The solution is to use virtualisation tools and on any modern PC this becomes relatively simple (depending on the tools you use).  In my monthly free webcast for February I’m taking a beginner’s look at virtualisation, examining what it is and the different tools available, and looking at how you can use it on your PC to help you keep running older software and how you can have multiple operating systems running side by side.

With a PC bought in the last couple of years you can run multiple operating systems side by side with little or no performance loss overall, as modern processors are very efficient at handling the extra OS calls virtualisation produces, and the amount of memory in modern PCs is more than enough for even demanding tasks.

The webcast takes place online at 10AM PT San Francisco | 6pm – London | 1pm – New York | Fri, Feb  3rd at 5am – Sydney | Fri, Feb  3rd at 3am – Tokyo | Fri, Feb  3rd at 2am – Beijing | 11:30pm – Mumbai on Thursday 2nd February.  It’s completely free and if you can’t make it live you can watch it recorded afterwards provided you have registered before it begins.  You can register for this webcast here.

Virtualisation, first of all, is the process of running an operating system on a computer that isn’t natively installed there.  The whole OS is instead installed inside a file called a Virtual Machine (VM).  This file is comparable to a ZIP file on your compter in some ways, in fact this is probably the most useful analogy.

The contents of a VM aren’t compressed as those in a ZIP file are, but what you have is a single file, say one called Win7Ult.VM for the sake of argument, that contains within it an entire copy of Windows 7 and additional installed software, with all the file and folder structures intact.

The idea is that you can do one of three things with a VM.  In its simplest terms, best epitomised by Microsoft’s Virtual PC software or Parallels for the Mac, you can run a second operating system on your computer that resides in a window on your standard desktop.  In the second scenario you can boot from one of these virtual machines.  In this case it will appear that you’re running a full operating system that’s installed on your computer in the normal way.  Instead what you’re really doing though is running the VM from within it’s single data file.

Finally, and this is the most common usage now in servers, you can run virtualisation management packages, such as Microsoft’s new Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008, that allows several virtual machines to be run concurrently, each one as if it had been booted from, and each one with it’s own unique processor core and reserved memory.

This is the most common usage for virtualisation at the moment and it permits one server to perform multiple tasks.  It can be, to cite an example, a file server, an email server, a printer server and a web server simultaneously.  There’s more than enough power in modern computers and processors to do all of this without breaking a sweat, so why just have a server run one of these tasks, when it can perform multiple ones simultaneously.

This brings me on to the different types of virtualisation.  For very first, Type-2 is best associated with Microsoft’s Virtual PC.  This type essentially runs in an emulator.  This emulator pretends to be a computer, with its own processor, memory and such.  Instead, none of that hardware actually exists.  It’s all virtual and the emulator interprets commands and sends the traffic back and forth with your real hardware.

This isn’t very useful for many tasks as it is quite limited and won’t easily give a virtualised OS access to hardware such as graphics cards, USB devices and printers.

This is where Type-1 virtualisation comes into play.  This type has full access to much of your computers hardware, including peripheral devices.  With Type-1 virtualisation though there is a driver which loads the virtual hard disk (VHD) but the virtual machine has full access to other hardware including the memory and processor.  Examples of Type-1 virtualisation are XP Mode in Windows 7 and Boot Camp on the Mac.  In the case of the latter, Type-1 virtualisation is required because the Mac uses a very different BIOS system to Windows.  Thus a driver is required to interpret traditional PC BIOS calls and translate them for the platform they’re actually using.

Type-0 virtualisation is not available in many products but Windows Server 2008′s Hyper-V (which is rumoured to also be making an appearance in some editions of Windows 8) is perhaps the best known example.  This type of virtualisation does away with the need for any interpretation layer between the hardware and the VM.  It won’t work on every piece of hardware, for instance the Mac will always need a Type-1 interface for the reasons I explained earlier.  On Server systems though, and other computer systems where each VM is tailored for that specific hardware it the option that will provide the best performance and the lowest power consumption.

The world is now moving towards Type-0 virtualisation because the lack of any additional layers between the OS and the hardware will mean there’s less for the computer to do.  This makes everything more efficient.  Type-2 VMs are now hardly seen and, with Type-1 VMs having made it to our desktops some years ago now, the future for virtualisation is looking very good indeed.

