It's due to pressure from Microsoft's pricing, especially when you can get VPC from a large commercial company for only $110.
http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product_Code=MSI+VPC2K4&JRSource =google.datafeed.MSI+VPC2K4 I have VPC and VMWare but due to VMWare's use of virtual network adapters on the host - I like VPC's easy use of networking and re-usable hard disks. VMWare holds a system's base state in a multitude of files that's hard to clone and VPC keeps the hard drive in one file and the settings in another that's easy to copy and modify. (So if you make one base build of 2000, you can take copies of it and have one loaded to do A and another loaded for B without having to install 2000 each time.) We have 4 licenses of VMWare and I think I'm the only one that still has it installed, two of our PCs had problems with the daemon that was running on the host. At odd times it would take up 50% CPU which never happens to me. Haven't seen any problems with VPC but I doubt it's bulletproof as well. They both seem to run fast but you have to tweak VPC under the Options to have to take full use of the CPU even if it's not the active window. (If you start up a software install and click off the window to check email or something, it would slow down the guest so that you could do your foreground task faster - I didn't like that - I want it to max out my processor at all times and let Windows do the balancing over my 2 processors). I can load and use Linux fine on VPC and VMWare. Sound works much better on VPC than VMWare. But I hear VMWare does better with USB although I haven't tried it. It's really a toss-up. Try them both, keep the one you like. At $100-200, it's surely worth the comfort of cloning systems and restoring to any part of the system's timeline (and your only limited to available hard drive space). And if you're like me and have a couple GBs of RAM - run them both. /David. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Nancy Anthacite Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2004 10:43 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [Hardhats-members] Removable Hard Disk Drives. The price of VMWare has dropped a lot as well. When I first looked at it, it was about $300. I recently purchased it for $165. I downloaded a trial version and after a few days, they mailed me an offer of a slight discount. I have been running Windows as a virtual machine on Fedora Linux with a laptop. I am glad I had my son here to help me set the whole thing up. The combination of VMWare on Linux on a Laptop that was sold as a multimedia machine for Windows is not for the faint of heart to undertake. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of David Sommers Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2004 9:00 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [Hardhats-members] Removable Hard Disk Drives. And new motherboards now offer external SATA connections to do just that. Also note, most new motherboards also boot to UBS devices. I also like the Like CDs and newer versions now allow you to persist your data do an external USB key. I already have a 1GB one and I've seen 2GB available as well. But my personal favorite is VMWare and Virtual PC. Can't go wrong with instant snapshots (where you can take a before shot of the entire system, screw something up, and then restore back to that snapshot with a click). /David. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Nancy Anthacite Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2004 9:30 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [Hardhats-members] Removable Hard Disk Drives. I have a slightly different, slightly cheaper solution. Take the side off the computer, put an empty CD plastic case on the floor, put the preferred hard drive on the CD case, snake the hard drive cable and power plug out the side of the box, plug in the preferred hard drive, boot. :-) -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Benjamin Irwin Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2004 8:14 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Hardhats-members] Removable Hard Disk Drives. I just installed a removable hard drive system in my desktop computer and wanted to share the information with the group. For $25.00 X 2 for the removable hardware and $60.00 for a 40 gig hard drive, I was able to easily convert my big Windows XP computer to a computer that I could plug in the Windows XP hard drive and boot in Windows XP, and plug in the Linux hard drive and boot to Linux, GTM, VISTA. I purchased two removable hardware boxes, and an additional hard drive. I put the current hard drive in one of the removable boxes. That way I didn't have to re-install any software. I put the new hard drive in the second removable box and installed Linux (sorry to say Mandrake 10.0), GTM, and World Vista's latest release. Now I do have to switch hard drives depending on what I want to do, but it is almost like having two different computers. Now if I want to upgrade, I can purchase an additional hard drive and removable box and upgrade, without risking my current system. ------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is sponsored by Shop4tech.com-Lowest price on Blank Media 100pk Sonic DVD-R 4x for only $29 -100pk Sonic DVD+R for only $33 Save 50% off Retail on Ink & Toner - Free Shipping and Free Gift. http://www.shop4tech.com/z/Inkjet_Cartridges/9_108_r285 _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members ------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is sponsored by Shop4tech.com-Lowest price on Blank Media 100pk Sonic DVD-R 4x for only $29 -100pk Sonic DVD+R for only $33 Save 50% off Retail on Ink & Toner - Free Shipping and Free Gift. http://www.shop4tech.com/z/Inkjet_Cartridges/9_108_r285 _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members ------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is sponsored by Shop4tech.com-Lowest price on Blank Media 100pk Sonic DVD-R 4x for only $29 -100pk Sonic DVD+R for only $33 Save 50% off Retail on Ink & Toner - Free Shipping and Free Gift. http://www.shop4tech.com/z/Inkjet_Cartridges/9_108_r285 _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members ------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is sponsored by Shop4tech.com-Lowest price on Blank Media 100pk Sonic DVD-R 4x for only $29 -100pk Sonic DVD+R for only $33 Save 50% off Retail on Ink & Toner - Free Shipping and Free Gift. http://www.shop4tech.com/z/Inkjet_Cartridges/9_108_r285 _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members ------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is sponsored by Shop4tech.com-Lowest price on Blank Media 100pk Sonic DVD-R 4x for only $29 -100pk Sonic DVD+R for only $33 Save 50% off Retail on Ink & Toner - Free Shipping and Free Gift. http://www.shop4tech.com/z/Inkjet_Cartridges/9_108_r285 _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members
