up vote 3 down vote favorite
share [g+] share [fb]

I downloaded windows7 RC and want to run as a virtual machine on my XP pro.

I have sun VirtualBox, VMWare and Microsoft virtual PC

Which should work faster, and better with widnows7 based on your experience?

I used VMWare to run ubuntu, and it was working very nice.

link|improve this question
100% accept rate
You won't get the Aero look in any VM software. For that you need real hardware. – Jon Tackabury Jul 15 '09 at 17:30
feedback

5 Answers

up vote 8 down vote accepted

I would go with Virtualbox, as

  • it's free and open source (mostly)
  • has 3D acceleration support
  • has cross (host) OS compatibility

However, if you intend to use Windows 7 regularily, install it as your OS. The experience is much better that way.

link|improve this answer
1  
If you install Win 7 you can also set up your VMs to use the VHD format, from which you can boot natively. Just in case your VMs need some real hardware :) – Joey Jul 22 '09 at 1:52
feedback
up vote 2 down vote

I've been using Virual PC and haven't noticed any issues.

link|improve this answer
feedback
up vote 1 down vote

I use VMware personally - it works fine under Vista mode. I don't think 3D accel works though - I'm not sure about that on VirtualBox either.

Just don't use Virtual PC - I find it slower than the rest (subjectively) and it's not updated that often.

link|improve this answer
feedback
up vote 1 down vote

You could also do the flip, and run Windows 7 natively with XP as a virtual machine. It has the option to run in "XP Mode" for backwards compatibility.

Here is a little more information on XP Mode.

link|improve this answer
feedback
up vote 0 down vote

I have a couple of images running on Virtual Server 2005. They run ok. Can not compare though...

link|improve this answer
feedback

Your Answer

 
or
required, but never shown
discard

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.