Then in 2009 virtualisation found its way onto the mainstream PC with Microsoft’s Virtual PC.  These early Type 2 VMs (Virtual Machines) were limited in functionality though.  Everything was virtualised, including the hardware.  The VM core was essentially an emulator for earlier processors and other hardware.  Thus anything that ran in an VM couldn’t access the full power of the hardware in your computer.  This made them slow, unable to access peripherals such as printers and USB drives, and not tremendously useful for the majority of tasks.

The other problem with Type 2 VMs was that on many occasions people found that their software simply wouldn’t run on them.  Many software packages required access to better hardware than the VM could emulate, or access to peripherals to work properly.  Finally you always had two operating systems running concurrently on your computer even if you weren’t using your main one.  This would push up your electricity consumption and make the process of running VMs very costly.

This can also present all manner of problems accessing server-side, and cloud-ready resources.  The VM was almost always cut off from the outside world unless careful and technical configuration took place.  Clearly a better solution had to be found.

Eventually new types of VM appeared including the Type-1.  This was able to give the virtual machine full access to the computer’s hardware, though it still operated the OS in a virtualised environment, not as a full OS with the full processing capability of your Intel or AMD chip.  Windows 7 was the first major OS to include a ‘boot from VM’ option.  It takes a bit of tinkering to get the thing to work, but you can use this to actually boot your computer from a VM running Windows 7. 

This bootable VM has full access to all your hardware and peripherals and you’d never know it was a VM you were using.  The problem with Windows 7′s option though is that it’s very hard to configure and of limited usefulness because you can only use it with these two editions of Windows 7.  Another example of this is Apple’s boot camp, which uses Type-1 virtualisation because it has to emulate the standard BIOS in PCs.

But why would you want to do this anyway?  From my own experience in support it can be an enormous time-saver.  Images can be easily built on central servers and rolled out quickly and quietly to PCs across a business network with almost no productivity downtime.  There’s no upgrade involved as it’s simply a case of copying a new file over to a PC containing the virtualised image.  This also makes it very fast to restore in the event a Windows or other software error occurs in the VM.

But you still were stuck with performance issues.  Now that dual and quad core processors are the norm however, virtualisation was able to take the next leap, and new Type-0 hypervisors are now appearing.

The main difference between a Type-2 and a Type-0 is that with the latter everything, including the main OS, runs on your core hardware.  This means that you would never know the difference between a virtualised and a ‘real’ OS.  It’s clever too as it can use the hardware in such as way as to maintain several of these Type-0 operating systems at the same time (depending on the virtualisation solution you buy into).

The main benefits to new Type-0 virtualisation though comes in the way they can be used within their own ecosystem.  You can create whole virtualised server systems to work with them (the Type-0 machines can also run perfectly well offline though as well).  On the face of it this means that you can’t do anything with a PC that can’t ordinarily be done with a standard installation of your OS.  But…

This system does so much more.  By allowing full access to your hardware you can avoid costly new hardware upgrades required for older VM solutions.  You can also run the code natively on the local machine, avoiding the need for the VM to have to run on an expensive server-side monstrosity and making sure that the VM runs all the time, even when out and about such as a laptop.

I believe the biggest advantage however is for permitting multiple roles for each PC (or laptop).  Let’s say in an organisation you buy two thousand laptops of a certain type for your mobile workers.  In this you have sales staff, HR professionals, managers, executives and more.  Each worker will require their own build and in a traditional Windows scenario where installations take time to build and even longer to deploy, assuming a stable connection to the central server can even be maintained, this is a pain and can be hugely expensive.

In a Type-0 virtualisation environment you can deploy multiple images simultaneously (and securely away from the prying eyes of the worker) or quietly in the background as they work.  They need never know this is happening, need never have a single minute of downtime, and switching the computer between roles is a simple matter of changing a single setting in a configuration file.

Type-0 hypervisors are certainly the way forward, Microsoft know this and they’ll finally be able to use it as an excuse to drop all the legacy code support in Windows 8.  This will make the switch to VMs even more important for both businesses and consumers who have older software and hardware that they’re either very fond of or have come to rely on.

While true holistic Type-0 solutions are currently thin on the ground, a notable exception being AppSense and zInstall’s forthcoming Zirtu product, we’ll see much more of these in the next couple of years.  Before too long everything will be virtualised for the benefits of stability, security and dependability, and this will be a future worth embracing.

