics card, so often you won't see much improvement over 256MB. VirtualBox also provides 2D acceleration for Windows guest, which should help speed up video rendering, screen enlargement, and color correction, although this depends a lot on host configuration - this setting won't have much impact on a fast machine. Windows VM probably won't run Battlefield 4 [Battlefield] or Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (so we're very fortunate to be ported to Linux) when it's all down to 11, but more older or less demanding games will do just fine: we spent a good hour on the popular indie game Don't Starve, completely forgetting our Comparison.

Everything worked better on VMware than on VirtualBox, but perhaps it was a more advantageous configuration - on Arch Linux we used the latest proprietary Nvidia driver, which could lead to the advantage of one over the other.

Verdict

Virtualization is a long and complex topic for Comparisons. If you want to run 3D games, you won't even look at Gnome Boxes or Virt-Manager, and unless you do better in VirtualBox than we do, you will choose VMware as your hypervisor. But then again, this technology is nowhere near as mature as the native DirectX 11 format. You might even have better luck with games in Wine [Ed .: - Or not.] With some experimental performance patches. We're not really crazy about VMware licenses, especially the one that makes you pay after a 30-day trial, but for some, the enterprise-level features in Workstation will be a blessing. In particular, when using vCenter Converter from VMware, you virtualize the machine with one click - ideal if you want to test something new on your current system.

We haven't covered the ton of command line tools that come with all of our candidates, but they are, along with more than abundant documentation. You can use them in your scripts when you go all the way with virtualization by pushing a host of virtual machines out of a secure command line environment. Perhaps hackers will prefer to work with Qemu directly, while those looking for a simple free solution with open source happiness will be Gnome Boxes.

Bubbles look good if you don't see the effort involved in rendering them.

But there is only one winner (a draw is a rare exception), and this time it's Virt-Manager - well, we couldn't afford to win VMware. Virt-Manager lets you harness most of Qemu's power without resorting to lengthy command line spells. Virtual machines can be paused, reconfigured, moved, and cloned — all without much hassle. The only thing it lacks is support for graphics acceleration, but who knows, perhaps it will appear. VMware Player and Gnome Boxes tied for second place as they both scored high for their simplicity, and we love the Boxes icon, which depicts a tesseract (or hypercube, or cube cube, whatever you like).

Virt-Manager ★★★★
All managers would do so well.

VirtualBox ★★
Once the only solution, now on the sidelines.

VMware Player ★★★
Fast and convenient, but the license failed.

VMware Workstation ★★
Fast and full featured, but not free.

Boxes ★★★
The simplest way install and configure VM.