VMWare Workstation vs VirtualBox

[Ashwin Kumar]

Ok guys this is not a direct head to head pro and cons question. I want the best solution for my needs. I have a pretty basic hardware Core 2 Duo E4700, 4 Gigs DDR2 Ram, Nvidia En 8400Gs..Running with Windows 8.1 And i want run Visual Studio in a virtual machine to code(As it installs a crap load of other stuff while installing so uninstalling it is practically not possible). So that i can just delete the virtual disk if i don't want Visual Studio anymore. I want to know which one Workstation ir Virtual Box will suite me? Will a student license for Workstation be worth for me now or should i go with the Virtual Box now and when i get serious about Virtualization go to Worsktation?

 

[d_kuhn]

I've used both... they both will work - but with only 4gb of memory and an old dual core processor they're not going to work very well. Does the machine even support virtualization?

Personally... I'd pick up a cheap hdd and dual boot if I have to do it on that machine.

 

[Ashwin Kumar]

I've used both... they both will work - but with only 4gb of memory and an old dual core processor they're not going to work very well. Does the machine even support virtualization?

Personally... I'd pick up a cheap hdd and dual boot if I have to do it on that machine.

Does this even support virtualization? Yes i think it does but ..Actually i used to play with Workstation trials a few months back. Back then i could install anything i actually ran Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64 bit along with Windows 8.1 trial( I had Windows 7 then) both virtually and everything worked fine. But now when i try to install Windows 7 or Windows 8 in either Virtual Box or VMWare Workstation(Trial) it says my pc doesn't support 64 bit architecture that IVT... stuff. Any idea on what i should be doing?

Dual boot? Wouldn't it be an overkill just for a software?

 

[Alabalcho]

Installing Windows in VM will require separate license (unless you install Windows 7, and run it un-activated for couple of months).

 

[Ashwin Kumar]

Installing Windows in VM will require separate license (unless you install Windows 7, and run it un-activated for couple of months).

Yes i do know that! Its enough for me if it runs a month then i'll get a new lappy!

 

[d_kuhn]

Virtualization requires a processor that supports it with specific hardware extensions (Intel VT-x or AMD-V)... IIRC there may some older virtualization environments that don't require the hardware support - but the cost will be worse performance.

Dual booting is (imo) a simple solution relative to virtualization - and it will have much better performance on older hardware. Basically... when you set up a virtual environment you have to do everything you'd do to set up dual booting (other than the power on 'pick a boot partition' stuff that Windows does for you when install the second OS) and you have the big additional problem of two running operating systems (the host system and the virtual machine) sharing the limited resources of your machine.

These days I do use virtualization instead of dual-booting, but that's on hardware that has a lot of resources to burn and has the VT-x extensions (I run ESXi hypervisor).

 

[Ashwin Kumar]

Thanks for your reply guys! I've set it up on VMWare Workstation Trial !

 

[Indomidable]

While I know this thread is a bit old...just in case someone else finds it...
http://ark.intel.com/products/34441/Intel-Core2-Duo-Processor-E4700-2M-Cache-2_60-GHz-800-MHz-FSB
The Core2 era of Intel Chips it was like a 20% chance the CPU had Intel Virtulization Support... yours did not.

As to which tech... VirtualBox for free (Fairly Easy to use)....VMWare Workstation...for advanced support...there is a whole lot of extra stuff VMware Workstation can do mostly in the Graphics department. However I'm trying to find out if someone has tested VMWare Workstation 12 vs VirtualBox 5.0.2 so far no luck....

I can tell you that In VMWare Workstation 9 I was able to play a highly modded Unreal Tournament 2004 64 bit executable, at Max settings...on my old System i7 2600 8 GB 1600 DDR3, With a Nvidia 465 GTX keeping around 35 FPS -60. On a Windows Vista SP1, playing it in a Windows XP 64 VM.

As to settings if your Intel Supports the VM tech make sure you've got it turned on in the BIOS or it won't work.