Returnil System Safe Pro clones the operating system and loads an identical copy of it, instead of the real deal. While that does not change anything related to rights, it ensures that viruses, trojans, worms and other malicious software will not be able to stay permanently on the system. It works in this regard much like a LIVE CD where it is also not possible to save data on once it has been burned.

But Returnil System Safe Pro is more than that. Before we go into detail we need to look at how the program operates.

Returnil places an icon on the computer desktop after installation. This toolbar acts as a control panel for the application. The very same options are provided by the system tray icon as well. Users can disable either one, or even both of them, in the program preferences.

Returnil System Safe Pro will not start the virtual mode automatically, it is up to the user to do that. The homepage screen shows the current system status including if virtual mode is active or not. Virtual Mode is the virtualization mode that lets the user work with a copy of the operating system.

Virtual Mode can be activated straight away from the home page of the program. This is a fluent process that does not require a restart or configuration at all. With Virtual Mode active, all changes to the system are by default not saved. This includes pictures, documents or any other data that is saved to it during the mode.

It would not be very handy if one could not save data at all. That’s where the built-in file manager comes into play. The file manager can be used to break the virtual shell and save selected files to specified folders on the hard disk to have access to them after shutting down Returnil’s virtual mode. Users can define files or folders that should remain after restart.

Most activities in virtual mode remain only active as long as the mode is active. This includes for instance program installations and web browsing activities. There are a few exceptions to the rule. Everything that you do online, like writing a blog post, remains online as long as it is stored online. Returnil System Safe Pro furthermore protects only the main partition of the computer where the operating system is stored. It is possible to save data to other partitions if available or external drives. Finally, it is also possible to save data to network drives.

The computer needs to be restarted if the user wants to leave virtual mode again. This is done to load the original operating system without the changes that have been made to it during virtual mode. Returnil System Safe Pro can be configured to always start in virtual mode which could be beneficial in test environments or public computer systems.

Returnil in addition offers realtime virus protection which can be disabled if another antivirus solution is already in use on the system.

Where Returnil System Safe Pro Can Help

• Keeps your computer safe when browsing the Internet and working in the cloud
• Viruses, Trojans, Worms, Adware, Spyware, Keyloggers, Rootkits, unwanted content, and unwise configuration changes disappear with a simple reboot
• Enforces settings and protects your Internet privacy
• System Restore/Rollback feature gives you something to fall back on at all times
• Saves you time and money, by maintaining or improving peak computer performance
• Reduces or eliminates the need for routine maintenance, cleaning, and disk de-fragmentation of your system partition
• Protects you from the consequences of opening infected e-mail and/or attachments
• Leaves absolutely no traces of computer activity
• Eliminates all activities even if your computer is powered-off or crashes
• Eliminates the danger of evaluating new software
• Offers stronger, simpler and smarter protection for your PC
• Seamless integration with supported Windows Operating Systems
• Easy to use, simple to configure, and the one tool in your arsenal that will be there to save the day when all else fails!

The system requirements are the following:

• Supported Windows Operating Systems: 32-bit and 64-bit editions of XP / 2003 Server / Vista / 2008 Server / Windows 7
• Recommended hard drive space: Twice the amount of computer memory, recommended 16 Gigabytes
• CPU and RAM depends largely on the operating system, from 300 MHz cpu and 128 MB of RAM on Windows XP to 1 Gigabyte of RAM and 1 GHz cpu on Windows 7.

Returnil System Safe Pro Verdict

Returnil System Safe Pro’s greatest strength is its simplicity. All it takes to enter virtual mode is a click of the button. Users who just want to use the computer, and those who store their documents online or on secondary partitions, can leave the program settings as they are. Advanced users find enough room for tweaks there as well.

Returnil System Safe Pro Giveaway

We are giving away licenses at the official giveaway website over at Returnil. Everyone gets one after filling out their name and email address. Both the download link and the product key are displayed on the next page. The license is valid for one year.

The official changelog lists all the changes, among them a major rework of the graphical user interface, improvements to OVF (Open Virtualization Format) support, new resource control options to limit a virtual machine’s cpu time and IO bandwidth, storage support for asynchronous I/O iSCSI, VMDK, VHD and Parallels images, support for resiting VFI and VHD images, new virtual hardware and support for more than 1.5/2 GB of RAM on 32-bit hosts.

