VMware Workstation 5.0 for Windows Description:

VMware Workstation 5.0 for Windows review:
5 stars (Amazing and Awesome) - This application is terrific. VMWare Workstation eliminates, for most applications at least, the requirement for dual or multiple boot systems. For example, you can switch operating systems with the click of a mouse button. I have actually had three operatiing systems running concurrently on my system.



From the time I loaded the VMWare CD Rom into my disk drive until I had an operational SuSe Linux running in a virtual machine under Windows 2000 Professional was less than three hours. I took a little longer to get the full functionality of Linux; however, this was my problem, not VMWare's. I see no observable performance degradation when running normal Linux applications; however, because of the limitations of the virtual display's some 3-D intensive application may not work. Note: I am running a 64-bit Athlon processor with 4-gig of ram, and 2 120 gig hard drives. One is NTFS and the other is Linux formatted. Accessing the 'real' Linux drive, and dual DVD's was easy to set up. I had no VMWare problems setting up a local network, and the connection to the internet (dial-up).



My major use for Linux is for numerically intensively computational scientific research and many of the supporting applications I need are not available as windows applications.



Another big advantage of this system is that the entire virtual system can be backed up by copying one file (at least on NT 2000).



VMWare seriously needs dual head and 3-D virtual driver support. The lack of dual head support is my only major complaint.