New to virtualization

I am totally new to virtualization but have pretty much decided to go with VMware since I understand its the most comprehensive and powerful of the programs available.

I want to do two things primarily.

1: create a replica of my current XP setup so I can run legacy apps (especially Lotus 123)

2: create a Mac app capable VM so I can run a few apps that I cannot get MS compatible versions for.

To begin with which modules do I need to get from VMware in order to do this or do I just need VMware Workstation?

 

If you're going to dedicate hardware to this, you might consider VMware's free version of ESXi. It's a bare metal hypervisor, and will be faster than Workstation.

If you get a Mac VM working, please share

 

Thanks for your post,,,I took a look at ESXi and it says you need at least 3 servers in order to have the recourses for it (?). I do not.

I would like to keep things as simple as possible to start. I like VMware because I can start with Player and then, once I am comfortable with it, maybe move to Workstation without having to learn to new an interface (hopefully).

AS to running a Mac,,,,,I thought this was one of the reasons folks are using virtualization. Is there some reason you cannot do this?

 

I guess I was wrong about this but I did find the following from Lifehacker


http://lifehacker.com/5435481/run-snow-leopard-in-a-virtual-machine-in-windows

 

You need just two computers. One runs the ESXi host. ESXi is rather picky about hardware requirements, but isn't as bad as it used to be. The other runs Windows with the ESXi client, which manages the host and opens VM consoles. VMware also wants you to run vCenter on another computer, but that's optional. You need that for managing multiple ESXi hosts.

VMware Player is a good place to start. VirtualBox is also good, but the GUI only exposes very basic stuff. You'd eventually need to learn VBoxManage command line. ESXi is nice because the GUI lets you get at everything it does.

Maybe I gave up too fast. But I have no real reason to want Mac VMs. I was just curious.

 

Thanks again, your input is much appreciated. I shall begin with Player and see where things go from there.