Monroe Posted May 1, 2013 Share Posted May 1, 2013 (edited) Well I will start first by saying if a moderator thinks this post belongs somewhere else then please relocate it. I want some input on several software programs that are both free and not free and it was a toss-up just where to place it. There will be two parts as I put it all down from my head. I would like to see what most members are using or like about a certain program. The first part deals with the best free Virtual Machine Applications to use with Windows XP. I found this article a month ago dealing with the "Five Best Virtual Machine Applications" ... four are free although one is for Linux only and another has a basic free and a paid version. I was hunting for a strictly free version ... I was aware of the free one by M$: Windows Virtual PC but was searching for anything else that might be available. I decided to try the free one by Oracle: VirtualBox. I liked working with it and had no install problems so I didn't try the other two free ones. At the bottom of the article there are results of a poll taken and VirtualBox seems to well liked by many. Also, found other people liking it at other Google links. Did I miss any other "free" ones not mentioned in the article? ... what are the feelings at this forum for VirtualBox or another program?Five Best Virtual Machine Applicationshttp://lifehacker.com/5714966/five-best-virtual-machine-applicationsNow I'd like to ask for opinions on programs like System Restore but probably much better. Today the Giveaway of the Day deal is Shadow Defender 1.2 ... as usual, people will mention something just as good (better) and also free. Two free alternatives mentioned today were Reboot Restore Rx and Toolwiz Time Freeze. I have not heard of either one of them ... I was also checking some programs like this in April and came across some mentions of programs that were not free ... such as RollBack RX an etc ... those two free alternatives mentioned earlier look very interesting and I have downloaded them to try out. Just wondering if anyone has some other programs worth mentioning.Free AlternativesReboot Restore Rxhttp://dottech.org/103819/windows-review-reboot-restore-rx/Toolwiz Time Freezehttp://dottech.org/25943/alternative-to-returnil-system-safe-toolwiz-time-freeze-allows-you-to-safely-test-software/better web site ...http://www.toolwiz.com/products/toolwiz-time-freeze/I am interested in being able to undo everything when testing some software program and it doesn't work well ... I was also working with Sandboxie in April and liked that program for testing and being able to get rid of something easily. I will admit that VirtualBox by Oracle was really nice for a free program ... I had an XP VM setup but easily could put Windows 2000 and Windows 98SE on it also.Just looking for input on likes - dislikes of the above ... especially Sandboxie, I haven't worked that much with it. I had to redo my XP setup with my Ghost backup so I have nothing installed for now ... thought I post this first to see what others have to say. thanks ... Edited May 1, 2013 by duffy98 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaclaz Posted May 1, 2013 Share Posted May 1, 2013 It greatly depends on what you want to do/run.That lifehacker article is the usual "introductory mumble jumble" clearly written by someone that has (maybe) tried to play once with a VM (and IF he actually played with it never went beyond showing his friends "Look I can boot UBUNTU !" nor far beyond the Ubuntu bootscreen).Anyone that can write this sentence :Virtual machine descriptions and parameters are stored entirely in plain-text XML files for easy portability and easy folder sharing.should not be allowed to write technical articles .The article completely misses the one which is the most convenient for testing booting (but slower than other VM's) which is one of the QEMU port for Windows, that comes with a nice GUI that makes the thingy stay on the same level of usability of the mentioned VM's, Qemu Manager:http://www.sorted-systems.com/qemu_manager.htmlSince it was moved form it's original page at http://www.davereyn.co.uk/ it seems like Google cannot find it anymore .Qemu (and conversely the Qemu Manager) allows to experiment with different architecture and processors, something that the other VM's cannot do. VirtualBox is more than decent , but FAR from "easy" (if you want to go beyond the basic things) and has more than one "quirks" in it's emulated BIOS.jaclaz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monroe Posted May 1, 2013 Author Share Posted May 1, 2013 I downloaded Qemu Manager 7.0 to check it out ... thanks for for going into detail about Qemu ... it says available for the Windows Platform. ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tripredacus Posted May 2, 2013 Share Posted May 2, 2013 I've had to try a bunch over the years and I've had the best success with VMWare Player. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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