The developers have also reorganized the application into a base package and extension packs.

Starting with version 4.0, VirtualBox is split into several components.

The base package consists of all open-source components and is licensed under the GNU General Public License V2.

Additional extension packs can be downloaded which extend the functionality of the VirtualBox base package. Currently, Oracle provides the one extension pack, which can be found at http://www.virtualbox.org and provides the following added functionality:

The virtual USB 2.0 (EHCI) device; see the section called “USB settings”.

VirtualBox Remote Desktop Protocol (VRDP) support; see the section called “Remote display (VRDP support)”.

Intel PXE boot ROM with support for the E1000 network card.

VirtualBox extension packages have a .vbox-extpack file name extension. To install an extension, simply double-click on the package file, and the VirtualBox Manager will guide you through the required steps.

The official user manual has already been updated to reflect the changes and feature additions in VirtualBox 4.0. New users should especially take a closer look at the first steps chapter.

Existing users and interested new users find the download of VirtualBox 4.0 at the official website. The download page offers VirtualBox versions for all platforms, the extension packs, developer kits, the user manual in pdf format and sources. (via)

Most Linux distributions are provided as disk image files, so that they can be burned easily to CD or DVD. Some users on the other hand need to put the distributions on USB instead, for instance if they have a mobile device like a netbook without CD or DVD drive.

The free portable software Linuxe Live USB Creator offers one of the easiest options to create a Linux USB stick. The program displays all available options directly in its interface. Most importantly the option to create the bootable USB device from a disk image, CD or by downloading it.

The download option is probably the best for new users, as it is integrated in the software so that no external files are needed to create the live CD.

linux live cd creator

The whole process is completed in five steps. In step one, the usb key is selected from the list of available drives. Then the Linux distribution source is selected. A lot of Linux downloads are included if download is selected, from Ubuntu and variants, to Debian and Fedora variants to specialized Live CDs for security or recovery purposes. More than 50 different distributions and Live CDs are offered for download.

Users who do not find their distribution in the list have to download it separately to use it for the creation of the Live CD. The selected distribution will be checked by the Linux Live USB Creator. In step 3, the persistence of the data can be configured. The default value of 0 Megabytes has the same effect as a Live CD, which is that no data is written to the USB device. The benefit of sparing storage for persistence is that settings and preferences will be saved and are available even after reboots. Definitely something to consider if the distribution is tested or used on more than one occasion.

Step 4 can be used to configure some options, like formatting the USB device in FAT32 before copying the distribution on it. Finally, in step 5 the Live USB distribution is created.

The main advantage of Linux Live USB Creator is its ease of use, and the integration of many many distributions in the program. The program actually offers another feature that may appeal to Windows users: Virtualization of Linux Live in Windows. This basically allows the user to run Linux in Windows without making changes to the computer’s boot order or file structure.

Linux Live USB Creator is available from the developer’s website. It should run on most 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows without problems.

Cameyo is a free application virtualization software for the Windows operating system. It’s main selling point is its ease of use.

The program basically captures software installations, and creates an executable in the end that can be used to start the application on another compatible system.

A basic example would be to capture the installation of the Opera web browser, and the Flash and Java plugins. The virtual Opera browser that is created in the process can then be executed without installation on another system, along with Flash and Java support, even if neither is installed on that machine.

The virtual application runs in a sandbox for extra security of the underlying system.

Application virtualization is often used in organizations and companies, to provide employees with options to start programs in an easier fashion.

Cameyo on the other hand may make sense for some home users as well. Think of creating a browser package with installed plugins for family members for instance, or virtual applications for hard to install and configure programs.

The best part of it is its ease of use. It simply needs to be started after installation to capture the software installation, the virtual application will be created immediately after the Install done button has been pressed. Consult the video above for the full process.

Cameyo can be downloaded from the developer website. They do not offer compatibility information, but it should run fine on most Windows systems. Developers can download the SDK which is also offered on the project website.

Spoon needs to be installed first before it can be used. The Spoon plugin integrates into the Windows operating system. It is compatible with popular web browsers, including Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Opera and Safari.

The Spoon website lists applications and games in various categories. Here it is for instance possible to launch 7-Zip, VLC Media Player, Open Office, Google Talk, Paint.net, Picasa, uTorrent or Notepad++ directly from the web browser.

