Windows 8 with VMware and VirtualBox
Visiting Friends
How does the latest Windows work in a virtual machine? We tried out Windows 8 as a guest system in vMware Workstation and virtualBox on Linux.
Life without Windows is often quite difficult. One of the biggest problems is that the Linux environment offers no viable alternative for certain Windows programs. In some cases, you can still run the Windows application in Linux using the Wine Windows compatibility API; however, Wine does not work for all applications and situations. A second alternative is a dual-boot system, which requires you to reboot the computer each time you need a Windows program. However, despite these alternatives, users are increasingly turning to virtualization as the most efficient means for accessing Windows applications from Linux.
Virtual machine technology is so mature that, in normal use, it is difficult to tell the difference between Windows on a virtual machine and on a physical system. Unless you are running games, which really do perform better on a native installation, virtualization is a viable option for a wide range of desktop applications. We decided to try out the latest Windows 8 release on a pair of the leading desktop virtualization tools for Linux environments: VMware Workstation 9 and VirtualBox 4.2.2.
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.
-
KaOS 2025.05 Officially Qt5 Free
If you're a fan of independent Linux distributions, the team behind KaOS is proud to announce the latest iteration that includes kernel 6.14 and KDE's Plasma 6.3.5.
-
Linux Kernel 6.15 Now Available
The latest Linux kernel is now available with several new features/improvements and the usual bug fixes.
-
Microsoft Makes Surprising WSL Announcement
In a move that might surprise some users, Microsoft has made Windows Subsystem for Linux open source.
-
Red Hat Releases RHEL 10 Early
Red Hat quietly rolled out the official release of RHEL 10.0 a bit early.
-
openSUSE Joins End of 10
openSUSE has decided to not only join the End of 10 movement but it also will no longer support the Deepin Desktop Environment.
-
New Version of Flatpak Released
Flatpak 1.16.1 is now available as the latest, stable version with various improvements.
-
IBM Announces Powerhouse Linux Server
IBM has unleashed a seriously powerful Linux server with the LinuxONE Emperor 5.
-
Plasma Ends LTS Releases
The KDE Plasma development team is doing away with the LTS releases for a good reason.