A Virtual Machine or VM allows you to run other operating systems through your operating system. You can run a virtual operating system like a simple program on your computer.
A Virtual machine is ideal for testing other operating systems, or running software on non-running operating systems. For example on a Linux computer you can run PhotoShop after you have installed a version of Windows on a Virtual machine.
Want to try virtual machines? There are very notable prosletterthe ones that are available for free as we will see below.
How does a Virtual Machine work?
It works like a virtual one computer. It runs through your current operating system (the host operating system) and provides virtual hardware to the host operating systems. The virtual OS (guest OS) runs in a window inside the host operating system, just like any other program on your computer.
From the perspective of guest OS, Virtual Machine is a real, natural computer.
An element of virtual machines called hypervisor simulates virtual hardware: CPU, memory, hard drive, networking devices and more. The virtual hardware provided by the hypervisor is borrowed from the actual hardware on your computer.
This way you can have several virtual machines installed on your main system, as long as you have room space on your hard drive. After installing different operating systems, you can choose which virtual machine you want to get started with.
Practical uses for virtual machines or Virtual machines
You can try new versions of operating systems: You can try Windows 10 on your Windows 7 computer if you are not ready to upgrade yet.
You can experiment with other operating systems: You can for example install multiple Linux distributions that will allow you to experiment and learn how they work.
You can use software that requires an older operating system. If you have an application running only in Windows XP, you can install XP on a virtual machine and run your application from there.
You can run software designed for other operating systems: Mac and Linux users can install Windows on a virtual machine to use Windows software on their computers without compatibility problems. Unfortunately, games are a problem because virtual machine applications are overwhelmingly burdened with 3D games.
You can test a software on multiple platforms: Do you have to test if an application works on multiple operating systems? You can install it on a virtual machine.
The businesses that use multiple servers, can place some of them in virtual machines and run from a single computer. Each virtual machine is an isolated "container", so this can save you from security issues.
Recommended software for Virtual machines on your computer:
Of course the VirtualBox. A great, open-source application that can be installed on Windows, MacOS and Linux. VirtualBox does not have a commercial version. This means you can have all the features for free, even the most advanced.
You can download it from the following link:
https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
Along with the main program, download the VirtualBox Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack, which will provide you with various extras settings and drivers.
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The VirtualBox is indeed a treasure. You can try any version of Linux you want until you put Windows running under heavy conditions full of Viruses and more without fear !!!