Buffering may take a while, depending on the speed of the Internet connection, the application’s size and the current load of the Spoon servers. The end result is an application window that looks exactly like the original.

spoon cloud app launcher

From there it can be used like a desktop app. It is for instance possible to load text documents into Notepad++, paste clipboard screenshots into Paint.net or download torrents with uTorrent.

The browser sandbox was a recent addition to Spoon. This sandbox can be used by web developers and interested users to work with web browsers without installation.

Spoon offers access to Internet Explorer 9 to Internet Explorer 6, Mozilla Firefox 4, Firefox 3.6, Firefox 3.5, Firefox 3 and Firefox 2, Google Chrome 6 Dev, Beta and Stable, Apple Safari 5, 4 and 3, and Opera 10 and 9 in the browser sandbox.

spoon

The web browsers can be launched from the Spoon website, and behave exactly like the “real deal” once they have been loaded fully. All operations are available that an installed or portable version of the web browser offers. Firefox users can for instance install plugins in the web browser.

spoon -browser sandbox

Even better is the fact that those customizations are saved, so that they are accessible on future runs of the application.

Spoon offers a flexible and safe way of running applications from a web browser. Users do not have to worry about program downloads or installations, everything is handled by Spoon after the initial installation of the plugin.

It is highly recommended for users who want to run or test applications without installing them first. Spoon is currently only compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Wondershare Time Freeze is a virtualization solution much like Returnil, Sandboxie or Comodo Time Machine. The software is usually offered for $39 but free for a limited time. Users can request a free license for Time Freeze by entering their name and email in the form on the official website.

Time Freeze uses an interesting system. It is possible to enter protected mode and get rid of all changes afterwards by rebooting the system or to leave the protected mode and apply the changed data to the original system. That’s interesting for users who regularly test new programs and applications. Instead of testing them in protected more, rebooting and installing them again if they want to use them they simply can install them in protected mode and leave that mode to keep the software installed. There is obviously a danger to that as well if the user cannot assess the situation correctly.

Wondershare Time Freeze offers both a system protection and folder protection.

System Protection
Simply reboot to restore system to original state. Keep the actual system in a constant state, prevent computer from getting slower and slower with time.
Real-time system protection prevents malicious threats being made and doing harm to your computer.
Clean up computer history: Traces of surfing the internet and computer operation will disappear after reboot (You have the flexibility to save changes of virtual system to the actual system).
Safely play around with computer: Test software and game installations safely on virtual system.

Folder Protection
Mode 1: Prohibit others to access protected folders, let alone opening files in them.
Mode 2: Prohibit changing files in protected folders.
Safe from virus: Protect your files from being infected by viruses or Trojans.
Privacy guard: Protect your privacy effectively.

Users who want to give it a try should check out the demo video below.

The feature to apply changes made in the virtual environment to the real system makes the software interesting.

Wondershare Time Freeze is only compatible with 32-bit editions of the Windows operating system. (via Caschy)

Live PCs can be added easily to the application. The labs section on the MokaFive website lists dozens of potential Live PCs ranging from various MS-DOS versions, Linux distributions to gaming systems and applications. One of the most popular Live PCs is the Fearless browser which is a hardened browsing suite that provides anonymization and security.

The core benefit of running the MokaFive Player is that it is dead easy to use. All it takes is to either start one of the Live PCs that ship with the product or download an additional Live PC from the website. It does not take more than a few clicks to work with a virtual PC system.

The system virtualization software adds a few new features to VMWare Player including:

• Seamless updates of virtual machines. In MokaFive LivePC Engine, users are subscribed to a LivePC so they automatically receive all updates. Updates are sent through an RSS feed that the LivePC subscribes to.
• Streaming and caching of virtual machine images. MokaFive LivePC Engine will stream virtual machine images over the network so you don’t need to download the entire image before starting. It will also cache the image locally so you can work disconnected.
• Integrated backup. When using MokaFive LivePC Engine on a portable device, it will keep a backup so if you lose your portable device, you won’t lose your data.
• Hardware-accelerated 3D graphics support. MokaFive LivePC Engine includes support for DirectX 8 and 9 3D programs. The host graphics adapter is exposed to the guest operating system as a mokzzile 3D accelerator so DirectX applications can run at nearly full speed. Many games exhibit strange behavior such as slow timing in Call of Duty 4.
• Zero install (needs administrative rights) when running from a USB drive. When plugging into a host that does not have MokaFive installed, MokaFive LivePC Engine will dynamically install itself, and then uninstall itself after unplugging.

