Notice a lack of performance in your virtual server recently?

Can’t figure out why all those older Windows 98 or ME (cough) Virtual machines are slowing it down?

Having issues with idle machines using precious amounts of CPU power?

Maybe it is as simple as disabling the screen saver. Remember each virtual machine is a full computer, and like any desktop probably has a really stupid default screen saver loaded. Check each virtual machine next time your logged in and make sure it is either A) disabled or B) blank screen. Don’t waste your cpu cycles on a marque or bouncing box which no one will ever see.

Also while you are in there, take some time to look at other services which may be running on the virtual machines.

As a side note, if you want to go in the other direction, check out Ben’s post here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2006/04/26/581928.aspx

Sources:
http://www.mistywindow.com/windows/windows-setup/power-options.htm

Here are a few programs I have come across during the past few weeks. I would love to be able to do a full writeup about each and everyone but time doesn’t allow. So I decided just to throw them out there, and let everyone try them out themselves.

Program #1: HyperAdmin

Site: http://www.HyperAdmin.com

Description: Directly from their website:

“Get more control of your Virtual Server environment with HyperAdmin. Use the Discovery Wizard to find all the Virtual Servers and Virtual Machines on your network. Manage and connect to all of your Virtual Machines from a single interface. Mount ISOs, power on or off virtual machines from a single screen regardless of the physical location of the Virtual Machine. HyperAdmin also allows administrators to organize their environment in logical views using Virtual Machines View. Virtual Machines located on the same or different Virtual Servers can be organized into views for easy administration.”

Thoughts on the program: With VMM still in beta this could be a reliable alternative, with better support options and the possibility for cross platform compatibility down the road.

Program #2: VMware Player 2 Beta

Site: http://www.vmware.com/beta/player/index.html

Description: Directly from their website:

“Welcome to VMware Player 2 Beta Program! We invite you to download the beta to try out several new and exciting features, such as:

* Experimental Support for 2-way Virtual SMP - Assign more than a single CPU to a virtual machine to experience better performance
* Share data seamlessly between the virtual machine and host computer - Leverage Shared Folders or simply drag and drop files between the virtual and physical machines to share data efficiently
* Support for Windows Vista - Use Windows Vista as host and guest operating system
* Support for USB 2.0 devices - Use peripherals that require high-speed performance in your VMs, such as MP3 Players and fast storage devices
* Appliance view - Start a virtual appliance in the appliance view to review brief description and other relevant information provided by the appliance author
* New Home Page - Leverage an intuitive home page interface that lets you open existing virtual machines or browse the VMware Virtual Appliance Marketplace to download any of the 425 virtual appliances. Virtual appliances are pre-built, pre-configured and ready-to-run enterprise software applications packaged along with an operating system within virtual machines
* Broad host and guest operating system support - Run any of the over 60 supported 32- and 64-bit guest operating systems including Vista, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, Ubuntu 6.10 and many more”

Program #3: Microsoft Virtual Server RC2

site: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/virtualserver/

Description: from the site

“In conjunction with Windows Server 2003, Virtual Server 2005 R2 provides a virtualization platform that runs most major x86 operating systems in a guest environment, and is supported by Microsoft as a host for Windows Server operating systems and Windows Server System applications. Virtual Server 2005 R2’s comprehensive COM API, in combination with the Virtual Hard Drive (VHD) format and support for virtual networking, provide administrators complete scripted control of portable, connected virtual machines and enable easy automation of deployment, and ongoing change and configuration.”

Program #4: QTEMU

Site: http://qtemu.org/

Description: from the site

“QtEmu is a graphical user interface for QEMU written in Qt4. It has the ability to run virtual operating systems on native systems. This way you can easily test a new operating system or try a Live CD on your system without any troubles and dangers.
QtEmu has been tested on Linux and Windows (2k, XP).
QtEmu is available in the following languages: Czech, German, Russian, Spanish, Turkish.
QtEmu is released under GPL. Copyright © 2006 - 2007 Urs Wolfer. All rights reserved.
“

If you have a product you would like listed or reviewed by x86Virtualization e-mail me or leave a comment and I will post it as time allows.