So I had a need to make some virtual machines on my laptop this week. I'm looking to take the MS Server 2008 Network Infrastructure exam by the end of the month (assuming I can get up to speed by then!!!), and the lab exercises involve 3 Server 2008 machines. My default choice was VMWare's Server 2 - a free download. Since we use ESX here and I'm very familiar with it, I though Server2 would be the logical extension. Also, because it uses the has format as ESX, if I ever built a machine on my laptop and wanted to migrate it to our Production system, it would be as simple as shutting it down, copying all the files up into the ESX platform, and firing it up there. So Server2 it was.Previously I've used the first version of VMWare Server - when they first bought it out as free to "replace" the paid Workstation product (which people are still buying today, apparently?), and to counteract the threat presented by the free MS and linux alternatives. It impressed the daylights out of me then as a super useful, easy to use and very well integrated product. Pretty much all the good points of ESX, but none of the downsides. So I had high hopes for the ver 2, which I had never used.
First problem - it's a 507Mb download. That's large. But that's OK - I was at work with the fast internet, and sometimes you need to be big to be good. Granted, even the ESX core isn't that big, but hey - maybe it's fancy management, or something like that.
Downloaded and installed fine, but then discovered there's not management app. In their quest to be cross-platform, all management is done via the web-based interface. I HATE web based interfaces. VMWare themselves acknowledge this, and I have a proper windows MMC-type app for VirtualCentre (which, again, is great). Why saddle me with this? And why install the tomcat webserver on my pc, just for this? If there's one thing I hate more than web-based interfaces, it's things installing their own webservers without my express permission. To add insult to injury, as soon as you fire up the web-based interface, it asks for an administrator password. Which it didn't prompt for during the installation. The standard guesses don't work, and some googling turns up that it just want's the windows admin account on the box. Since I'm an admin (naughty me, I know), I log on with my details, and it's all fine.
So far it's quirky, but it's free, so you learn to manage. Still hating the web-based interface and the inability to right click things, but I'll get over it. Load up my 3 VM's, which ,incidentally, takes me all day. Find that with 3 VM's running, the system is completely unusable. General windows stuff is so slow as to be worthless. Pressing ctrl-alt-del takes quite literally 6 minutes to go to the security screen, to get task manager up. Task manager shows a CPU utilization of around 4%, and a memory usage of around 3Gb (laptop has 4Gb installed). No disk queue length or paging of note. System still runs like a dog. Install VMTools on all 3 VMs, but no change. System as a whole is unusable. If only running 1 VM it's fine, but as soon as you boot a second one, then you're gone.
Which is a problem for me, since the purpose of having the 3 VM's is to play around with different network settings on each one to see how you initiate and then break network connectivity between them. Only having one available kinda won't work for that.
So that was where I left it yesterday. Server2 was broken, but I figured I could fix it. When I arrived at work this morning, however, I turned on my laptop to be greeted with the Bitlocker warning screen. My boot drive had been changed, and the laptop wouldn't start unless I could provide it with it's BitLocker key. Luckily I had the keys saved to a USB drive, so all I needed to do was plug the drive in and reboot, and the laptop fired up perfectly fine (Look for a future post about how much I love Bitlocker, and why I believe it should be a standard part of every Windows OS, at least at the Premium/Professional level and above). But it angered me that Server2 had made changes to my boot drive and drivers without also telling me.
So, basically, I got cranky with Server2. It was making my machine run slow even with no VMs running, it was taking much, MUCH longer to boot and to shut down, and it couldn't run 3 VMs at the same time.
Now is probably a good time to admit that my first choice was ACTUALLY to use Microsoft's VirtualPC for my virtualization needs. It's what the book recommends (funny that, since it's a MSPress book...), and I had heard good things about VirtualPC. Plus, it's free too these days. However, when I went to the Microsoft VirtualPC site, it has been taken over by Windows7. You may have heard about this little thing called "XP Mode" that's part of Win7. It's quite fancy, and uses the next version of Virtual PC to make the magic happen. However, the entire VirtualPC site has been taken over by it. When you click download, you're asked to choose which version of Win7 you have, because obviously you want the latest and greatest. Except when you don't.
So that was the single impediment which initially sent me down the Server2 path. I figured if MS was going to hide away Virtual PC for Vista, then I'd just use the (presumably excellent) competition. So this whole rant might be useful for someone to pull apart from a purely marketing perspective, since it neatly shows how one simple thing turned a potential user away from what is probably an excellent product and sent them straight to the major competition. But I digress.
Thsi morning, annoyed with Server2, I uninstalled it and deleted the VM's that I'd lovingly created the day before. Got rid of it all. Tracked down the download of Microsoft VirtualPC 2007 - as mentioned before, it's free these days from the MS Download portal.
First surprise - it's 30Mb. All up - that's all it is. Downloaded before I even knew it was here.
Second surprise - it installs easily, and quickly (it is only 30 Mb after all!). I had assumed that it would be an installer like the IE installers, which are only small in size, and the first thing they do is connect to the internet and download an additional 400Mb of junk. Not so with VirtualPC!
Third surprise - it's got a proper windows management client. And that management client is great. It's simple, it's small, it's got nothing that you don't need. But it's got everything that you do.
I've rebooted the computer since uninstalling Server2 and installing VirtualPC, and haven't been bothered by the Bitlocker checks, so I assume that Server2 has either left whatever it had there there, or has nicely cleaned up after itself. And it looks like VirtualPC didn't need to make any modifications there either.
So far I'm half-way through installing the second Server 2008 VM, and the system's running swimmingly. I expect it to continue that way, especially since VirtualPC's options that allow you to retain CPU priority to the host machine, and dedicate the lions share of resources to the VM that you're currently using at the time. Smart options that give the performance to the machine that you need, when you need it.
So far, I can whole heartedly recommend VirtualPC over VMWare's Server2. If you want a lightweight, easy to use and configure Virtual Machine system for your personal use, and you're using Windows, it's very hard to recommend anything else. As stated above, I work with an ESX3 Virtual Infrastructure platform at work every day, and love it to death. If you were looking at an enterprise-level platform to run your Production environment, I still believe it's the only way to go. Expensive, yes, but wonderful. I really believe it's one of the best things we've ever done for IT in the firm. But if you're looking for a workstation-based product, then VirtualPC looks to be the clear winner in my books.
Click here to go to the Virtual PC 2007 download page on the MS Download portal.
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