Run your software on a virtual computer?

[RobZee]

Just came across this program - anyone familiar with it? Sounds interesting - came as an email promo from Farstone.

Dear FarStone Customer,
Did you know you can run each of your applications on a virtual
computer to reduce software conflicts?

Suppose you're running Word, Acrobat, Firefox, an MP3 player, a
slideshow screensaver to display your family photos... chances
are that software conflicts abound on your system.

SystemAI from Celceo creates an ideal virtual computer for each
of your applications, isolates your applications in their own
virtual computers, and reduces conflicts and crashes.
==========================================================
Only $19.99! Save $10!

[eniqmah]

Vmware is free. Don't run your application, run the whole system. Don't just run one, run a bunch of them. VMWare will let you do it for free.

[Mrkvonic]

Hello,
Second the VMware and such, but my question is: why should there be a conflict in one runs word, acrobat, mp3, firefox, and a slideshow of family pics?
Mrk

[Meriadoc]

That's what I was thinking, '...chances are that software conflicts abound on your system.' Nope! better to drop this from the sell, FarStone.

[aigle]

It,s useless. I tried and it hangs on my PC. It will slow down my PC more than my real software.

[farmerlee]

Virtual PC 2007 is also another good, free option. Also if your system has hardware virtualisation support, VPC 2007 can make use of it. It works great for windows, linux, freebsd, whatever you like.

[tradetime]

Hmmn VMware Workstation appears to be $189 or am I missing something?
http://www.vmware.com/vmwarestore/buy_workstation.html

[Bob D]

-{ Quote: "Hmmn VMware Workstation appears to be $189 or am I missing something?" }-
Check out VMware Player
Description here:
http://www.vmware.com/products/player/

[tradetime]

-{ Quote: "Check out VMware Player
Description here:
http://www.vmware.com/products/player/" }-
DOH!! :-[ Knew I had to be missing something.

[EASTER]

Another alternative to having to deal with VM's since i read plenty of times programs won't run correctly enough if at all is grab you a used Hard Drive of any reasonable size and Slave it as a test drive. I do this all the time, yeah theres some manual jockeying of plugging in and switching jumpers but at least it is a RAW system and will not make for limitations some VM's seem to do with certain programs.

Just a simple suggestion and easy alternative.

[RobZee]

Thanks for the replies. I guess I was influenced by the "partner marketing" of Farstone. I was also leery about sending info through connection to them about the computer processes of my computer to their "collective intelligence" site.

[Mrkvonic]

Hello,
Don't forget VMware Server, which is even more powerful than the Player.
Mrk

[aigle]

-{ Quote: "DOH!! :-[ Knew I had to be missing something." }-
More importantly VMware server. It,s free too and u can install any OS.

http://www.vmware.com/products/server/

[Seer]

Hi :)

If this is not OT... just wanted to mention Parallels (http://www.parallels.com/). It's not free, but it's not very expensive either (50 bucks (http://www.parallels.com/en/products/workstation/)). Of the three I ran (VMware and VirtualBox being the other two), Parallels was the most responsive one. So I use that now, even though I always had (and still have) a license for VMware Wks.
That said, the only drawback with VMs for me is the video RAM. :-\

-{ Quote: "sending info through connection to them about the computer processes of my computer to their "collective intelligence" site." }-

Info on processes? How do you know what's being sent? Have you been able to monitor this?

[aigle]

I use VirtualBox, it,s light and free.

[Kerodo]

-{ Quote: "I use VirtualBox, it,s light and free." }-
Aigle, how much ram do you need to run VirtualBox? I only have 512. Is that enough with Xp?

[InfinityAz]

-{ Quote: "Aigle, how much ram do you need to run VirtualBox? I only have 512. Is that enough with Xp?" }-

When running VirtualBox VMs I allocate 384 Mb to the virtual machine. It runs with 128 or 256 but for me 384 seems to be the sweet spot for good performance.

[Kerodo]

-{ Quote: "When running VirtualBox VMs I allocate 384 Mb to the virtual machine. It runs with 128 or 256 but for me 384 seems to be the sweet spot for good performance." }-
Ok, thanks, as long as it's possible with less than 1 gig I'm fine...

[aigle]

-{ Quote: "Aigle, how much ram do you need to run VirtualBox? I only have 512. Is that enough with Xp?" }-
I have 512 and I allocate 256 to VM. It works OK but I plan to upgrade.

[Kerodo]

Ok, thank you also Aigle...

[RobZee]

-{ Quote: "Hi :)
Info on processes? How do you know what's being sent? Have you been able to monitor this?" }-

Actually, I never installed the program after considering these posts. Also, I couldn't find enough specifics on their website to gain any comfort.

Rob

[EASTER]

Another good choice just mentioned. Virtual Box does seem like a stable and dependable virtual machine.

In researching malware/rootkits etc., or just trying programs, i made plenty use of it and found it A-OK myself.

But i tired of them eventually and instead keep a few used hard drives for testing whenever i feel bold enough to risk trashing a system, besides i also image these drives anyway before letting anything potentially risky ride on them first.

This way i can get the full compliment of resources and such on a bare system without having to allocate memory etc.

[wilbertnl]

-{ Quote: "In researching malware/rootkits etc., or just trying programs, i made plenty use of it and found it A-OK myself." }-
Allocating the virtual disk as immutable is very valuable when you walk the line of security. ;D
Simply close the virtual machine and changes are gone...

[Rasheed187]

I´m a bit disappointed with this thread, you guys seem too have gone way off topic. This app is not comparable with VMware, VirtualBox, so not full system virtualization, it´s more like Altiris SVS I think.

And they claim that with this virtualization feature, computers will run more stable. So I decided to check it out and I didn´t get any bsods´s but it did cause some problems, not surprisingly, since it wants to run just about every process in it´s own separate space. It does sound good in theory, I wonder what MS thinks about this tech, but I´m sure Vista is already quite stable. :)

http://www.celceo.com/products/index.php?src=pad

[Seer]

You're quite right Rasheed :thumb: Good observation. Well, the post #2 did it all, after that all the posters (including me ;D ) just got carried away. The whole thread is OT :D Yes, FarStone is actually more comparable with Altiris, although I'll now look into it, as I have never heard of FarStone before :-\ Apologies, on my behalf, and on other posters' too, I'm sure no one meant this thread to go this far OT...

Cheers

[eniqmah]

-{ Quote: "You're quite right Rasheed :thumb: Good observation. Well, the post #2 did it all, after that all the posters (including me ;D ) just got carried away. The whole thread is OT :D Yes, FarStone is actually more comparable with Altiris, although I'll now look into it, as I have never heard of FarStone before :-\ Apologies, on my behalf, and on other posters' too, I'm sure no one meant this thread to go this far OT...

Cheers" }-

I'm partially sorry. OK...I tried that app a long time ago and hated it because it crippled my comp. That app requires a lot of RAM, the faster the better...but even at that, I doubted after adding RAM it would be any better, so I junked it. There you go.

[Meriadoc]

Hi Rasheed187, is celceo something your using? I noticed it is free and only paid if optimizing. Demo after install...

[Rasheed187]

@ Meriadoc

No, I´m not, I´m very skeptical about these kind of apps, who will promise you better system performance, and it also gave me problems on my virtual machine. It´s just that I expected to see opinions about this app, but all people did was recommending full OS virtualization tools that don´t have anything to to with this product at all. :P