Virtualizations are not limited to Computer platform only. With ever growing hardware power of the mobile phones and complex smaprt phone OS platform, Virtualization companies like VMware is moving towards pushing mobile virtualization to mainstream for corporate users.

Take a look at the demonstration video of VMware to understand the power and potential of Mobile Virtualization for IT companies and their employees.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMR952HjUh8

This is a very interesting and new concept which may change the way we use our phones for official requirements.

If you using Windows Virtual PC with your Windows 7 computer and have updated your Windows 7 to Windows 7 SP1 (Service Pack 1), then its time for you to get the updated Windows Virtual PC application.

This new updated installer has been released to accommodate few extra features coming with Windows 7 Service Pack 1.

Download the Windows Virtual PC -> http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=2b6d5c18-1441-47ea-8309-2545b08e11dd (Both x86 and x64)

We have already seen the benefit Virtualization and implementation of it. From Servers (Hyper-V / MET-V) to desktop (App-V), virtualization is giving users wide range of options to play with.

Some times system admins (in server environment) or desktop users (home / small business) may need to play / test certain things in their live systems, while not messing it up. For them, it becomes a need to make a bootable copy of their physical running OS and run it in virtual environment for the said task.

That brings up the most important question.

How to to turn a physical / host OS (Windows) in to a bootable VHD format (Virtual / Guest OS) ?

One of the easiest and free to use software is Disk2vhd. Simple under 1MB software lets you create a usable VHD of your physical OS.

The software supports following OS,

• Windows XP SP2+
• Windows Server 2003 SP1+
• Windows Vista
• Windows Server 2008
• Windows 7
• Windows Server 2008 R2

The only draw back of the service is the limitation of Virtual PC not supporting disc size of more than 127GB, so beware about your system drive size.

However you tense to forget about the limitations and draw backs since its one of the very few software available to get the process done on a live running system.

Download -> Disk2vhd @ Microsoft TechNet

Daemon Tools (Free / Paid)

Daemon tools is one of the oldest and widely used software in this category. There are 2 versions of this product available, as both free and paid-ware. Supports Windows XP / Vista / 7 (x64/x86).

Since the time they have started to sell a paid copy of the product, the free version has started to pack some bloatware like browser tool bars and certain add-ons. However you would be presented with options under custom installation to install the software without these add-ons. Where as the paid versions allows you to create 32 virtual drives supporting Blue-Ray also.

The free version wights around 9MB in size and the Advance version costs around 40 Euro.

Alcohol 120% and Alcohol 52% (Paid)

It was meant as a burning software but became popular for its ability to create and load virtual disc images.

The Alcohol 120% is also known for this ability to read from scratched or damaged discs. It allows you to create upto 31 virtual drives and has a support for wide range of operating systems, supporting Windows 2k, XP (x64 / x86), Server 2k3 (32bit / 64bit) / Server 2k8 (x86 and x64), Vista (x86 and x64), Windows 7 (32bit / 64bit).

One may obtain a time limited trial version of this software before purchasing the full version at Euro 40.

PowerISO (Paidware)

Another software originally made as a CD / DVD burner, but have succeeded more as a mounting software.

Although the software itself is a paidware but the actual mounting support is given free as an add-on download. The software supports a wide range of imaging format, including .DAA (Direct-Access-Archive is an advanced format for image file) files. This is the only software in this list which supports Windows 98 and Windows ME along with all above version of windows, both 32 and 64bit.

The software retails at USD 30 and allows a time limited full featured trial via their trial download given at their website.

MagicISO (Paid) / MagicDisc (Freeware)

Once again another burner turned virtual drive software. The MagicISO provides a free independent add-on called MagicDisc.

The software retails at around USD 30, where as the MagicDisc is offered free. One may also try out their trail version of the burning software MagicISO.

MagicISO / MagicDisc supports almost al versions of Windows, starting fro Win98 to 64bit version of Win7 and Server 2k3 R2 (Beta).

Virtual Clone Drive (freeware)

Arguably the best free solution available for virtualizing the CD or DVD image files. It supports almost all imaging format like ISO / Bin / CCD and allows you to create upto 8 virtual drives.

