Well ladies and gentlemen, it’s clearly beta season in MicrosoftLand, what with Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 and suchlike. This got me thinking about the joys and pains of running betas in virtual machines. The problem is, Microsoft’s two most commonly used virtual environments – Virtual PC 2007, and Virtual Server 2005 – don’t support running 64-bit operating systems. This remains true even if you’re running these virtual environments on 64-bit-capable hardware. And, as you all know by now, Server 2008 R2 is 64-bit only.
Ironically, VMware Workstation is able to run Server 2008 R2, as long as you have 64-bit-capable hardware underneath it. In fairness, you can do the same with Hyper-V, but Hyper-V requires Server 2008, and lots of organizations don’t yet have Server 2008 – which is why they want to evaluate Server 2008 R2. Maybe the best solution is Sun’s VirtualBox, which not only runs Server 2008 R2 without breaking a sweat, but which also pulls off the trick of being able to run a 64-bit OS as a guest on a 32-bit host. Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about – software that is smart enough to get the job done even in non-ideal circumstances.
For me, the bottom line is that Virtual PC 2007 and Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 are not worth bothering with anymore and any company that has standardized on them should be planning to get off that bandwagon ASAP. If you want to stay in MicrosoftLand, Hyper-V is making strides, but for beta-testing purposes, I think it’s tough to beat the flexibility and sheer technical excellence of VirtualBox.
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