Friday, June 30, 2006

From Microsoft Virtual PC/Server to VMWare?

Finally bought my own laptop two days ago and decided to give VMWare Server RC2 a try.

I had used VMWare Workstation in the past, but since VirtualPC and Server were available in our MSDN Subscription it didn't make sense to pay more than necessary to maintain virtual development and testing environments. Now that VMWare has taken the initiative to release their more mature product for free, it was time to see whether it was worth switching back.

So far, I am pretty impressed. The VMWare server management console (a fat client) is much friendlier to use than the Microsoft Virtual Server web application. And to my amazement, VMWare supports running Virtual PC/Server environments within seconds as well as converting them into a proper VMWare environment. The only snag I encountered is that the VMWare Virtual Machine Importer wizard must be run under an admin account...

Update: And be aware that any Windows installations may need to be reactivated because of the change in virtual hardware environment!