VMWare Player vs FDISR

Discussion in 'FirstDefense-ISR Forum' started by WilliamP, Dec 10, 2006.

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  1. kennyboy

    kennyboy Registered Member

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    I have found out how easy that is to do. So, I changed the Windows colour scheme for each different VM or snapshot so that I can see where I am. It helps...........sorta..:doubt:
     
  2. Longboard

    Longboard Registered Member

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    @Peter2150
    Pete, could you elaborate on this.
    I have found BING to be useful in setting partitions in VM but I dont quite get the
    Part of what you were doing.

    PS:Im sure you have seen this
    http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=303

    and from TB:
    Regards
     
  3. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    What I was doing was testing something to be sure when I did it for real on my system I wasn't going to hose myself.

    I imaged the drives first, and then downsized the partition on the c drive leaving the unallocated space alone. Did the testing I wanted. What the above was about was how to put the disk back no matter what I did to them. It was doing this that I discovered I could leave myself in a situation that IFW could handle, at least not without using Imageall, I already discounted that. With ShadowProtect if I just tried restoring the original image it would fail because the partition wasn't big enough, but I could first delete the volume, and then tell it to recreate an exact partition, and then bingo, my disk was back like it started.

    Irony in all this was I first picked up BootitNG after testing it on one machine. Didn't test it on both, and the other machine it wouldn't work. No recovery medium other than Winpe or BartPe has worked, so I picked up Acronis Disk Director and that worked fine.

    Pete
     
  4. wilbertnl

    wilbertnl Registered Member

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    And then there is also the free Innotek VirtualBox (11 MB download).
    It comes with snapshot features and USB support.
    It might compete well with MS Virtual PC and Parallels.
     
  5. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    I liked the screenie, of Vista run on a vm box, running....... Wilbert, are you going to give it a whirl?
     
  6. wilbertnl

    wilbertnl Registered Member

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    I did an XP installation in VirtualBox and overall I'm very pleased with the experience.
    VirtualBox has some bugs, though, I had one BSOD (inside the VM) when rebooting after the MS hotfix updates, and when I close VB it sometimes shows an error.

    But the VM itself is very responsive, better than MS Virtual PC and Parallels. It allocates all the configured resources at once.
    Also accessing shared folders is fast like regular disk access, but setting up shared folders requires awkward command line input.
    (you can also use network shares, of course)

    I also took a snapshot after I finished the installation and wiped the virtual disk. The virtual disk rendered unbootable, after discarding the 'current state' snapshot, Windows XP Welcome Screen was smiling again at me. Snapshots work!
    Multiple snapshots are supported, but it's not possible to switch back and forth.
    When you delete older snapshots, their status get merged into the newer snapshots.

    VirtualBox offers the feature that is similar to the undo disk of MS Virtual PC, I didn't find the differencing disk or linked cloning disk feature yet.

    Compared to the free available VM's by VMware, Microsoft and the paid Parallels, I think that Innotek offers the most features and excellent user experience, even with the few bugs.

    Anyone tried Xen Express yet? :D
     
    Last edited: Jan 16, 2007
  7. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    It sounds cool, and a good way for an intro into this fascinating area. I started thinking it was going to be a play thing, and the Microsoft 2007 beta was a bit disappointing in that I couldn't get the networking working. Once I tried the VMware workstation, things moved from play to this could be a serious tool. With the purchase of workstation, I've sort of stopped playing.

    Man this really a cool field. Thanks for the info Wilbert.

    Pete
     
  8. wilbertnl

    wilbertnl Registered Member

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    I think that I'm still playing and trying to get a map of all the features in the free available releases that I know of.
    Actually, there are way more virtualization solutions than I know.

    But I don't think I would have to switch snapshots (on the host) anymore, I would simply boot into a VM and start evaluating. I value snapshots and differencing disks in VM's the most, together with a responsive user experience. Although USB support is nice, I think I can live without that.

    I'm thinking of web designers who need to test their code in all available browsers, it's easy to maintain a couple VM's with conflicting browser setups. And testing would be faster than booting into several snapshots in FD-ISR.

    Would the combination of imaging software and VM software be a reasonable replacement of snapshot software?
    I tend to think so.
     
  9. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    I'd say Yes but. For me FDISR is an essential part of the imaging strategy. I've stopped verifying images, as that is very time consuming. The restore is the verify. If it fails, I don't care, just go to an earlier image. This is where FDISR is king. Older image, and I can get current with an FDISR archive.

    For sure though the VM machines offer the ability to test certain things that snapshots can't do.
     
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