VMWare Player vs FDISR

Hi Meriadoc

Thanks for the heads up. I think I am going with VMware. I don't mind the price if it works. I did try the Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 beta. It worked great, but I couldn't get any networking to work, so that shut me down. WHen I tried the VMware the networking worked great. In fact the only thing I couldn't do is burn to a dvd. The error message told me there was a driver I could download from Vmware that would solve the problem. I just see vmware as a more mature product worth the money.

Pete

PS VMware works great on a machine with FDISR on it. I probably won't try installing FDISR inside a vm as I just don't see any point. Hmm. Might try it for fun, after I see I can image a VM.

 

Actually one thing you can do with VM Workstation is take snapshots, and then later restore the machine to that snapshot condition. Hmm. Warming up credit card.

 

Absolutely unbelievable. Okay I bought VMware WorkStation First of all you have to have resources. I setup a virtual machine with 2 processors(I have a dual core machine), a 20g virtual harddrive, and 1024 Meg of ram.

Naturally I installed the VMware software in a FDISR snapshot. No issues.
Then I install Windows XP Pro, updated it, and install OAFW ,KAV and Prevx1.

Today for grins I decided to see what I could do in terms of the original question. Just in case I cloned the machine to play with a copy.

Then in the virtual machine:

I first installed Raxco's Perfect Disk 8. Fine. Then I did an offline defrag which went perfectly. Then did a regular defgrag. That also went fine.

With that working I got braver and installed FDISR. Went fine. I installed the patch to bring it current, and then reset the service to RSS. Finally I built a 2nd snapshot. Again all went well. I booted to the 2nd snapshot from with in FDISR's gui. No problem. Then from the 2nd snapshot, I rebooted, and used the F1 intercept to boot back to the primary.

Bottom line: FDISR worked fine in a VMware virtual machine with VMware installed in a host FDISR snapshot. Confusing eh.

Like I said Unbelievable. Staggers the imagination with the possiblities.

Oh one other thing I tested was the VM snapshots. Took one before installing FDISR. Installed FDISR, and then reverted to the snapshot. FDISR was gone. Only problem is anything done after the snapshot is gone permenantly.

Where can the Wilders crew take this.

Pete

Edit: Am I going to us FDISR in the VM. Not sure it makes sense, but having it there does match the configuration of my system and for that reason I might leave it.

 

ROFL!!

 

Thanks Sukarof

Going to have to try it. It was education installing windows. If you use the converter and load into a VM machine do you have to reactivate?

Pete

 

ROFL

Actually someone suggested to me I try building a vm machine to my satisfaction, and then installing VMware in that machine, and see how many layers deep can get. No thanks.

As I said the only real point to leaving FDISR on the vm machine is just to match my setup for testing. I am not sure I see any real purpose to it.

Any suggestions?

Pete from inside somewhere.

 

Hi Meriadoc

Actually I bought VMware for a practical reason. I run some stuff, that admittedly is almost like installing a virus. This way it's not clogging up the host, and I can easily dispose of it if I chose.

When I was asking for suggestions it was for the use of FDISR in a virtual machine. The snapshot feature makes it sort of redundant.

Pete

PS. Yeah there is a "toy" aspect to this program.

 

Hi Acadia

Believe it or not the Vmware virtual machine is simplier than FDISR. I can take a snapshot with one click and typing a name. No reboot. If I want to revert to that snapshot, it's one click and no reboot. If I want to go sideways I can clone my machine. The time it takes is probablyl a function of the size of the virtual hardrive. Mine is 20gig, so it takes a few minutes.

One of the things I am using it for is AOL. I have had an aol address for so long, changing it isn't an option. Unfortunately their software is the best way to keep software history and equally unfortunately the software is just so much bloat. I really didn't want to install it on my new machine, so I didn't. It's sits in the virtual machine, and I can use it as I like, but it's not clogging up my machine.

Cheers,

Pete

 

I actually already tried that with Outlook 2003. It just didn't work that well and screwed up my pop3 accounts. Ended up disabling it. The other AOL feature I love is the CD quality Radio@aol. Since the VM machine can use my machines sound card, the quality is excellent. This part is actually working better than I hoped.

Pete

 

No, not by a long shot. To do the same thing with FDISR, I'd have to either make another snapshot, or archive. Then when I want AOL I'd either have to boot to that snapshot, or, update with the archive, and then update with a non AOL archive when done. That would sort of preclude doing anything else that I might want to preserve.

With the VM, I can as I am doing right now, work in the primary snapshot thus preserving anything I do, and the VM with AOL is there running minimized.


ON a slightly different angle, going back to what Eric was doing, trying to keep one frozen snapshot to do stuff in, it is really easy with VM. No reboots or anything, just revert to a snapshot when done. Downside of course is cost.



Pete