Do many here use vmware for virtualization? Seems most use hyper-v cause its built in and its free, or virtualbox, because its free.
vmware player is free and can run an ESXi host.
is there something hyper-v or virtualbox does better than vmware? just a preference? cost (everyone assumes vmware equals big bucks)?
My setup:
In order of preference, I use Hyper-V as it is a type one hypervisor (sits along side existing OS rather than on top of it).
One weakness of HyperV is it is not Linux friendly and most distros can only be installed in basic mode, not enhanced mode which means no sound or easy access to Windows drive. The one exception is ubuntu where you can add xrdp and pulseaudio to get sound.
If all you are using are Windows guests, then apart from Home which does not have an RDP server (so can only be used in basic mode), it is no contest - use Hyper-V.
However, vmware (free version) and virtualbox can run Linux distros easily enough.
Until recently my preference was to use vmware as I think it has been more robust, but recently Macrium Reflect introduced the ability to mount Reflect images using Macrium Viboot inside a virtualbox vm. This is for Home users. Pro users could do this with HyperV for years.
Although it is now possible to run virtualbox and vmware on a pc with HyperV installed, it is painfully slow as it uses some HyperV APIs to enable this. It is still much faster to turn off HyperV.
The main reason why people thing VMware is costly is the website makes it quite difficult to find the free version, and I suspect VMWare would really like to drop it but need it to stop people 'defecting'.
PS it is easy to activate HyperV on Home.
Enabling HyperV on Home
Last edited by cereberus; 14 Sep 2021 at 02:04.
@tomdsr
VMware works better for Older / legacy Os'es -- I think you might have problems wanting to run XP or VISTA under HYPER-V - remember XP doesn't have SATA drivers and only USB2 support. (You might be able to find SATA drivers for XP but "is it worth the bother").
VMWare though has a snag if you want to run the VM's while you are logged out of the system.
HYPER-V is better for W10 / W11 VM's but it does require a Windows HOST.
These things all depend on what you want your VM to do of course. Remember also that even if you do get a VM to run with HYPER-V on a Windows HOME edition, you'll have problems rdp'ing to it remotely.
One thing using Linux hosts though - is that VM's can be installed entirely in "Command mode" i.e no GUI needed so the KVM Hypervisor can be extremely efficient too when running VM's and you cam pass a lot of the physical hardware straight through to the VM. For Windows you can usually log on to a "Text type" Linux server via telnet or ssh. Accessing a Windows VM on such a machine remotely from Windows -- RDP will work in the normal way provided the VM is a Windows PRO / Enterprise type edition.
Cheers
jimbo
Thats my biggest reason for vmware over hyper-v. I want to be able to create more than just a windows 8 and above machine
I use VMware Workstation Pro for my home lab, but I largely use it because it provides a better way to interact with VMs running under vCenter than the web client or VMRC (and I get a free license through work), not because I think it's some great product. I think it's not the most well-written product, and I believe it's largely done by cheaper overseas developers. My lab machine has 128GB, and if I power up ~8 VMs or so, it will start to hang and become unreliable. This has been an issue for years and through many versions, too. I keep holding out hope they'll fix the issues, but I think at this point VMware consider it a 'prosumer' product and do the bare minimum to keep it aligned with other product versions. They really haven't done anything with it in a pretty long while.
If it were not for the vCenter hook, I'd user Hyper-V on my lab machine in a minute.
In the end, it is horses for courses. For intensive purposes vmware and virtualbox are pretty much the same thing as both are type type 2 hypervisors.
I prefer type 1 hypervisors as they are more efficient in use of system hardware.
What's the difference between Type 1 vs. Type 2 hypervisor?
If you want to run a variety of OSs, HyperV is fine if sound is not an issue.
If you prefer to use a type 2 hypervisor, I would go with virtual box as it cam be used with Reflect Viboot.
Of course, you can have both HyperV and Virtualbox installed, but when you run vb, I would disable Hyperv before using vb (not essential but much faster).
So there is no right or wrong answer, it is just a function of what you are doing.
Personally I have both HyperV and VB and use HyperV most of the time, as it is far superior in running Windows VMs. One shoukd bear in mind HyperV was developed for the corporate Windows market and was ported to the domestic market. It was never designed to be an all purpose tool.
I never run Windows VMs (apart from Home but that is rare) on vb.
So I see one as primarily a Windows vm tool and the other as a primarily non windows tool.
For many users, vb (or vmware) is fine as an all purpose tool.
As an aside, I usually install VB in a separate cloned version of my C drive cloned to a native boot vhd, with vhd in a different partition to C drive.
This is purely to keep my C drive storage lean and mean for backup purposes.
I think HYPER-V can create W7 VM's too -certainly x_64 versions -- perhaps the main users of HYPER-V on these forums can confirm or otherwise the ease / difficulty of running W7 Virtual machines on HYPER-V.
I'm sure one issue might be HOST/VM communication as I'm sure in any case W7 requires SMB1 for any sort of network communication.
Cheers
jimbo
We begin to repeat this info in the long run, it seems.
To confirm this and make it clear:
YES
Windows 7 x86 and x64 both can be installed in Hyper-V. Guest integrations (I believe you can install older ones from 2012 iso) requires SP1.
YES
Windows XP also works in Hyper-V. XP x86 SP3 tested and running fine. XP x64 SP2 tested and running fine.
NOTE:
There is IDE support for a Gen-1 VM so it's irrelevant to mention SATA-only stuff since all Gen-1 VMs in Hyper-V use IDE as standard, even Windows 7. So there is no issue installing both 7 and XP.
Cheers!
- - - Updated - - -
To answer the OP topic:
If you like how your VMs run, you are familiar with the settings, use your program of choice.
Here I don't use VMWare lately. I was a big fan of Player in the past but it began to be less interesting feature-wise with time since Workstation was mostly promoted. I considered getting Workstation but I noticed it will be an investment with each major upgrade.
Then I moved to VirtualBox... was fine for quite some time and it still is a well-supported program. My issues began with the extra security features of Windows 10 and how the hypervisor integrates with the system.
I began running Hyper-V mostly because of the integration with the system.
Long time VirtualBox user, I got issues with Core Isolation / Memory Integrity where I could not run the VMs.
Also when testing Hyper-V I couldn't use VirtualBox, or now in 'turtle-mode' if Hyper-V is enabled.
Then there is the fact that all I test on the Windows PC can be run in Hyper-V and the advantage of the hypervisor being built-in; no need for extra installs of third-party programs.
There are also some known Linux distro's to work in Hyper-V so the basic Linux stuff can be run there as well.
For all other OSes I run those on my other Linux host in QEMU/KVM.
HYPER-V can create Linux VM's -- I have no idea about Solaris though.
@Hopachi
I did manage to create an XP VM on a HYPER-V machine which itself is a VM on KVM. If you do that though (nested VM's on KVM) you need to enable nested VM's in your kernel -- so HOST KVM->W10 VM with HYPER-V -> XP VM.
response wasn't actually as bad as I thought it would be - so long as you have decent hardware and plenty of RAM -- also avoid slow HDD's.
Cheers
jimbo
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