Virtual Server 2005

[ToasterMax]

has anyone used virtual server 2005 yet?? i am planning on using it but its hard to get any info that you can download and print from ms website. its a real pain printing page by page. has anyone used it and if so, can you offer some tips?

[Gurgelmeyer]

Hi,

Yes - I had to evaluate it at work some time ago. It is painfully slow, and has a terrible browser based UI only. Honestly, the best tip I can give you, is to purchase VmWare GSX Server 3.1.0 instead. Sry.

Anyway, what would you like to know about VS2005?

Best regards,

Gurgelmeyer

[The-VOICE]

Hi,

Yes - I had to evaluate it at work some time ago.  It is painfully slow, and has a terrible browser based UI only.  Honestly, the best tip I can give you, is to purchase VmWare GSX Server 3.1.0 instead.  Sry. 

Anyway, what would you like to know about VS2005?

Best regards,

Gurgelmeyer

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Agreed. Virtual Server 2005 is a decent first effort, but it lags behind VMware GSX and ESX both in performance and usability. Being forced to use an ActiveX browser (Internet Explorer) with VS05, you really miss the handy features in the VMRC (Virtual Machine Remote Console) with VMware.

And am I the only one who finds the networking performance in VS05 to be painfully slow even over multiple Gigabit NIC's?

VMware is worth the extra money.

[ToasterMax]

i downloaded it free but without any documentation. i am curious about its features as opposed to the vmware product. I will have to try and get vmware to see which works better for me. i dont have any development uses for it. i just plan on having a virtual lan and practice setting up AD, and other windows server activities in my studies toward a non-paper mcse. i just dont have the space and pcs to setup a true lan with numerous servers and clients. which product will serve me best??

Also, i plan to setup numerous versions of linux clients and install samba so i can learn its feature set and familiarize myself with the products.

[The-VOICE]

After you install VS05 there should be two (I think) help files in the .CHM file format which serve as the manual.

Please keep in mind that both VS05 and VMware GSX require IIS. VS05 should be installed on Windows Server 2003 on a machine with HyperThreading disabled. It is highly recommended that at least two NIC's are installed.

Microsoft only supports the installation of Microsoft operating systems on VS05, but others have found that many flavors of Linux install successfully on VS05. The biggest problem is that there will be no Virtual Machine Additions (virtual machine accelerated drivers to aid in smoother mouse pointer movement).