Do you ever use virtual machines? If so what do you like to use them for?

[Anonymous]

[DryGermanGuy]

Every larger IT provider uses them.

[fish5505_87]

Just to experiment with OS's

[fish5505_87]

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Constantly and basically all desktop hypervisors you can think off.

Mainly to mess with older operating systems, simulating IT lab environments, as a means to build and test my projects, as a means to test linux apps on Windows, etc.

I have very typical preferences for every use case. For labs I like virtualbox with its networking. For anything XP and Newer I tend to prefer vmware for the better guest tools.

When I need working GPU virtualization I switch to Hyper-V and when I need to just build an image inside WSL I take the easy but slow route of qemu.

Then for the really old games I like to toss in DOSBox-X and for messing with old OEM restore disks I use 86box.

You can call me a virtual machine enthousiast haha.

[NathanDavis]

I've used them a couple of times before... first, because I was very curious about it

and the second time, to use an emulator for some older games

[mstbooblover]

One of my favourite virtual machine remains Dosbox, not to play games, but to run some old excellent office software, which were easy to use and efficient.

[Asker]

I'm not sure that Dosbox is a virtual machine. A virtual machine is an OS that runs inside Virtualbox or VMware.

[mstbooblover]

There's not only Virtualbox or VMware. These two are not required to run Dosbox, which is available for every operating system, and literally emulates an old x86 computer. This nice software allows to run old 16bit MS-Dos programs that can't run in Windows anymore. Take a look at this: www.dosbox.com

[mstbooblover]

Now, on my old Macintosh running MacOS 9, I did install and run MS-Dos in VirtualPC and SoftPC. These two emulators by the way, were also able to run Windows 95 and 98. All that then was required were the install floppies and/or CD.

[Asker]

@mstbooblover Back in 2020 I was running some old dos games in DosBox on Linux. I forget which Linux OS I was running back then. I haven't been using it because I got females on my mind too much and I need a new job.

[Xawyx-2]

Not really, I once tried playstation VR. It was kinda cool, but I don't have one of my own.

[Anonymous]

Dude the vast majority of the world runs on virtual machines that run on ESXI. So yeah I use them.

[slatyb]

I use them to shell pistachios.