tcabanski
November 21st, 2000, 03:55 AM
I'm too cheap to buy second machines for all my developers (6) to let them test new toys. At the same time, I don't want my developers trashing their development machines with flacky beta crap.
I highly recommend VMWare (www.vmware.com). It allows us to configure virtual machines with their own operating system, hard disk space etc. that run inside a window on our main operating system. For example, I currently have VisualStudio.NET running under Windows 2000 professional in a window running on my laptop's Windows 2000 Server installation. The Windows 2000 Pro installation can even talk with my laptop's SQL Server 2000 instance over the network (that's right, the VM looks like another machine on my network).
VMWare lets us play with new development tools without dual-boot hassales or the risks of blowing up the main OS install. It requires a good amount of memory (my laptop has 256MB and would benefit a great deal from the 512MB we use on our desktops). The product costs a bit less than $500 and works great!
BTW, there is a substantial discount for students.
I highly recommend VMWare (www.vmware.com). It allows us to configure virtual machines with their own operating system, hard disk space etc. that run inside a window on our main operating system. For example, I currently have VisualStudio.NET running under Windows 2000 professional in a window running on my laptop's Windows 2000 Server installation. The Windows 2000 Pro installation can even talk with my laptop's SQL Server 2000 instance over the network (that's right, the VM looks like another machine on my network).
VMWare lets us play with new development tools without dual-boot hassales or the risks of blowing up the main OS install. It requires a good amount of memory (my laptop has 256MB and would benefit a great deal from the 512MB we use on our desktops). The product costs a bit less than $500 and works great!
BTW, there is a substantial discount for students.