Windows 7 Virual Box vs VMware Player

[davidhk129]

Would some please teach this newbie the differences between the 2, and what might be the pros and cons of the 2 mentioned ?
Thank you.

 

[badrobot]

I am under the impression that Virtual Box is more for experienced geeks who really knows what they're doing. I've only tried the VMWare so far and it's very easy to use.

 

[strollin]

They are both very capable VM environments. I believe VirtualBox has the edge since it will allow you to take "snapshots" (similar to restore points) that will allow you to revert back to a previous point.

You can't go wrong with either one, they're both free so try them both and see which you prefer.

 

[Joe S]

I don't know about the present version of VirtualBox but earleir versions were a pain to network. You had to create the bridged network manually. VM ware does it automatically.
Joe

 

[strollin]

I haven't needed to manually setup the network in VirtualBox in recent memory.

 

[admkng]

Virtual machine Virtualbox has more abilities for working.

 

[whs]

It is a tea versus coffee question. I have used Virtual Box for many years but always had some little gremlins with it. Now I am using VMware Player to run 6 virtual systems (Linux and Windows 8). It is more elegant and easier - I think.

Here is a series of tutorials and demos with VMware Player that I made.

 

[Jimbo22]

With windows 8 Pro and 8.1 Pro, Hyper-V is built in and is an excellent choice for a VM and it's easy to use.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/hyper-v-run-virtual-machines

 

[strollin]

Hyper-V has too many restrictions. For instance, it only runs on 64-bit Win 8.x Pro.or Enterprise. In addition, it has a very limited number of supported Guest OSes.

I would rate VirtualBox or VMWare Player above Hyper-V.

 

[ussnorway]

I'm not sure what you consider to be a "supported Guest OSes" but I personally have XP, win7, windows server08, windows server 2012r2, Ubuntu 12, an edian firewall and a dns server (centos 6) running from my home hyper-v server.

 

[strollin]

Supported Guest OSes are those OSes that are supported by MS and MS will provide support should you have any problems setting them up or running them. Here is the list of support guest OSes for Hyper-V:

Windows 8
Windows 8.1
Windows 7 with Service Pack 1 (SP 1)
Windows 7
Windows Vista with Service Pack 2 (SP2)
Windows XP with Service Pack 3 (SP3)
Windows XP x64 Edition with Service Pack 2 (SP 2)
Linux

There are only a couple of versions of Linux supported.

In contrast, here is a link to the supported guest OSes for VirtualBox https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Guest_OSes

The fact that an OS isn't supported doesn't preclude you from using it as you have done, it's simply that MS makes no promises that it will work nor will they provide any help in making it work.

 

[Jimbo22]

 

[ussnorway]

Microsoft supports all their current products so you would need to add at least server 08, 12 and 12r2 to that list nevertheless I think I do see your point… I'd personally feel a little weird asking Microsoft for help setting up my edian firewall but I'd like a surety here, are you saying that a client using virtualbox to install say "QNX 4.25" can ring their helpdesk to sort the issues out?

To be clear, whatever software does the job and feels right 'to you' equals a good fit and more power to you.

 

[RuskinF]

There is a difference between Virtual Box and VMWare. I will list one of the differences that is not widely known.
Here it is:

Oracle VirtualBox is a cross-platform solution that can be installed on Linux, Windows, Solaris, macOS, FreeBSD.

In a case of using VMware products the situation differs. VMware Workstation and Player can be installed on Linux as well as Windows; and VMware Fusion can be installed on macOS.

As you can see, VirtualBox supports a higher number of host operating systems.