Triona's Tech Tips

A virtual computer is a computer that runs inside a software program on another computer. Often used by large companies to save on server costs, they can also be used to great advantage by small businesses and consumers.

You may be familiar with dual-boot computers, in which a computer can be started in either of two different operating systems (say, Windows XP or Windows 7). But dual-boot computers can only run one operating system at a time. It’s hard to share data, and if you want to switch between them you have to reboot. With a virtual computer, both systems run simultaneously, allowing you to quickly access the resources you need.

How can this benefit you? What if you want to upgrade to Windows 7, but you still have some software that only works in Windows XP? You could run a virtual version of Windows XP in Windows 7. Or, if you have a Mac, you can get the best of both worlds by running a virtual version of Windows on your Mac.

You’ll need special software to create a virtual computer. Some examples include VMWare Workstation for Windows, VMWare Fusion for Mac, and Parallels Desktop for Windows and Mac.

The biggest disadvantage of a virtual computer is that it takes up a lot of memory and hard drive space. That’s because you are effectively running two computers on one set of hardware. If your computer is relatively new this won’t be a problem, but older computers will slow down significantly when running virtual computers on top of their regular operating systems.

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