virtual machine
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MED-V Virtualises Non-Compatible XP/2000 Apps In Vista
9:30PM Kevin Purdy | Windows Vista only: Microsoft’s Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V) tool, offered as a free public beta, creates a low-profile virtual machine that runs XP/2000 apps in their own environment, right on your desktop. It’s not an app you can just install and fire away with, and you’ll have to fill out a short survey at Microsoft’s “Connect” area to get to the download (and, with a light sigh, install their File Transfer Manager to grab it), but once you’re up and running, MED-V runs as a background app that launches XP/2000 applications from their own folder in your Start menu. It’s a free beta right now, and the first full release is expected to drop in 1.0 form in the first half of 2009. We tried running MED-V on the Windows 7 beta at Lifehacker East, but it’s pretty strict on launching only from Vista with SP1 installed. To get a better feel for what MED-V does and runs like, check out Microsoft’s introductory video or demonstration. MED-V is a free download for Windows Vista systems with SP1 installed only. If you gave it a try with some of your Vista-resistant apps, tell us how it performed in the comments. Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization V1 [via All About Microsoft] More »
Access USB Drives in Parallels and Your Mac Simultaneously
11:00AM Adam Pash | If you run Windows and Mac apps side-by-side with Parallels, you may have been annoyed in the past that you can’t use removable volumes (like USB drives) simultaneously in OS X and your Windows virtual machine. Web site Mac OS X Hints details how to remedy this problem with a simple solution: add a shared folder in Parallels that points to /Volumes. Not only will the new shared folder give you access to USB drives, but also your DVD drive and all other mounted volumes on your Mac—and you get it all without having to hassle with individually connecting and disconnecting drives from your virtual machine. I tried to duplicate this method in VMWare Fusion but wasn’t able to select the /Volumes folder. Either way, the Parallels hack is smart and saves a ton of time. More »
Run Windows Apps Seamlessly Inside Linux
3:00AM Kevin Purdy | You love working inside your Linux desktop, but at the most inconvenient times you’ve got to reboot into Windows—whether to open a tricky Office file, try out a Windows application, or even just play a quick game. However, with some free tools and a Windows installation disk, you can have Windows apps running right on your Linux desktop and sharing the same desktop files. It’s relatively painless, it takes only a little bit longer than a Windows XP install, and it works just like virtualizing Windows on a Mac with Parallels Coherence—except it’s free. Here’s how to set up Windows inside VirtualBox, and then get Windows apps running seamlessly inside your desktop. More »
