Hi Randy --
I use Microsoft Virtual PC for this, since you can create an "image"
that is portable and can be shared easily (although the image files can
easily be 3+ Gigabytes in size). You can also drag & drop files into a
Virtual PC image.
I recommend that you have a pretty beefy machine if you're going to do
this, however... at least 1.5-2.0 Gigahertz, with at least 1 Gigabyte
of RAM (I use a Dell Latitude D610 with a 2.13 GHz processor and 2 Gb
of RAM). Virtual PC allows you to configure how much of your physical
RAM will be allocated to the virtual machine... I recommend allocating
about half of your physical RAM (unless you're running multiple virtual
machines at one time, then divide up the RAM accordingly).
Microsoft also offers another product -- Virtual Server -- for free. I
have not used it, so I cannot speak about it intelligently, although
I've read that virtual machines created with Virtual PC can also be
used with Virtual Server. Perhaps someone else can add more insight...?
Good luck!
Tony Zink
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