MokaFive Player is an excellent easy to use system virtualizations solution.

Returnil Premium is a program that can emulate the operating system in a sandbox – a virtual environment – so that changes have no effect on the system itself but only to the sandboxed copy of it. It does not require lots of computer knowledge to run, the only thing that’s out of the ordinary is the (optional) creation of a virtual partition that will be used to store data when the sandbox is active. Here are the steps on how to use the security software:

• Installation: You get some options here most notable to run the system on the hard drive or computer memory. There is also the optional setting to create a virtual partition on the computer system to store data. An alternative would be to use online storage space.
• Running Returnil: You can start Returnil after a restart. Once Returnil is started it will redirected access to the virtual system so that the actual computer system will not be harmed. You can then use whatever application you like. Keep in mind that any changes that have been made to the computer system will be undone after a restart as they have only been made in the virtual system and not the actual one. Here is an example:

  If you bookmark a page while Returnil is running it will show up in the bookmark manager. It will however be gone after a restart of the system.

• Stopping Returnil: The only way to stop Returnil is to reboot the computer system.
• Saving Data: Two ways to save data. The first is to use the virtual partition to store the data on as it will not be erased after a reboot on that partition. The second is by utilizing online storage space. You can sync bookmarks online, save files there, edit Word documents and basically do most things online.

How does Returnil work?

It is obvious that Returnil cannot mirror dozens of Gigabytes of data in the sandboxed environment. There is actually no need to clone the whole system. All that needs to be done is to keep track of the changes to the system and act as a proxy between the computer system and the virtual system.

What are the differences between the free and the premium version of Returnil?

The premium version of Returnil adds quite a few features that make it interesting. The user can choose to cache data in the computer memory or on the hard drive, save sessions to continue working with them at a later point, relocate system folders, to browse and move files between the real hard drive and the virtual drive, shell integration and free customer support.

Returnil Premium adds much needed features to the virtualization software that are missing in the free version. The main benefit of both versions is the simplicity of usage. You only need to press one button to turn the protection on once it has been configured the way you want.

Remember, you can request your Returnil Premium key by following the link on top. Would be still nice to tell us what you think of it.

One small example. Downloading an infected file with your web browser or email client will have no negative impact on the core system. The virus will be executed in the virtual space and once that is purged, either manually or by logging off, it vanishes as if it never was executed in first place.

The software virtualization tool SafeSpace comes with a default set of applications that are always run in the sandbox and provides easy means to add additional applications. Besides that several directories, and their subdirectories, are automatically protected as well. This includes the Windows and Program Files directory among others.

SafeSpace protects the files and registry settings of the operating system by virtualizing any changes made by applications running inside SafeSpace. This means that applications can read the real data of Windows and any programs which are installed. But when applications attempt to make any changes to the real data, a virtual copy is created inside SafeSpace and the changes are made to the virtual data instead to prevent any changes from affecting the real data

SafeSpace provides a very clean and easy to use interface that is divided into a Privacy and Application tab basically. The application tab contains those applications that will run in the virtual environment while the Privacy tab contains folders and their status in the environment. Four statuses are available.

• Virtual: Files can be read normally but write processes are virtualized which ensures that the files remain unchanged
• Private: Applications running in the virtual environment can’t access those folders and files stored within.
• Read Only: Files can be read but no write process is allowed.
• Full Control: Gives virtual applications full control over the files in that folder.

When a software gets launched that is listed in the application list of SafeSpace it is specifically marked with a red border. This is a visual sign for the user that the application is running in a virtual environment.

Any file that gets downloaded from a virtual application will also be run in the virtual environment when it is executed even if it is saved in the “real” part of the hard drive.

The software virtualization application comes with another handy feature, a tool to prevent keyloggers for applications in the virtual environment.

Installation was not a problem at all. Just execute it like any other software and restart the computer at the end. Windows XP users need the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0 if they want to run the software virtualization application.

SafeSpace will have created the sandbox after the restart and applications like Firefox or Internet Explorer will automatically run in it.

