I finally found out how to use Hyper-V Manager in Windows 7
I installed the Windows 7 Beta a while back on my notebook and haven’t looked back since. I did so on a separate partition thus still being able to use my XP Pro on the other partition, but I must admit that I’ve only booted up the Previous Windows Version
(that’s what it says on the boot up screen) a handful of times. What I’m trying to say is that that over the last few weeks I’ve become a fan of Windows 7. It feels a lot faster and more intuitive than XP and I’m sure the same goes for Vista as well (I’ve never actually used Vista as I’d never gotten around to it).
Virtual PC vs multi-boot
Most people have only got one operating system installed on their computers, while in some cases it would be quite handy to have several. Personally, working mainly as a Business Intelligence consultant, I work a lot with VMware and Virtual PC, since I do development, some (beta) testing and a lot of fumbling with all sorts of server software. But recently I stumbled upon a multi-boot manager called BootIt NG, quite a good product for turning your (in my case) notebook into a multi-boot environment. Now, there are some drawback and advantages when looking at both alternatives:
- A virtual environment eats a lot of system resources on the host, which can make both the host as well as the virtual server somewhat sluggish.
- With a virtual server there are no worries when something goes wrong. You simply reboot the virtual machine and you’re on your way again. When it comes to multi-boot systems things could go wrong.
- Virtual machines can emulate all kinds of hardware. This way you can run Mac OS on your Windows machine or the other way around.
So, basically, I would always go for a virtual machine if what I’m doing is something that is temporarily – like testing a new version of a product – or is something you don’t do on a daily/weekly basis. Vice versa I would go with a multi-boot machine.
It is important that you install a second (or third, etc) operating system on its own partition otherwise things will probably go wrong. It’s probably also a good idea to to backup before you start.
I’ve also got a very powerful workstation at home that is running Microsoft Hyper-V Server. With this setup you are able to start up several virtual machines at the same time (you’ll need quite a bit of memory to be able to runs things smoothly though). In this case I’m using both technologies, since I’ve got Windows Vista 64-bit running on one partition and Microsoft Hyper-V Server on another.
I should also mention that Microsoft has also got a very rudimentary way to manage your multi-boot system, by allowing you to choose which one you’d like to start up when booting. I’m not very impressed by it, but have never really looked into its inner workings and I guess it’s better than nothing.