beta @ amanzi

Microsoft today released Virtual PC 2007 to beta testers via the Connect website and I must say I am quite underwhelmed. I had been discussing the impending release with a colleague who uses mainly VMware products and occasionally Virtual PC, and we were wondering whether the new release will rock the boat a bit for VMware. We were expecting some form of multiple snapshots and a better management console, but neither are to be seen in this release.

According to the Virtual PC Guy’s blog these are the major features that you will notice in Virtual PC 2007:

• Support for hardware virtualization (Intel and AMD)
• Support for Windows Vista as a host operating system
• Support for Windows Vista as a guest operating system (Note: No support for Aero Glass though – just Aero Basic)
• Support for 64-bit host operating systems
• Note: Virtual machines are 32-bit only
• Improved performance

Nothing spectacular there so you could really consider this just a service pack. The UI still looks the same and I couldn’t spot any enhancements apart from the above-mentioned improvements.

So VMware still rule the virtualisation world on both the desktop and the server. VMware also provide a nifty importer tool that allows you to convert your Virtual PC/Server machines to VMware compatible virtual machines. You can also use the tool to convert Ghost images and Symantec/Veritas PowerQuest/BackupExec images to virtual machines. Virtual PC does have the advantage over VMware Workstation of being free, but comparing Virtual PC to VMware workstation is like comparing MS Paint to Photoshop. VMware also provide VMware Server (which also runs on Windows XP) and VMware Player for free.