vmware. run as many virtual pc's as you want

[Gandalf]

http://www.vmware.com/

You may have seen this product before, but I've just downloaded the 30 day trial of Workstation 4 and so far am very impressed. Just installed it on my XP Pro PC and am now running windows 98 as a virtual machine inside a little window.

Full specs here

Oh, and there is either a windows download (will only run on NT, 2000 or XP) or a linux download too. I've got both, but as my linux knowledge is still lacking I've been unable to get a virtual PC to boot. I will keep trying though!

I will probably be getting this software, although it is pricey, because you can get a clean install of an os, then take a snapshot. You can then mess around as much as you like and if you bugger it up you can revert to the snapshot!

Will be great for me as I beta Microsoft's server OS and can install it without worrying about getting another PC.

[Anonymous]

I believe you can also set it up across two PCs to make a virtual cluster :-) We have one of our consultants coming up next week to show us how to do this

[Gandalf]

sweet. I've looked at this software years ago, but it wasn't as reliable as it is now. I guess with the massive advance in processing power this sort of software really comes into its own.

[Anonymous]

Some of our guys run this all the time on their laptops. If you are on a customer site and need to connect to their network for troubleshooting purposes then you do not need to admin rights to change your WinXP domain settings. Just boot a VMware session and pick an appropriate OS (a lot of them have a VMWare Win98SE as it is reliable)