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Buying a Windows 7 Disk

Unabogie

Philosopher
Unabogie
Joined
Aug 5, 2005
Messages
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Portland, OR
So this may seem strange, but I've only even bought computers that either ran Linux or had Windows already installed. So I've never bought a Windows disk.

I'd like to install Windows 7 as a virtual machine on a computer that's running Ubuntu.

Does anyone have experience with this? Is it worth it to try and run Windows in a VM? Which disk do I need? Will OEM work, etc?

Thanks!
 
Any Win7 installation including the OEM version should work ..

As far as " is it worth it ? ", what do you wish to accomplish ?

I am running a Linux virtual machine on a Win7 installation and it's great for what I use it for.. Folding@Home ..
 
Skeptical Greg said:
Any Win7 installation including the OEM version should work ..

As far as " is it worth it ? ", what do you wish to accomplish ?

I am running a Linux virtual machine on a Win7 installation and it's great for what I use it for.. Folding@Home ..
Click to expand...

I need it to be able to run Adobe AIR apps with GPU acceleration, possibly Photoshop. Will it choke on something like that?
 
Will it choke ?

It would depend on the machine hardware..

Win7 is really fast on a fast machine.. If you are going with GPU acceleration, it will depend on the GPU, but I don't really know how well it works in a virtual machine.

You might have to google up some VM forums..
 
Skeptical Greg said:
Will it choke ?

It would depend on the machine hardware..

Win7 is really fast on a fast machine.. If you are going with GPU acceleration, it will depend on the GPU, but I don't really know how well it works in a virtual machine.

You might have to google up some VM forums..
Click to expand...

That's why I started here! I thought "JREFers are smarter than any stinkin' VM forum losers".

:D

Ok, thanks, I'll try the Ubuntu forums next.
 
If you just want to use Windows in a VM, you can probably use one of the test VHDs Microsoft makes available for free. They're not permanent - they expire after a few months and you need to reinstall them (or use a well-publicized hack to reset their expiry date).

Search for "Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Image".
 
I don't understand, why not just use a dual-boot machine? Or install WINE if you want to be able to run the occasional Windows program in Linux?
 
Brian-M said:
I don't understand, why not just use a dual-boot machine? Or install WINE if you want to be able to run the occasional Windows program in Linux?
Click to expand...

As for why not dual-boot... because you would have to reboot! And you couldn't have both windows and mac windows open at the same time.

Virtual Machines are the best thing since sliced bread!
 
Nothing that man has ever invented. And I do mean nothing, is better than sliced bread. It has saved untold millions, dare I say billions, of man hours since it first came out.
 
memetic said:
If you just want to use Windows in a VM, you can probably use one of the test VHDs Microsoft makes available for free. They're not permanent - they expire after a few months and you need to reinstall them (or use a well-publicized hack to reset their expiry date).


Search for "Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Image".
Click to expand...

Interesting!

I'm looking into this now.

Regarding why I'm not looking to use Wine: Wine doesn't play nice with Photoshop or lots of other Windows apps. I'd like to be able to install and use various apps, specifically Adobe AIR apps like Prefab3D, without spending hours getting it configured. I'd like to be able to just install and go. I have an XP disk, so I was able to install that and run the app I was trying to use.

But next up, I want to try and VM Windows 7 from the VPC image and see how it runs.

Thanks, everyone!
 
Unabogie said:
So this may seem strange, but I've only even bought computers that either ran Linux or had Windows already installed. So I've never bought a Windows disk.

I'd like to install Windows 7 as a virtual machine on a computer that's running Ubuntu.

Does anyone have experience with this? Is it worth it to try and run Windows in a VM? Which disk do I need? Will OEM work, etc?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I've run XP in Virtual Box on Slackware for over a year. I really only use it for Sage Accounts, which works very well. There's nothing on it which is particularly onerous, in terms of graphics or other hardware requirements, and because it emulates a specific chipset, if I have to change something significant, like the motherboard, I don't need to do a reinstall of Windows.
 
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