All except Ulteo, to be precise, which hovered at the edge of my attention with their OpenOfficeOnline-Beta, for example. Now they’re back with a piece of software called “Virtual Desktop“, which can be confusing judging from the name, or at least I expected something different from it. But it turned out to be another solution to run Linux-software seamlessly in a windows environment, just like the recently extremely popular andLinux (In fact, both are based on the same core, coLinux, a portation of a Unix-kernel to windows). But since Ulteo’s Virtual Desktop uses less disk space in comparison to andLinux’ full-featured ubuntu (2,5-4,5 GB), I decided to give it a try.

Installation was quick, and since I already had an Ulteo-Account (which is not required unless you wanna sync your local data to your online desktop), I didn’t encounter anything unusual at all.

Starting the Ulteo Application inside Windows took quite a bit though, which is not to my liking – I guess it’s anywhere near twice the boot time of the kernel and Desktop Environment, and the memory usage was quite corresponding, which was not to my liking at all.

The amount of included application is allright, it features the newest Firefox and Thunderbird (of course), as well as OpenOffice and my all-time-reason-for-Linux, Amarok (which will soon enough be no reason for Linux anymore, since Amarok 2.0 is bound to happen on Windows as well) in version 1.3.9 – which brings me to the question, why they didn’t include the current Fast Forward release 1.4.9.1, and furthermore to the point of installing own applications, which seems impossible for the time being. I couldn’t figure out how to do it in the launcher, and the website speaks nothing of it.

The sight of the Konquerer hovering above the Windows Explorer was quite appealing though, and it helps to weaken the borders between the windows and the unix world even further, which is – at least in my world – a good thing.

Next time I’ll try andLinux though, regardless of the ~5GB installation of a full-fledged (K)Ubuntu.

Returnil basically clones the system partition of the computer and boots the computer using the clone instead of the real system partition. The effect is of course that changes made to the clone can be reverted easily by rebooting the PC. Folders can be specified that retain the data that was saved into them, if you would not do that the saved files would be gone after a reboot.

I wrote a review about the free version of Returnil a few months ago. The premium edition of Returnil has some advantages over the free edition. It comes with a Session Saver and File Manager that the free version lacks. It’s also possible to choose the caching method and it does add several other features that are missing in the free version.

What Returnil offers is a way to use a virtual system that does not degrade system performance in any way. It might not be needed by experienced users but it’s definitely a good way of protecting the system if you are an inexperienced user or want maximum security.

Like the last time Linux will be embedded inside windows which has some advantages but also some disadvantages. Many people don´t like the idea of installing a second operating system, messing with their partitions and bootconfig and probably having to setup their first OS again because of errors they made. A Linux run in windows does not have this difficulties, its simply load and run like all other windows programs.

Users can get a feel for Linux without having to mess with it. The difference to a Linux live CD is that you have a writable Linux instead of a CD which is not writable at all.

To get things started you need to download a copy of damn small linux
and extract it to your hard drive once its downloaded. Make sure you download the dsl-embedded.zip file which is located in the current folder of every mirror.

Please note that you download an ISO file, you have the option to mount it using daemon tools for instance or use Winrar to do so.

Locate a file called dsl-windows.bat in the main dir and start it. Linux should load up and you are ready to use it.

All you need are three ingredients. First, you need the free vmware player, then you need os.zip which is used to install the operating system and finally you need a iso file or a cd / dvd of an operating system.

Installation is simple as well:

Install vmware player and unzip os.zip. Change to the unzipped directory and open os.vmx in a text editor.

Change the following lines:

memsize = “512″
ide1:0.fileName = “c:\image.iso

Edit the memsize line with an amount of ram that you want to provide for vmware and the second operating system. For most Linux distros 256 should be enough, make sure you leave enough for windows. The second line is the location of your .iso file. change it accordingly. If you have it on a cd or dvd edit the following three lines

ide1:0.present = “TRUE
ide1:0.fileName = “c:\image.iso
ide1:0.deviceType = “cdrom-image

into

ide1:0.present = “TRUE
ide1:0.fileName = “auto detect
ide1:0.deviceType = “cdrom-raw

Start Vmplayer and open the os.vmx, as soon as you see the starting screen press ESC to enter the list of bootable devices. Select Cd-Rom and hit enter. The Os should load just fine and you are ready to go.

The vmware site offers some prebuild virtual machines.