One of the popular feature of this software would the context menu add-on which allows you to mount or unmount an image file by just right clicking on it.

The Virtual CloneDrive weights just a couple of MB and can be downloaded free. It supports Windows 98 to Windows 7 including both 32 and 64bit version of it.

By the way, what are the use of these software in real life computing ?

It is possible that the question may pop up to those who are not used to using virtual disc drives, as whats the purpose of these software.

Now days, as we have bigger hard discs, would not it be easy to make an image of the disc you need and keep it in your hard drive. In that way, you can avoid physical ways of changing discs from drives and in case you are a notebook user, then you don’t have to carry so many discs either.

Just one thing to keep in mind. Not every End user license may allow you to make an image of your disc.

If you know about any software supporting Windows 7 (x64) which I have missed to list here, please do post a comment to let me know.

Microsoft is aiming to bring virtualization under mainstream computing via couple of its up coming products.

Windows Virtual PC along with Windows XP mode and MED-V (Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization) are among those products by which Microsoft is aiming to provide both home and business users the ability to utilize the power of virtualization.

The main force behind this move is a basic question which comes up every time when we get a new operating system. That is, application compatibility. Users find it difficult to afford the cost to upgrade / update their  existing applications to make them compatible with the new OS hence adoption of a new OS becomes problematic.

Previously, we have seen that since Windows 2000, Microsoft is running their Windows Downgrade Rights programs to allow users to obtain and downgrade to a previous version of OS. However, with up-coming Windows 7 we can all rest assure about the application compatibility issue.

Windows Virtual PC

A product, specially design for Windows 7 to provide integrated virtualization support.

It is available for download as an add on for Windows 7, and beta testers / RC users can start using it straightway.

What is it exactly ?

Those who are familiar with Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 can understand and adopt soon enough, but those who are not, for them, in simple words, its like a computer running inside another.

Below is a screenshot of the process,

On the picture above, you can see, a computer is running Windows 7 RC 7100 as its physical OS, where as inside Windows 7, with help of Windows Virtual PC, Windows XP SP3 has been installed as guest OS. Both the OS can now run simultaneously, Windows 7 as native physical OS, where as Windows XP via virtualization under Windows Virtual PC.

What’s new in Windows Virtual PC ?

Application Virtualization

The running process is very similar to Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, however something new to this software would be the application virtualization. You can launch an application, which is installed side of the virtual machine without starting the virtual machine itself, compare to other virtualization platform, where you need to run the Guest OS to use any application installed in it.

Hardware support

One more important feature and major development from VPC 2007 is support to access all major physical hardware under virtual environment. With Windows Virtual PC, an user can now access almost all possible USB devices and can use them, even if the host OS (Win7) is missing appropriate drivers of them.

You can now either seamlessly access the connected USB device (storage, printer, modem, etc) in both guest and host OS via Windows VPC or you can redirect the access only to the virtual environment by providing access of that USB device only to the virtual OS.

Seamless resource sharing and shell integration

Unlike previews versions, in Windows VPC, every guest OS has full and seamless access to all  hard / usb drives, printers and other available hardware resource available to your host OS.

Windows XP mode

A ready to be used, pre-configured Windows XP SP3 virtual installation given to Windows 7 users. This pre-configured Guest OS reduces the license fee which may would have to pay with previews versions of MS VPC.

Its bit early to say as which SKU’s or versions of Windows 7 RTM would contain this feature however, higher versions like Ultimate and business is certain to contain this update / feature as default.

As for RC users, the Windows XP mode beta is available for download as an Windows 7 optional update.

Things to note before trying

• Although, both x86 and x64 platforms are support for host os, however, only x86 guest os can run under Windows VPC.

• One must have a processor supporting hardware virtualization to use Windows Virtual PC. Thing to remember is, Microsoft VPC 2007 could actually run with a processor without hardware virtualization. Intel VT and AMD-V are 2 populer hardware virtualization product.

• More RAM, at-least 1.25 GB to run Windows XP mode where as 2 GB is recommenced !!

• At-least 15 GBs of hard disk space, where as minimum of 2 GB free space in your OS drive !!

So gear up and try out the new technology, if having supported hardware ofcource !!