I am sure I am not the first person to report this and I won’t be the last but yes…Virtual Server is now free.
It’s not earth shattering news since VMWare is giving away their latest virtual server environment. The real nice thing here is how well Virtual Server works and what you can do with it.
It runs on Windows 2003 Server and allows Windows to host other operating systems inside itself. You can host other Windows 2003 Servers, Windows XP, Windows 2000 and even Linux (now supported). I understand it will also run on Windows XP SP2 for testing purposes as well.
The possibilities are endless really. If you are an ISP you can now host virtual servers and allows clients to almost have a dedicated server without needing an actual dedicated server.
If you are a developer you can host a bunch of different operating systems that allow you to test your application, deployment or whatever. I think this is a step in a great direction to allow people more flexible systems without having a ton of servers for all different purposes…just virtualize them.
I have used Microsoft Virtual PC in the past and use it on Windows XP all the time to test various operating systems and such. I just started using Virtual Server and from what I have seen so far it works better than Virtual PC, handles memory better and better hardware integration to maximize performance.
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